mad or bewitched, and
followed doggedly in my tracks.

"We soon got to the kloof, which was about three hundred yards in length
and but sparsely wooded, and then the real fun began. There might be a
lion behind every bush--there certainly were four lions somewhere; the
delicate question was, where. I peeped and poked and looked in every
possible direction, with my heart in my mouth, and was at last rewarded
by catching a glimpse of something yellow moving behind a bush. At the
same moment, from another bush opposite me out burst one of the cubs and
galloped back toward the burned-out pan. I whipped round and let drive a
snap-shot that tipped him head over heels, breaking his back within two
inches of the root of the tail, and there he lay helpless but glaring.
Tom afterward killed him with his assegai. I opened the breech of the
gun and hurriedly pulled out the old case, which, to judge from what
ensued, must, I suppose, have burst and left a portion of its fabric
sticking to the barrel. At any rate, when I tried to get in the new case
it would only enter half-way; and--would you believe it?--this was the
moment that the lioness, attracted no doubt by the outcry of her cub,
chose to put in an appearance. There she stood, twenty paces or so from
me, lashing her tail and looking just as wicked as it is possible to
conceive. Slowly I stepped backward, trying to push in the new case, and
as I did so she moved on in little runs, dropping down after each run.
The danger was imminent, and the case would not go in. At the moment
I oddly enough thought of the cartridge-maker, whose name I will not
mention, and earnestly hoped that if the lion got me some condign
punishment would overtake him. It would not go in, so I tried to pull it
out. It would not come out either, and my gun was useless if I could
not shut it to use the other barrel. I might as well have had no gun.
Meanwhile I was walking backward, keeping my eye on the lioness, who was
creeping forward on her belly without a sound, but lashing her tail
and keeping her eye on me; and in it I saw that she was coming in a
few seconds more. I dashed my wrist and the palm of my hand against the
brass rim of the cartridge till the blood poured from them--look, there
are the scars of it to this day!"

Here Quatermain held up his right hand to the light and showed us four
or five white cicatrices just where the wrist is set into the hand.

"But it was not of the slightest use,"