Fortunately the creature did not seem able to make up its mind to charge; for now it would range up alongside of the bicycle and its rider, prancing and whisking around, and uttering its raucous bellow, then it would drop back, and rush forward again with horns lowered, to pull up and proceed to play the fool as before. All this Wagram took in, as he hurried up, and, taking it in, knew the peril to be great and dual. If the beast were to charge home, why then--those meat-hook like horns would do their deadly work in a moment. If the rider kept up, or increased her pace any further to speak of, why then this road ended in a gate giving admission to the high road, and this gate was shut. There was only one thing to be done, and he did it. He rushed towards this strange chase, shouting furiously, even grotesquely, anything to draw the attention of the dangerous brute. But at that moment, whether the girl had lost her head, or was as startled at this new diversion as her pursuer ought to have been, the bicycle wheel managed to get into a dry rut, skidded, and shot the rider clean off on to the turf. A half-strangled scream went up, and she lay still. It is possible that the accident saved the situation so far as she was concerned, for the gnu held straight on and, lowering his head, with a savage drive sent his horns clean through the fabric of the machine lying in the road, then throwing up his head flung the shattered fragments of metal whirling about in every direction, but the remainder, entangled in the horns, still hung about his forehead and eyes. Wagram summed up the peril in a flash. There lay the girl, helpless if not unconscious, the gate a quarter of a mile away--even the hedge he had come through considerably over a hundred yards. Not so much as a tree was there to dodge behind, and there was the infuriated beast shaking its head and bellowing savagely in frantic attempts to disengage itself of the clinging remains of the bicycle. The rifle, he decided, was of no use; the bullet, too diminutive to kill or disable, would only avail to madden the animal still more. And even then it succeeded in flinging the last remnant of the shattered machine from its horns. It stood for a second, staring, snorting, stamping its hoofs, then charged. Wagram levelled the piece and pressed the trigger. The hammer fell with a mere click, and as he remembered how he had fired in the air while rushing to the rescue, in the hope that the report might scare the beast, the shock of the onrush sent him to earth, knocking the weapon from his grasp. For a second he lay, half stunned. Fortunately, he had managed to dodge partially aside so as to escape the full shock, and the impetus had carried his assailant on a little way. Would the brute leave them, he wondered, if they both lay still. But no. It faced round, stamped, shook its head, bellowed, then came on again--this time straight for the prostrate girl.