ning, pointing the straight road to the east.
Hastily she ate a few mouthfuls of her precious rations, which with
a swallow of water constituted her breakfast. Then she saddled her
horse and mounted. Already she felt that she was as good as safe
in Wilhelmstal.

Possibly, however, she might have revised her conclusions could she
have seen the two pairs of eyes watching her every move intently
from different points in the bush.

Light-hearted and unsuspecting, the girl rode across the clearing
toward the bush while directly before her two yellow-green eyes
glared round and terrible, a tawny tail twitched nervously and
great, padded paws gathered beneath a sleek barrel for a mighty
spring. The horse was almost at the edge of the bush when Numa,
the lion, launched himself through the air. He struck the animal's
right shoulder at the instant that it reared, terrified, to wheel
in flight. The force of the impact hurled the horse backward to the
ground and so quickly that the girl had no opportunity to extricate
herself; but fell to the earth with her mount, her left leg pinned
beneath its body.

Horror-stricken, she saw the king of beasts open his mighty jaws
and seize the screaming creature by the back of its neck. The
great jaws closed, there was an instant's struggle as Numa shook
his prey. She could hear the vertebrae crack as the mighty fangs
crunched through them, and then the muscles of her faithful friend
relaxed in death.

Numa crouched upon his kill. His terrifying eyes riveted themselves
upon the girl's face--she could feel his hot breath upon her cheek
and the odor of the fetid vapor nauseated her. For what seemed
an eternity to the girl the two lay staring at each other and then
the lion uttered a menacing growl.

Never before had Bertha Kircher been so terrified--never before had
she had such cause for terror. At her hip was a pistol--a formidable
weapon with which to face a man; but a puny thing indeed with
which to menace the great beast before her. She knew that at best
it could but enrage him and yet she meant to sell her life dearly,
for she felt that she must die. No human succor could have availed
her even had it been there to offer itself. For a moment she tore
her gaze from the hypnotic fascination of that awful face and
breathed a last prayer to her God. She did not ask for aid, for she
felt that she was beyond even divine succor--she only asked that
the end might come quickly and with as li