ncient and terrible fetish
that he had worn. Without entering into explanations Jeekie in a great
voice ordered two of them to fetch the buck, which the white man, whom
he described as "husband of the goddess," had "slain by thunder." When
these had departed upon their errand, leaving Jeekie to superintend the
building operations, Alan sat down upon a fallen tree, watching one of
the savages making fire with a pointed stick and some tinder.

Just then from the head of the island where the willows were being
cut, rose the sound of loud roarings and of men crying out in affright.
Seizing his gun Alan ran towards the spot whence the noise came. Forcing
his way through a brake of reeds, he saw a curious sight. The Ogula in
cutting the willows which grew about some tumbled rocks, had disturbed
a lioness that had her lair there, and being fearless savages, had tried
to kill her with their spears. The brute, rendered desperate by wounds,
and the impossibility of escape, for here the surrounding water was
deep, had charged them boldly, and as it chanced, felled to the ground
their chief, that yellow-toothed man to whom Jeekie gave his orders. Now
she was standing over him looking round her royally, her great paw upon
his breast, which it seemed almost to cover, while the Ogula ran round
and round shouting, for they feared that if they tried to attack her,
she would kill the chief. This indeed she seemed about to do, for just
as Alan arrived she dropped her head as though to tear out the man's
throat. Instantly he fired. It was a snap shot, but as it chanced a
good one, for the bullet struck the lioness in the back of the neck just
forward of and between the shoulders, severing the spine so that without
a sound or any further movement she sank stone dead upon the prostrate
cannibal. For a while his followers stood astonished. They might have
heard of guns from the coast people, but living as they did in the
interior where white folk did not dare to travel, they had never seen
their terrible effects.

"Magic!" they cried. "Magic!"

"Of course," exclaimed Jeekie, who by now had arrived upon the scene.
"What else did you expect from the husband of Little Bonsa? Magic, the
greatest of magic. Go, roll that beast away before your chief is crushed
to death."

They obeyed, and the man sat up, a fearful spectacle, for he was
smothered with the blood of the lion and somewhat cut by her claws,
though otherwise unhurt. Then feeling that