uld fire--before I could do more than get the gun to my
shoulder--he sprang straight up and out from the rock, and driven by the
impetus of that one mighty bound came hurtling through the air toward
me.

"Heavens! how grand he looked, and how awful! High into the air he flew,
describing a great arch. Just as he touched the highest point of his
spring I fired. I did not dare to wait, for I saw that he would clear
the whole space and land right upon me. Without a sight, almost without
aim, I fired, as one would fire a snap-shot at a snipe. The bullet told,
for I distinctly heard its thud above the rushing sound caused by the
passage of the lion through the air. Next second I was swept to the
ground (luckily I fell into a low, creeper-clad bush, which broke the
shock), and the lion was on the top of me, and the next those great
white teeth of his had met in my thigh--I heard them grate against the
bone. I yelled out in agony, for I did not feel in the least benumbed
and happy, like Dr. Livingstone,--whom, by the way, I knew very
well,--and gave myself up for dead. But suddenly, at that moment, the
lion's grip on my thigh loosened, and he stood over me, swaying to and
fro, his huge mouth, from which the blood was gushing, wide opened. Then
he roared, and the sound shook the rocks.

"To and fro he swung, and then the great head dropped on me, knocking
all the breath from my body, and he was dead. My bullet had entered in
the centre of his chest and passed out on the right side of the spine
about half way down the back.

"The pain of my wound kept me from fainting, and as soon as I got my
breath I managed to drag myself from under him. Thank heavens, his great
teeth had not crushed my thigh-bone; but I was losing a great deal of
blood, and had it not been for the timely arrival of Tom, with whose aid
I got the handkerchief from my wrist and tied it round my leg, twisting
it tight with a stick, I think that I should have bled to death.

"Well, it was a just reward for my folly in trying to tackle a family
of lions single-handed. The odds were too long. I have been lame ever
since, and shall be to my dying day; in the month of March the wound
always troubles me a great deal, and every three years it breaks
out raw. I need scarcely add that I never traded the lot of ivory at
Sikukuni's. Another man got it--a German--and made five hundred pounds
out of it after paying expenses. I spent the next month on the broad of
my back,