In the afternoon I surveyed the fields adjoining the sugar-cane,
and made my dispositions against night. The moon was at the full. As
soon as it rose I took my rifle and repaired to a position selected
with reference to a certain tree. This tree had a low--but not too
low--horizontal branch, strong enough, as proved by experiment, to
bear my weight. Presently, an unmistakable concert of snorting and
grunting announced the approach of swine. I picked out their fugleman,
a well-grown boar, and fired. He was only wounded, and immediately
gave chase after me. I might discharge my second barrel at him, but
suppose I should miss? Perched out of his reach, I might miss him
with impunity, and load again. All this I had pondered beforehand. So
I started for my tree, which I reached some ten seconds sooner than
the boar, swung myself up on its low branch, and there took my seat.
The boar rushed furiously to and fro, raging like the heathen of the
Psalmist, and also, like the Psalmist's people--not a well-ordered
democracy like ours, of course--imagining a vain thing. Again and
again he quixotically charged the bole of the tree, no doubt thinking
it to be myself in a new shape. A fine classical boar he must have
been, with his poetic faith in instantaneous metamorphosis. His
classicality, however, what with his unmannerly savageness and my own
suspension between heaven and earth, I did not feel bound to respect.
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