ickened hearing was rewarded by the sound of a human foot pressing
softly, yet heavily, the ground near him. The gap, left imprudently
open, which fronted the tent-door of Amer bin Osman, was that to which
his cautious gaze was directed. By the light of the stars, which shine
in Africa with unusual light, he saw the very faintest resemblance to a
human figure, which held in one hand something darker than its own body,
yet not so long, and in the other a long staff, at one end of which
there was a cold glimmer of faint light, or reflection of light, which
he supposed at once, and rightly, to be a spear. That human figure was
that of an intruder. A friend had never stood so long in that gap, or
advanced so stealthily. A wild beast would have advanced with as much
circumspection and caution--why not a human enemy? The instincts of
both man and beast are the same in the silence of night, when about to
act hostilely.

Simba still lay seemingly unconscious of duty--unconscious of the danger
which menaced the occupants of his master's tent; but could that human
enemy have seen through the gloomy mist of night those large, watchful
eyes of the recumbent form stretched almost within reach of him, he had
surely hesitated before advancing another step towards that open
tent-door.

All seemed still, and the figure bent down and moved in a crawling
posture towards the open door, wherein lay Selim and his father,
unconscious of the dangerous presence of an armed intruder. But Simba's
eyes were not idle, though silent. What thing on earth does its work so
quietly as the eye? They followed the crawling form unwinkingly, until
it had half entered the open door; then Simba raised his head, finally
his body, upright to its full gigantic height. The feet of the daring
intruder were within tempting reach of those long muscular arms if he
but stooped, and Simba knew it. He stood up one short second or so, as
if he summoned threefold strength with the lungful of air he but halted
to inhale; then quickly stooping, he caught hold of the robber's feet,
and giving utterance to a loud triumphant cry, swung him two or three
times around his head, and dashed his head against the great flat stone
on which, a few hours before, the woman-cook, Halimah, had ground her
master's corn, and then tossed him lifeless over the hedge of the camp
as carrion!!

In an instant, as it were, the camp was awake, and fires burned brightly
everywhere. The