When the hitherto noisy villagers turned into bed, the silvery moon shed her light on the desolate scene, and the Mgogo guide, taking fright, bolted.
He had not, however, gone long, when, looming above us, coming over the horizon line, was the very animal we wanted.
In a fidgety manner the beast then descended, as if he expected some danger in store--and he was not wrong; for, attaching a bit of white paper to the fly-sight of my Blissett, I approached him, crawling under cover of the banks until within eighty yards of him, when, finding that the moon shone full on his flank, I raised myself upright and planted a bullet behind his left shoulder.

Thus died my first rhinoceros.
To make the most of the night, as I wanted meat for my men to cook, as well as a stock to carry with them, or barter with the villagers for grain, I now retired to my old position, and waited again.
After two hours had elapsed, two more rhinoceros approached me in the same stealthy, fidgety way as the first one.

They came even closer than the first, but, the moon having passed beyond their meridian, I could not obtain so clear a mark.

Still they were big marks, and I determined on doing my best before they had time to wind us; so stepping out, with the sheikh's boys behind me carrying the second rifle to meet all emergencies, I planted a ball in the larger one, and brought him round with a roar and whooh-whooh, exactly to the best position I could wish for receiving a second shot; but, alas! on turning sharply round for the spare rifle, I had the mortification to see that both the black boys had made off, and were scrambling like monkeys up a tree.

At the same time the rhinoceros, fortunately for me, on second consideration turned to the right-about, and shuffled away, leaving, as is usually the case when conical bullets are used, no traces of blood.
Thus ended the night's work.