The Nineteenth Century , No 182, Apr 1892 [‎70r] (144/244)

1892
CAMP LIFE
629
de Frias, shouting to me to follow. Other horsemen, spears in hand,
dashed past; the Arabs yelled, the dogs gave tongue; it was a wild
skurry, everyone choosing that path through the bushes that seemed
best and safest; Sultan, to my utter dismay, now clearing a bush, now
skipping a bit of morass, very much guiding himself at his own
sweet will, and quite determined not to be out of it. Then presently
the sounds died away; and shortly, one by one, the hunters returned ;
the pig had been lost, had got into some bog or impenetrable bush,
and we were all to rejoin the beaters as fast as we could. I turned
my horse and, rather breathless from my unaccustomed exertions,
trotted quietly after the others, meditative about many things, and
settling that I would now quietly stick with the beaters, and have no
more wild gallops. But before I had reached that would-be haven,
there was again the report of a gun and wild yells from the Arabs,
and then, straight through the bushes, about twenty yards ahead, on
the rising ground in front, came bursting a huge unwieldy black
thing, jumping from tussock to tussock, looking to me more the size
of a cow (I should like to say an elephant!) than a pig. By its side,
striving to keep up with it, with his lance ready to strike, rode
Colonel Hibbert, close by him raced the Due, and all bearing down
straight on me. Every story I had heard of boars attacking and
ripping up any and everybody that came in their way rushed into
my head, mingled with English traditions of heading the fox ; I
pressed my spur hard against Sultan's side, and inwardly breathed a
prayer that a gracious Providence would for this once grant that
Sultan should obey the rein. I rather think that Sultan himself was
terrified ; we swerved ; past us shot the boar and the two hunters; we
turned and followed; others came galloping up. Again a wild skurry
and hunt, more prolonged this time as the pig did get away.
Colonel Hibbert got the first spear, and the Due de Frias the second:
or was it the Due who got the first ?—this I did not clearly make out,
as some said one and some the other. But it did not matter much to
the pig, who lay dead far on in the wood ; while the hunters galloped
back to rejoin the outpaced ladies, and to catch up once more with
the beaters.
That wood was alive with pigs. Thirteen of them did we start in
those two hours we were hunting in it, though only five were killed;
and as we all collected together again, to make the best of our way
with tired horses to the far-distant camp, we were all agreed that we
had had a most successful hunt. And as I stumbled up the last hill in
the dark, it was delightful to think how soon I should be able to take
my wearied self off my equally weary horse.
That was our last evening in the camp. Once more after dinner
we sat round the camp fire, now a reduced party—so many had left
in the morning. Of course we talked over the day's adventures, till,
as the ready-cut branches began to fail and the fire to die down, we