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‘Oh, do let’s! Oh, what awful fun! How lovely, how lovely if we could get that leopard!’
‘You understand it’s dangerous? We’ll keep close together and it’ll probably be all right, but it’s
never absolutely safe on foot. Are you ready for that?’
‘Oh, of course, of course! I’m not frightened. Oh, do let’s be quick and start!’
‘One of you come with us and show us the way,’ he said to the beaters. ‘Ko S’la, put Flo on the
leash and go with the others. She’ll never keep quiet with us. We’ll have to hurry,’ he added to
Elizabeth.
Ko S’la and the beaters hurried off along the edge of the jungle. They would strike in and begin
beating further up. The other beater, the same youth who had climbed the tree after the pigeon, dived
into the jungle, Flory and Elizabeth following. With short rapid steps, almost running, he led them
through a labyrinth of game-tracks. The bushes trailed so low that sometimes one had almost to crawl,
and creepers hung across the path like trip-wires. The ground was dusty and silent underfoot. At some
landmark in the jungle the beater halted, pointed to the ground as a sign that this spot would do, and
put his finger on his lips to enjoin silence. Flory took four SG cartridges from his pockets and took
Elizabeth’s gun to load it silently.
There was a faint rustling behind them, and they all started. A nearly naked youth with a pelletbow,
come goodness knows whence, had parted the bushes. He looked at the beater, shook his head
and pointed up the path. There was a dialogue of signs between the two youths, then the beater
seemed to agree. Without speaking all four stole forty yards along the path, round a bend, and halted
again. At the same moment a frightful pandemonium of yells, punctuated by barks from Flo, broke out
a few hundred yards away.
Elizabeth felt the beater’s hand on her shoulder, pushing her downwards. They all four squatted
down under cover of a prickly bush, the Europeans in front, the Burmans behind. In the distance there
was such a tumult of yells and the rattle of dahs against tree-trunks that one could hardly believe six
men could make so much noise. The beaters were taking good care that the leopard should not turn
back upon them. Elizabeth watched some large, pale-yellow ants marching like soldiers over the
thorns of the bush. One fell on to her hand and crawled up her forearm. She dared not move to brush it
away. She was praying silently, ‘Please God, let the leopard come! Oh please, God, let the leopard
come!’
There was a sudden loud pattering on the leaves. Elizabeth raised her gun, but Flory shook his head
sharply and pushed the barrel down again. A jungle fowl scuttled across the path with long noisy
strides.
The yells of the beaters seemed hardly to come any closer, and at this end of the jungle the silence
was like a pall. The ant on Elizabeth’s arm bit her painfully and dropped to the ground. A dreadful
despair had begun to form in her heart; the leopard was not coming, he had slipped away somewhere,
they had lost him. She almost wished they had never heard of the leopard, the disappointment was so
agonising. Then she felt the beater pinch her elbow. He was craning his face forward, his smooth,
dull-yellow cheek only a few inches from her own; she could smell the coco-nut oil in his hair. His
coarse lips were puckered as in a whistle; he had heard something. Then Flory and Elizabeth heard it
too, the faintest whisper, as though some creature of air were gliding through the jungle, just brushing