Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you donât realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. The Bush Boys: History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family by Mayne Reid (best e book reader android txt) đ
- Author: Mayne Reid
Book online «The Bush Boys: History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family by Mayne Reid (best e book reader android txt) đ». Author Mayne Reid
âA sudden change came over me. A new thrill of terror awaited me.
âWhile jumping about upon the top of the cone, my footing suddenly gave wayâthe baked clay broke with a dead crash, and I sank through the roof. My feet shot down into the hollow domeâtill I thought I must have crushed the great queen in her chamberâand I stood buried to the neck.
âI was surprised, and a little terrified, not by the shock I had experienced in the sudden descent. That was natural enough, and a few moments would have restored my equanimity; but it was something else that frightened me. It was something that moved under my feet as they touched bottom,âsomething that moved and heaved under them, and then passed quickly away, letting me still farther down!
âWhat could it be? Was it the great swarm of living ants that I pressed upon: I did not think it was. It did not feel like them. It seemed to be something bulky and strong, for it held up my whole weight for a moment or two, before it slipped from under me.
âWhatever it was, it frightened me very considerably; and I did not leave my feet in its company for five seconds time. No: the hottest furnace would scarce have scorched them during the time they remained inside the dark dome. In five seconds they were on the walls againâon the broken edges, where I had mounted up, and where I now stood quite speechless with surprise!
âWhat next? I could keep the ants off no longer. I gazed down the dark cavity; they were swarming up that way in thick crowds. I could brush them down no more.
âMy eyes at this moment chanced to wander to the bull. He was standing at three or four paces distance from the base of the hill. He was standing sideways with his head turned to it, and regarding it with a wild look. His attitude was entirely changed, and so, I thought, was the expression of his eye. He looked as if he had just run off to his new position, and was ready to make a second start. He looked as if something had also terrified him!
âSomething evidently had; for, in another moment, he uttered a sharp rout, galloped several paces farther out, wheeled again, halted, and stood gazing as before!
âWhat could it mean? Was it the breaking through of the roof and my sudden descent that had frightened him?
âAt first I thought so, but I observed that he did not look upward to the top. His gaze seemed bent on some object near the base of the hillâthough from where I stood I could see nothing there to frighten him.
âI had not time to reflect what it could be, before the bull uttered a fresh snort; and, raising his tail high into the air, struck off at full gallop over the plain!
âRejoiced at seeing this, I thought no more of what had relieved me of his company. It must have been my curious fall, I concluded; but no matter now that the brute was gone. So seizing hold of my gun, I prepared to descend from the elevated position, of which I was thoroughly tired.
âJust as I had got half down the side, I chanced to look below; and there was the object that terrified the old bull. No wonder. It might have terrified anything,âthe odd-looking creature that it was. From out a hole in the clay wall protruded a long naked cylindrical snout, mounted by a pair of ears nearly as long as itself, that stood erect like the horns of a steinbuck, and gave to the animal that bore them a wild and vicious look. It would have badly frightened me, had I not known what it was; but I recognised it at once as one of the most inoffensive creatures in the worldâthe âaard-vark.â
âHis appearance accounted for the retreat of the bull, and also explained why the ants had been crawling about on my first reaching their hill.
âWithout saying a word, or making the slightest noise, I clubbed my gun; and, bending downward, struck the protruded snout a blow with the butt. It was a most wicked blow; and, considering the service the creature had just done me in frightening off the wildebeest, a most ungrateful return. But I was not master of my feelings at the moment. I did not reflectâonly that I liked aard-vark fleshâand the blow was given.
âPoor fellow! It did the job for him. With scarce a kick he dropped dead in the opening he had scraped with his own claws.
âWellâmy dayâs adventures were not yet ended. They seemed as though they were never to end. I had got the aard-vark over my shoulders, and was about heading homeward, when, to my astonishment, I observed that the bull-gnooânot the one that had besieged me, but his late antagonistâwas still out upon the plain where I had last seen him! I observed, moreover, that he was still in a sort of half-lying half-kneeling attitude, with his head close to the ground!
âHis odd movements seemed stranger than anything else. I fancied he had been badly hurt by the other, and was not able to get away.
âAt first I was cautious about going near himâremembering my late narrow escapeâand I thought of giving him a wide berth, and leaving him alone. Even though wounded, he might be strong enough to charge upon me; and my empty gun, as I had already proved, would be but a poor weapon with which to defend myself.
âI hesitated about going near him; but curiosity grew strong within me, as I watched his queer manoeuvres; until at length I walked up within a dozen yards of where he was kneeling.
