sky.
Gino had the loaded Mannlicher in the rear seat and the Count jumped
down into the passenger seat beside the driver. Standing holding the
windshield with one hand, he gave his officers the Fascist salute, and
the Rolls roared forward, left the road and careered away,
weaving amongst the thorn scrub and bounding over the rough ground in
pursuit of the distant herd.
The beisa oryx is a large and beautiful desert antelope.
There were eight of them in the herd and with their sharp eyesight they
were in flight before the Rolls had approached within three-quarters of
a mile.
They ran lightly over the rough ground, their pale beige hides blending
cunningly with the soft colours of the desert, but the long wicked
black horns rode proudly as any battle standard.
The Rolls gained steadily on the running herd, with the Count
hysterically urging his driver to greater speed, ignoring the thorn
branches that scored the flawless sides of the big blue machine as it
passed. Hunting was one of the Count's many pleasures. Boar and stag
were specially bred on his estates, but this was the first large game
he had encountered since his arrival in Africa. The herd was strung
out, two old bulls leading, plunging ahead with a light rocking-horse
gait, while the cows and two younger males trailed them.
The bouncing, roaring machine drew level with the last animal and ran
alongside at a range of twenty yards. The galloping oryx did not turn
its head but ran on doggedly after its stronger companions.
'Halt,' shrieked the Count, and the driver stood on his brakes,
the car broadsiding to rest in a billowing cloud of dust. The Count
tumbled out of the open door and threw up the Mannlicher. The barrel
kicked up and the shots crashed out. The first was a touch high and it
threw a puff of dust off the earth far beyond the running animal the
second slapped into the pale fur in front of the shoulder and the young
oryx somersaulted over its broken neck and went down in a clumsy tangle
of limbs.
'Onwards!' shouted the Count, leaping aboard the Rolls as it roared
away once again. The herd was already far ahead but inexorably the
Rolls closed the gap and at last drew level. Again the ringing crack
of rifle-fire and the sliding, tumbling fall of a heavy pale body.
Like a paper chase, they left the wasteland littered with the pale
bodies until only one old bull ran on alone. And he was cunning,
swinging away westward into the broken ground for which he clearly
headed at the outset of the chase.
It was hours and many miles later when the Count lost all patience. On
the lip of another wadi he stopped the Rolls and ordered Gino,
protesting volubly, to stand at attention and offer his shoulder as a
dead-rest for the Marmlicher.
The beisa had slowed now to an exhausted trot, but the range was six
hundred yards as the Count sighted across the intervening scrub and
through heat-dancing air that swirled like gelatinous liquid.
The rifle-fire cracked the desert silences and the antelope kept
trotting steadily away, while the Count shrieked abuse at it and
