prang to a distance on one side while
Maloney leapt to the other. She made several efforts to reach them,
crawling along for some distance on the ground, but in vain attempted to
rise, and after giving a few convulsive struggles, she fell over on her
side dead.

"My poor boy, my poor boy! If he has encountered those brutes, what
chance of escape can he have had?" exclaimed Maloney.

"We'll hope for the best. Come on," was the answer. And not stopping,
as they would otherwise have done, to skin the lioness, they hurried
forward, led by their young guide.

"He's not far off, he has not been killed," he said, in answer to a
question Hendricks put to him.

Presently a shout reached their ears, and looking up, there, to their
intense relief, they saw Master Denis seated amidst the branches of a
tree, well out of reach of the lions. Below it lay his gun.

"Have you settled the brutes?" he shouted out. "I'm glad you have come,
for I'm desperately hungry. They seemed inclined to keep me here all
day. If I hadn't had to leave my gun on the ground, I should soon have
driven them away. I saw the brutes just in time to scramble up here."

"You may thank heaven that you were not torn to pieces by them," said
Hendricks.

"Come down, Denis," cried his father, thankful that he had escaped, and
too glad to find fault with him just then.

The boy made his way down, but would have fallen on reaching the ground,
had not his father caught him. He looked paler even than on the
previous evening, but that was not surprising, considering the alarm he
had been in, and that he had had no breakfast. It was important that
they should get back to the camp as soon as possible, and the two
hunters, each taking an arm, helped him along, for by himself it was
very evident that he would have been unable to walk even a short
distance.

"You have given us a pretty fright, Denis," said his father. "What made
you take it into your head to start off alone from the camp, without
letting any one know where you were going?"

"Faith! for the sake of showing you what I could do," answered Denis.
"Besides, I just honestly confess that I thought you would have
inspanned and come along this way, when I hoped you would not have
refused to take me with you."

"I thought as much, but you've gained nothing by the move," observed his
father. "You have shown me more clearly than before that you are
utterly unfit to go through the fatigues of a hu