But before he could draw trigger he lowered the piece and threw up his head listening. A sound--a strange sound--had caught his ear. Yet it was not so much the nature of the sound, as the quarter from which it came that had startled him. No further thought of the rabbit now, as he listened for its repetition. It came--louder, nearer, this time--a strange, harsh, raucous bellow. Again and again he heard it, each time nearer still. And with it now blended another sound--a loud shrill scream for help. Wagram's blood thrilled as already he foresaw a tragedy. It happened that a portion of the park was set apart for several varieties of the larger African antelopes, which they were trying to acclimatise, and one of these must, by some means or other, have escaped from its paddock. It is a fact that the shyest and wariest of wild creatures in their natural state, when captured and placed in confinement, as they become accustomed to the sight of the human form divine, soon develop an aggressive ferocity in exactly opposite proportion to their former shyness. No better instance is furnished of familiarity thus breeding contempt than in the case of the male ostrich. In his wild state the sky-line is hardly a sufficiently respectable distance for him to keep between you and him--incidentally he never does hide his head in the sand, a ridiculous fable probably originating with the old Portuguese explorers, in whom the waggishly disposed natives would find fair game. "Camped off" or enclosed, there is no limit to his absolutely fearless truculence. Even the graceful little springbok, half tamed, and shut up alone in a paddock, we have known to give a full-grown man all the rough and tumble he wants before getting out of that paddock unscathed. And these, we repeat, were of the largest variety of antelope, and now here was one of them at large and pursuing somebody--from the scream, evidently a woman. Even while thinking, Wagram was at the same time acting, for he had rushed forward and literally torn himself through a high thick hedge which interposed between himself and what was transpiring. And this is what he saw. A girl on a bicycle was skimming the broad white road which banded the level sward. Close in pursuit coursed a strange looking beast, utterly out of keeping with the peaceful and conventional beauty of an English park--a slate-coloured beast, with the head of an exaggerated he-goat, and bearded withal; the horns of a miniature buffalo, the mane of a horse and almost the tail of one. It was in fact a fair specimen of the brindled gnu, commonly known as the blue wildebeeste.