Nearly an hour passed, and the watcher, tired, wet, and worn out, was thinking of the snug fire on the mountain-side, and the tent pitched near it; for certainly he had passed through quite sufficient danger and emotion for one night at least, when several spotted hyenas came down to drink. Some wild boar followed, and it was a strong temptation to the hunter to fire, when a desperate fight took place between two old boars close to him. The storm had quite passed away, cooling the heated air in its passage; the moon and stars were shining brightly, and soon bounding over the plain, with their peculiarly dancing motion, came a herd of springbok. Moving along at a great pace, springing from the ground into the air, and hardly seeming to touch the earth again for the next bound, on came the graceful antelope euchore. Even in the day time the motions of this animal are so quick, that the eye cannot follow its bounds in their details, only realising the pace as a whole, but in the clear, silvery moonlight, they seemed like a troop of fairy elves, to the tired watcher, as they came dancing along over the African plain. Dashing fearlessly into the water, the herd began to drink, with one exception. An old buck, from whose gait the inference might have been drawn that he had been previously wounded, stood sentinel on the bank. There was meat and to spare in the camp, so the hunter only watched the beautiful animals. The sentinel seemed to suspect danger, and was fidgety and impatient. Was it possible he knew of the ambush? Captain Hughes asked himself; and yet from his motions he could not but conclude he did, when all at once a dark object sprang from the bush, and the sentinel springbok was in a moment rolling on the ground, while the rest of the herd were bounding madly over the plain in hurried flight. For a few seconds, there seemed to be one rolling, writhing mass on the bank; then the antelope lay still, and a panther, with its beautiful spotted skin, walked down to the river. Before reaching the water, the animal stopped and began licking and polishing its hide, disarranged in the combat. Again the sharp report of the rifle was heard, and the panther, with a convulsive bound, sprang into the bush, which it could be heard tearing with its powerful jaws and claws in the death agony. Soon all was again still, as scrambling out of the pit, the hunter crossed the river, and advanced cautiously towards the carcass of the springbok, finding it still quivering with muscular excitement, but quite dead. Holding his rifle at full cock, slowly and deliberately he approached the bush. The moonlight streamed over the painted hide of a large panther, lying quite dead.