He could ride it down at any time.

He was more anxious first to know what had given it the start backward; so he continued to press forward to the head of the ravine.
He might have thought of lions, and acted with greater prudence; but the trampling of hoofs which still echoed up the pass told him that lions were not the cause of the eland's alarm.
He at length reached a point where he could see down the declivity.

He had not far to look--for already the animals that were making the noise were close up to him; and he perceived they were nothing more than a troop of quaggas.
He was not over-pleased at this interruption to his drive; and the less did he like it, that the intruders were quaggas--ill-conditioned brutes that they were! Had they been game animals, he would have shot one; but the only motive that would have induced him to shoot one of the quaggas would have been a feeling of anger--for, at that moment, he was really angry at them.
Without knowing it, poor brutes! they had likely given him cause for a good deal of trouble; for it would cost him a good deal, before he could head the eland again, and get it back into the pass.

No wonder, then, he was vexed a little.
But his vexation was not so grievous as to cause him to fire upon the approaching herd; and, turning aside, he rode after the eland.
He had hardly left the spot, when the quaggas came out of the pass, following each other to the number of forty or fifty.

Each, as he saw the mounted hunter, started with affright, and bolted off, until the whole drove stretched out in a long line over the plain, snorting and uttering their loud "coua-a-g" as they ran.
Hendrik would hardly have regarded this movement under ordinary circumstances.