an weasels and perverted sheep-dogs. I will
not kill her. I will not lay that beautiful body of hers low, and glaze
those tender, loving eyes that never gleamed with hate or rage at man,
and fix those innocent jaws that never bit the life out of anything, not
even of the grass she feeds on, and does it more good than harm. Feed
on, poor innocent. And you be blanked; you and your diamond, that I
begin to wish I had never seen; for it would corrupt an angel."

Squat understood one word in ten, but he managed to reply. "This is
nonsense-talk," said he, gravely. "The life is no bigger in that than in
the murcat you shot last shoot."

"No more it is," said Staines. "I am a fool. It is come to this,
then; Kafirs teach us theology, and Hottentots morality. I bow to my
intellectual superior. I'll shoot the eland." He raised his rifle again.

"No, no, no, no, no, no," murmured the Hottentot, in a sweet voice
scarcely audible, yet so keen in its entreaty, that Staines turned
hastily round to look at him. His face was ashy, his teeth chattering,
his limbs shaking. Before Staines could ask him what was the matter,
he pointed through an aperture of the acacias into the wood hard by the
elands. Staines looked, and saw what seemed to him like a very long dog,
or some such animal, crawling from tree to tree. He did not at all
share the terror of his companion, nor understand it. But a terrible
explanation followed. This creature, having got to the skirt of the
wood, expanded, by some strange magic, to an incredible size, and sprang
into the open, with a growl, a mighty lion; he seemed to ricochet from
the ground, so immense was his second bound, that carried him to the
eland, and he struck her one blow on the head with his terrible paw, and
felled her as if with a thunderbolt: down went her body, with all the
legs doubled, and her poor head turned over, and the nose kissed the
ground. The lion stood motionless. Presently the eland, who was not
dead, but stunned, began to recover and struggle feebly up. Then the
lion sprang on her with a roar, and rolled her over, and with two
tremendous bites and a shake, tore her entrails out and laid her dying.
He sat composedly down, and contemplated her last convulsions, without
touching her again.

At this roar, though not loud, the horse, though he had never heard or
seen a lion, trembled, and pulled at his halter.

Blacky crept into the water; and Staines was struck with such an awe as
he h