He halted, bidding Tom stand by with his rifle ready cocked. The two negroes stole forward, and within about fifty yards posted themselves one on each side of a hole in the ground. Then together they began to stamp heavily with their feet, uttering no sound, and keeping their eyes fixed on the hole. Wondering at this strange performance, Tom looked inquiringly at Reinecke, who shook his head and signed to him to be on the alert. Presently there appeared in the hole the ugly tusked snout of a wart-hog. He grunted with annoyance at his slumbers having been disturbed by a shower of falling earth, heaved his ungainly body out, and began to trot away on his short legs directly across the white man’s line of fire. "Now!" murmured Reinecke. "Behind the ear." Tom shouldered his rifle, took careful aim, and fired. But whether owing to excitement, or to the fact that the animal, through his protective colouring, was almost indistinguishable from the background of brownish bush, his shot missed the vital spot and inflicted only a gash in the shoulder. The infuriated animal wheeled round and charged across the open space. But he had covered only a few yards when a well-planted shot from Reinecke’s rifle stretched him on the ground. [Illustration: TOM TOOK CAREFUL AIM AND FIRED.] "Don’t take it to heart," said the German, noticing Tom’s crestfallen expression. "Everyone misses his first shot at a wart-hog. I remember a famous sportsman once having to dodge round a tree for a quarter of an hour to escape the tusks of a beast he had only wounded. Better luck next time." "But why didn’t he charge the negroes? He passed within a few inches of them." "They stood a little way back from the hole, you noticed; and besides, the beast is very short-sighted. You were surprised that all the tracks apparently lead away from the hole instead of towards it. That’s not cunning, as it was in the case of that cattle-stealer, wasn’t it? in classical story who pulled oxen into a cave by the tails. It’s sheer necessity. That hole was once the dwelling of an ant-bear; the wart-hog had appropriated it. But his head and shoulders are so much bigger than the rest of him that he has to go in tail first." The negroes had rushed to the animal as soon as it fell, lifted the head slightly, and tied it to one of the hind legs with thongs of creeper. Then Mirambo tore a strip from his white loincloth and attached it to the wart-hog’s horns. "That’s to scare vultures away until our return," said Reinecke. "In the rainy season myriads of flies would be at the carcase already, but in this dry weather it will probably not suffer much before the niggers get back to cut it up. Hyenas and other scavengers don’t prowl till night. Now let us get on."