Another flash from a similar weapon in the hands of another hunter followed.

By this time, however, my bird was entirely unmanageable, and what happened I learned afterwards from Ergimo.

Neither of the two shots had wounded the creature, though the near passage of the first had for a moment stunned and overthrown him.

His rush among the party dispersed them all, but each being able to send forth from his piece a second flash of lightning, the monster was mortally wounded before they fairly started in pursuit of their scared birds, which--their attention being called by the roar of the animal, by the crash accompanying each flash, and probably above all by the restlessness of my own _caldecta_ in their midst--had flown off to some distance.

My bird, floundering forwards, flung me to the ground about two hundred yards from the jungle, fortunately at a greater distance from the dying but not yet utterly disabled prey.