It was round and small and hideous, resembling in its general outline that of a bloated child.

At this distance he could not distinguish the features, except the lips, which were large and pendulous, and between them the flash of white teeth.
"Look here," he whispered to Jeekie in English, and Jeekie looked, then without saying a word, lifted the shotgun that lay at his side and fired straight at the bush.

Instantly there arose a squeaking noise, such as might be made by a wounded animal, and the four porters sprang up in alarm.
"Sit down," said Jeekie to them in their own tongue, "a leopard was stalking us and I fired to frighten it away.

Don't go near the place, as it may be wounded and angry, but drag up some boughs and make a fence round the fire, for fear of others." The men who dreaded leopards, looking on these animals, indeed, with superstitious reverence, obeyed readily enough, and as there was plenty of wood lying within a few yards, soon constructed a _boma_ fence that, rough as it was, would serve for protection.
"Jeekie," said Alan presently as they laboured at the fence, "that was not a leopard, it was a man." "No, no, Major, not man, little dwarf devil, him that have poisoned arrow.

I shoot at once to make him sit up.