Implicitly following the bushman's advice, they all advanced with the utmost caution. Their guns were ready, and it was agreed that the chacma with the rags should be the aim for every shot. Mokoum kept a watchful eye upon Palander, and insisted upon his marching close to himself, lest his unguardedness should betray him into some fresh folly. The worthy astronomer was almost beside himself in consternation at his loss, and evidently thought it a question of life or death. After marching with the frequent halts which the policy of being unobserved suggested, and continuing to diverge for half an hour, the bushman considered that they might now fall back. He and his companions, each about twenty paces apart, advanced like a troop of Pawnees on a war-trail, without a word or gesture, avoiding even the least rustling in the branches. Suddenly the bushman stopped; the rest instantly followed his example, and standing with their finger on the lock of their guns, were ready to raise them to their shoulder. The band of chacmas was in sight, they were already sensible of some danger, and seemed on the look-out. The great animal which had stolen the registers had, to their fancy, an appearance of being especially agitated. It had been already recognized by Palander, who muttered something like an imprecation between his teeth. The chacma looked as if it was making signs to its companions: some females, with their young ones on their shoulders, had collected in a group, and the males went to and fro around them. The hunters still drew on, one and all keeping a steady eye direct towards the ostensible thief. All at once, by an involuntary movement, Palander's gun went off in his hands. Sir John broke out into an exclamation of disgust, and instantly afterwards fired. Ten reports followed: three chacmas lay dead on the ground, and the rest, with a prodigious bound, passed over the hunters' heads. The robber baboon alone remained: it darted at the trunk of a sycamore, which it climbed with an amazing agility, and disappeared among the branches. The bushman, having keenly surveyed the spot, asserted that the registers were there concealed, and fearing lest the chacma should escape across the trees, he calmly aimed and fired. The animal, wounded in the leg, fell from branch to branch. In one of its fore-claws it was seen to clutch the registers, which it had taken from a fork of the tree. At the sight, Palander, with a leap like a chamois, darted at the chacma, and a tremendous struggle ensued. The cries of both man and beast mingled in harsh and discordant strain, and the hunters dared not take aim at the chacma for fear of wounding their comrade. Strux, beside himself with rage, shouted again and again that they should fire, and in his furious agitation he would probably have done so, if it had not been that he was accidentally without a cartridge for his gun, which had been already discharged.