It was a pretty exhibition, and it looked so absurdly simple that when, on the report of El Hakim’s rifle, a second rhinoceros jumped up from the grass between us, where it had been lying unobserved, I snatched the Martini from Ramathani, and slipping a cartridge into the breech, ran up to within sixty yards of it, and kneeling down banged off at its shoulder. I admit that sixty yards was a long and unsportsmanlike range, but I was anxious to bag the beast before El Hakim, who was approaching it on his return from the dead rhinoceros, in a direction at right angles to my line of fire, could get within range. Of course my rhino, when hit, behaved quite differently to El Hakim’s. It galloped madly, it is true, but in my direction. It came straight for me, its head lowered and tail up, and I slipped another cartridge into my rifle, fully expecting to see fireworks within a very few seconds. Nearer and nearer it came, but just as I braced myself up for the shot that should decide my fate, my antagonist swerved aside and commenced what Neumann calls the rhino’s death-waltz, which consists of backing round and round with its head in the air, until it succumbs. In another moment he was down, and as I surveyed my prostrate quarry I mentally patted myself on the back for what I considered a good performance. My self-congratulations, however, were rudely dispelled by El Hakim, who had come silently behind me, remarking in his quiet voice, “H’m-m, just the sort of thing you would do,” thereby covering me with confusion; I ventured to remonstrate, and he then asked me where I had hit the beast. I showed him: the bullet had missed the shoulder and struck the neck, severing the main artery and the wind-pipe—cutting the beast’s throat, in fact. “Does not that emphasize what I have told you?” he inquired. “If you had gone close enough to be certain of placing your bullet in the shoulder, you would not have run the risk you did. As it is, it is a very lucky thing for you that your bullet struck the artery; so you see you owe your freedom from accident more to good luck than good shooting.” I admitted the justice of the rebuke, and determined to manage things better next time.