red remains of poor Jim-Jim, lying on a
patch of blood-stained rock.

"'Oh! father, father!' shrieked Harry, 'look in the water!'

"I looked. There, floating in the centre of the lovely tranquil pool,
was Jim-Jim's head. The lioness had bitten it right off, and it had
rolled down the sloping rock into the water."

CHAPTER III. JIM-JIM IS AVENGED

"We never bathed in that pool again; indeed for my part I could never
look at its peaceful purity fringed round with waving ferns without
thinking of that ghastly head which rolled itself off through the water
when we tried to catch it.

"Poor Jim-Jim! We buried what was left of him, which was not very much,
in an old bread-bag, and though whilst he lived his virtues were not
great, now that he was gone we could have wept over him. Indeed, Harry
did weep outright; while Pharaoh used very bad language in Zulu, and I
registered a quiet little vow on my account that I would let daylight
into that lioness before I was forty-eight hours older, if by any means
it could be done.

"Well, we buried him, and there he lies in the bread-bag (which I
rather grudged him, as it was the only one we had), where lions will not
trouble him any more--though perhaps the hyaenas will, if they consider
that there is enough on him left to make it worth their while to dig
him up. However, he won't mind that; so there is an end of the book of
Jim-Jim.

"The question that now remained was, how to circumvent his murderess. I
knew that she would be sure to return as soon as she was hungry again,
but I did not know when she would be hungry. She had left so little of
Jim-Jim behind her that I should scarcely expect to see her the next
night, unless indeed she had cubs. Still, I felt that it would not
be wise to miss the chance of her coming, so we set about making
preparations for her reception. The first thing that we did was to
strengthen the bush wall of the skerm by dragging a large quantity of
the tops of thorn-trees together, and laying them one on the other
in such a fashion that the thorns pointed outwards. This, after our
experience of the fate of Jim-Jim, seemed a very necessary precaution,
since if where one goat can jump another can follow, as the Kaffirs say,
how much more is this the case when an animal so active and so vigorous
as the lion is concerned! And now came the further question, how were we
to beguile the lioness to return? Lions are animals that have a strange
knack of