our it, but glared round them, as though anticipating
the approach of another enemy. Warley lay at the distance of only a few
yards, his figure fully exposed to the view of the angry monsters, which
stood over the carcass of the giraffe, lashing their flanks with their
tails, and sending up roar after roar, each seeming more savage than the
last. Ernest dared not move hand or foot; his instinct, rather than his
reason, told him that his only hope lay in the lions believing him to be
really dead, in which case they would not probably trouble themselves
about him.

He lay thus for nearly a quarter of an hour, the sun beating fiercely
down on his unprotected head, for his cap had been dislodged in the
fall, contemplating the huge brutes through his half-shut eyes. At the
end of that time his ear caught the twang of a bow from the adjoining
thicket, and the nearest lion leapt into the air with an arrow sticking
in his breast, while the second lion bounded off and disappeared behind
the rocks. Before Ella could discharge a second missile, the wounded
beast had charged her; and her horse, which was snorting with terror,
and had with the greatest difficulty been forced back to the scene of
the encounter, stumbled in its blind haste over the root of a tree,
rolling over its rider.

Ella was in even greater danger than Ernest had been. She lay at the
distance of a few yards from her fallen steed, bruised and breathless.
The lion paused for a minute, seeming uncertain as to which of his
fallen enemies he meant to spring upon. That moment of indecision saved
the princess's life. Ernest recovered his rifle the moment the lion's
attention was withdrawn from him, and now fired his second barrel at the
distance of only a few yards, into the shoulder of the monster, just a
few inches from the place where Ella's arrow was sticking. It was
levelled at exactly the right spot. The limbs, which were just
crouching for the spring, suddenly collapsed, and the terrible enemy
fell lifeless in the dust.

Warley now ran up and took the lifeless form of Ella into his arms,
endeavouring, by every means he could think of, to restore its
animation. He chafed her cold hands, he loosened the clasp which had
confined her dress at the neck; and finding these efforts vain, carried
her in his arms to a small spring, which rose hard by, and threw water
into her face. This last remedy presently took effect. The princess
opened her eyes with a