âFancy my surprise on discovering the cause of his oblique movements. No hurt had he received of any kindânot even a scratch; but for all that, he was as completely crippled as if he had lost his best pair of legs.
âIn a very singular manner was he rendered thus helpless. In his struggle with the other bull, one of his fore-legs had, somehow or other, got passed over his horn; and there it stuckânot only depriving him of the use of the limb itself, but holding his head so close to the ground that he was quite unable to stir from the spot!
âAt first I designed helping him out of his difficulty, and letting him go. On second thoughts, I remembered the story of the husbandman and the frozen snake, which quite changed my intention.
âI next thought of killing him for venison; but having no bullet, I did not like to beat him to death with my gun. Besides the aard-vark was my load to camp, and I knew that the jackals would eat the bull up before we could go back for him. I thought it probable he would be safer left as he wasâas these ravenous brutes, seeing him alive, might not so readily approach him.
âSo I left him with his âhead under his arm,â in hopes that we may find him there to-morrow.â
So ended Hansâs narrative of his dayâs adventures.
The field-cornet was far from satisfied with his dayâs work. His first attempt at elephant-hunting had proved a failure. Might it not be always so?
Notwithstanding the interest with which he listened to Hansâs narrative of the dayâs adventures, he felt uneasy in his mind when he reflected upon his own.
The elephant had escaped so easily. Their bullets seemed to have injured him not the least. They had only served to render him furious, and dangerous. Though both had hit him in places where their wounds should have been mortal, no such effect was produced. The elephant seemed to go off as unscathed, as if they had fired only boiled peas at him!
Would it be always so?
True, they had given him but two shots. Two, if well directed, may bring down a cow-elephant and sometimes a bull, but oftener it requires ten times two before a strong old bull can be made to âbite the dust.â
But would any elephant wait until they could load and fire a sufficient number of shots?
That was an undecided point with our tyro elephant-hunters. If not, then they would be helpless indeed. It would be a tedious business spooring the game afoot, after it had once been fired upon. In such cases the elephant usually travels many miles before halting again; and only mounted men can with any facility overtake him.
How Von Bloom sighed when he thought of his poor horses! Now more than ever did he feel the want of themânow more than ever did he regret their loss.
But he had heard that the elephant does not always make off when attacked. The old bull had shown no intention of retreating, after receiving their shots. It was the odd conduct of Swartboy that had put him to flight. But for that, he would no doubt have kept the ground, until they had given him another volley, and perhaps his death-wound.
The field-cornet drew consolation from this last reflection. Perhaps their next encounter would have a different ending. Perhaps a pair of tusks would reward them.
The hope of such a result, as well as the anxiety about it, determined Von Bloom to lose no time in making a fresh trial. Next morning, therefore, before the sun was up, the hunters were once more upon the trail of their giant game.
One precaution they had taken, which they had not thought of before. All of them had heard that an ordinary leaden bullet will not penetrate the tough thick skin of the great âpachyderm.â Perhaps this had been the cause of their failure on the preceding day. If so they had provided against the recurrence of failure from such a cause. They had moulded a new set of balls of harder material,âsolder it should have been, but they had none. They chanced, however, to be in possession of what served the purpose equally wellâthe old âplateâ that had often graced the field-cornetâs table in his better byegone days of the Graaf Reinet. This consisted of candlesticks, and snuffer-trays, and dish-covers, and cruet-stands, and a variety of articles of the real âDutch metal.â
Some of these were condemned to the alembic of the melting-pan; and, mixed with the common lead, produced a set of balls hard enough for the hide of the rhinoceros itselfâso that this day the hunters had no fears of failure upon the score of soft bullets.
They went in the same direction as upon the preceding day, towards the forest or âbushâ (bosch), as they termed it.
They had not proceeded a mile when they came upon the spoor of elephants nearly fresh. It passed through the very thickest of the thorny jungleâwhere no creature but an elephant, a rhinoceros, or a man with an axe, could have made way. A family must have passed, consisting of a male, a female or two, and several young ones of different ages. They had marched in single file, as elephants usually do; and had made a regular lane several feet wide, which was quite clear of bushes, and trampled by their immense footsteps. The old bull, Swartboy said, had gone in advance, and had cleared the way of all obstructions, by means of his trunk and tusks. This had evidently been the case, for the hunters observed huge branches broken off, or still hanging and turned to one side, out of the wayâjust as if the hand of man had done it.
Swartboy further affirmed, that such elephant-roads usually led to water; and by the very easiest and shortest routesâas if they had been planned and laid open by the skill
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