lion's course took him a little to the man's left. Once, at the very
last moment, when escape seemed impossible, the hunter's finger
tightened ever so little upon the trigger, but almost coincidentally
the girl leaped for an over hanging branch and seized it. The lion
leaped too; but the nimble Meriem had swung herself beyond his reach
without a second or an inch to spare.

The man breathed a sigh of relief as he lowered his rifle. He saw the
girl fling a grimace at the angry, roaring, maneater beneath her, and
then, laughing, speed away into the forest. For an hour the lion
remained about the water hole. A hundred times could the hunter have
bagged his prey. Why did he fail to do so? Was he afraid that the
shot might attract the girl and cause her to return?

At last Numa, still roaring angrily, strode majestically into the
jungle. The hunter crawled from his boma, and half an hour later was
entering a little camp snugly hidden in the forest. A handful of black
followers greeted his return with sullen indifference. He was a great
bearded man, a huge, yellow-bearded giant, when he entered his tent.
Half an hour later he emerged smooth shaven.

His blacks looked at him in astonishment.

"Would you know me?" he asked.

"The hyena that bore you would not know you, Bwana," replied one.

The man aimed a heavy fist at the black's face; but long experience in
dodging similar blows saved the presumptuous one.

Chapter 17

Meriem returned slowly toward the tree in which she had left her skirt,
her shoes and her stockings. She was singing blithely; but her song
came to a sudden stop when she came within sight of the tree, for
there, disporting themselves with glee and pulling and hauling upon her
belongings, were a number of baboons. When they saw her they showed no
signs of terror. Instead they bared their fangs and growled at her.
What was there to fear in a single she-Tarmangani? Nothing, absolutely
nothing.

In the open plain beyond the forest the hunters were returning from the
day's sport. They were widely separated, hoping to raise a wandering
lion on the homeward journey across the plain. The Hon. Morison
Baynes rode closest to the forest. As his eyes wandered back and forth
across the undulating, shrub sprinkled ground they fell upon the form
of a creature close beside the thick jungle where it terminated
abruptly at the plain's edge.

He reined his mount in the direction of his disc