I don’t know what I imagined they would do. They were not flies, or even goats, so I could hardly expect them to climb up the precipice; but what actually occurred was that, after spreading over the whole of the bottom of the "coffee-cup", yelling and throwing stones into any places likely to conceal a leopard, they all made for the zigzag path and came up it very swiftly, one behind the other, yelling like fury, beating the rocks with their spears as they passed them, the ones in rear beating the rocks which had already been struck a hundred times already, just as vigorously as the first. Occasionally they threw blazing bundles of date-palm leaves into crevices and caves; but, except for this and the noise they made, their ideas of what was wanted were very laughable. The sheikh had lain down close to me. Presently he gave an exclamation and pointed. I saw a leopard slinking round a rock just ahead of some shouting villagers; he was at least four hundred yards away, and before I could stop the old man he had fired his rifle, regardless of the fact that if his aim was anywhere in that direction he was far more likely to hit one of his own people than the leopard. I need not have worried myself. The bullet struck a rock close below us and shrieked away into the sky, whilst the recoiling butt struck his cheek. First of all he looked to see whether the leopard was dead, and as it had disappeared behind a rock he was as pleased as "Punch"; then he felt his cheek and patted his rifle reprovingly as if it were a naughty boy. But he smacked it a moment after, when the leopard appeared again, bounding up the rocks. I roared with laughter, which of course upset him. Holding the rifle more gingerly than ever, and keeping his face well out of the danger line (he could not possibly have looked along his sights) he fired again, and of course "thump" went the butt against his shoulder. At that he laid the rifle down, sat up, and gazed scornfully at it, jabbering something to me which I, of course, did not understand. The leopard was now standing on a rock, entirely unaware that he had been fired at, watching the advancing beaters, twitching his tail, and uncertain what to do. I nodded to the sheikh to watch how it should be done, took a steady aim, and fired. The animal was two hundred yards away, if an inch, and I did not expect to hit him, but luck was with me. He sprang up, pawing the air, gave two or three huge bounds from rock to rock, then just missed the edge of a boulder, clawed frantically for a moment, and fell on the zigzag path dead.