There was nothing for it but to wait.
The excitement was very fierce; it seemed to consume me, to eat into my brain.

The sound of the tapping upon the rocks grew louder until it merged into a kind of rumble, mixed with an echo as of that of very distant thunder, which presently I knew to be not thunder, but the bellowing of a thousand frightened beasts.
Nearer and nearer came the galloping hoofs and the rumble of bellowings; nearer and nearer the shouts of men, affronting the stillness of the solemn night.

At length a single animal appeared, a koodoo buck that somehow had got mixed up with the cattle.

It went past us like a flash, and was followed a minute or so later by a bull that, being young and light, had outrun its companions.

That, too, went by, foam on its lips and its tongue hanging from its jaws.
Then the herd appeared--a countless herd it seemed to me--plunging up the incline--cows, heifers, calves, bulls, and oxen, all mixed together in one inextricable mass, and every one of them snorting, bellowing, or making some other kind of sound.