st and last time that I ever killed a brace of lions
right and left, and, what is more, I never heard of anybody else doing
it. Naturally I was considerably pleased with myself, and having again
loaded up, I went on to look for the black-maned beauty who had killed
Kaptein. Slowly, and with the greatest care, I proceeded up the kloof,
searching every bush and tuft of grass as I went. It was wonderfully
exciting work, for I never was sure from one moment to another but that
he would be on me. I took comfort, however, from the reflection that
a lion rarely attacks a man,--rarely, I say; sometimes he does, as you
will see,--unless he is cornered or wounded. I must have been nearly an
hour hunting after that lion. Once I thought I saw something move in a
clump of tambouki grass, but I could not be sure, and when I trod out
the grass I could not find him.

"At last I worked up to the head of the kloof, which made a cul-de-sac.
It was formed of a wall of rock about fifty feet high. Down this rock
trickled a little waterfall, and in front of it, some seventy feet from
its face, was a great piled-up mass of boulders, in the crevices and on
the top of which grew ferns, grasses, and stunted bushes. This mass was
about twenty-five feet high. The sides of the kloof here were also very
steep. Well, I came to the top of the nullah and looked all round. No
signs of the lion. Evidently I had either overlooked him farther down or
he had escaped right away. It was very vexatious; but still three lions
were not a bad bag for one gun before dinner, and I was fain to be
content. Accordingly I departed back again, making my way round the
isolated pillar of boulders, beginning to feel, as I did so, that I was
pretty well done up with excitement and fatigue, and should be more so
before I had skinned those three lions. When I had got, as nearly as I
could judge, about eighteen yards past the pillar or mass of boulders,
I turned to have another look round. I have a pretty sharp eye, but I
could see nothing at all.

"Then, on a sudden, I saw something sufficiently alarming. On the top
of the mass of boulders, opposite to me, standing out clear against the
rock beyond, was the huge black-maned lion. He had been crouching there,
and now arose as though by magic. There he stood lashing his tail,
just like a living reproduction of the animal on the gateway of
Northumberland House that I have seen a picture of. But he did not stand
long. Before I co