Omoo: Adventures in the South SeasMelville, Herman
General
Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas
Melville, Herman
Adventure stories; Polynesia -- Description and travel -- Fiction
The calf fell like a clod; its dam uttered a cry, and thrust her head
into the thicket; but she turned, and came moaning up to the lifeless
calf, going round and round it, snuffing fiercely with her bleeding
nostrils. A crashing in the wood, and a loud roar, announced the flying
bull.
Soon, another shot was fired, and the cow fell. Leaving some of the
natives to look after the dead cattle, the rest of us hurried on after
the bull; his dreadful bellowing guiding us to the spot where he lay.
Wounded in the shoulder, in his fright and agony he had bounded into
the wood; but when we came up to him, he had sunk to the earth in a
green hollow, thrusting his black muzzle into a pool of his own blood,
and tossing it over his hide in clots.
The Yankee brought his piece to a rest; and, the next instant, the wild
brute sprang into the air, and with his forelegs crouching under him,
fell dead.
Our island friends were now in high spirits; all courage and alacrity.
Old Tonoi thought nothing of taking poor Taurus himself by the horns,
and peering into his glazed eyes.
Our ship knives were at once in request; and, skinning the cattle, we
hung them high up by cords of bark from the boughs of a tree.
Withdrawing into a covert, we there waited for the wild hogs; which,
according to Zeke, would soon make their appearance, lured by the smell
of blood. Presently we heard them coming, in two or three different
directions; and, in a moment, they were tearing the offal to pieces.
As only one shot at these creatures could be relied on, we intended
firing simultaneously; but, somehow or other, the doctor’s piece went
off by itself, and one of the hogs dropped. The others then breaking
into the thicket, the rest of us sprang after them; resolved to have
another shot at all hazards.
The Cockney darted among some bushes; and, a few moments after, we
heard the report of his musket, followed by a quick cry. On running up,
we saw our comrade doing battle with a young devil of a boar, as black
as night, whose snout had been partly torn away. Firing when the game
was in full career, and coming directly toward him, Shorty had been
assailed by the enraged brute; it was now crunching the breech of the
musket, with which he had tried to club it; Shorty holding fast to the
barrel, and fingering his waist for a knife. Being in advance of the
others, I clapped my gun to the boar’s head, and so put an end to the
contest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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