nce. 'You can go if you
like, or you can get up a tree.'

"He considered the position a little, and then he very wisely got up a
tree. I wish that I had done the same.

"Meanwhile I had found my knife, which had an extractor in it, and
succeeded after some difficulty in pulling out the cartridge which had
so nearly been the cause of my death, and removing the obstruction in
the barrel. It was very little thicker than a postage-stamp; certainly
not thicker than a piece of writing-paper. This done, I loaded the gun,
bound a handkerchief round my wrist and hand to staunch the flowing of
the blood, and started on again.

"I had noticed that the lioness went into a thick green bush, or rather
a cluster of bushes, growing near the water, about fifty yards higher
up, for there was a little stream running down the kloof, and I walked
towards this bush. When I got there, however, I could see nothing, so I
took up a big stone and threw it into the bushes. I believe that it hit
the other cub, for out it came with a rush, giving me a broadside shot,
of which I promptly availed myself, knocking it over dead. Out, too,
came the lioness like a flash of light, but quick as she went I managed
to put the other bullet into her ribs, so that she rolled right over
three times like a shot rabbit. I instantly got two more cartridges
into the gun, and as I did so the lioness rose again and came crawling
towards me on her fore-paws, roaring and groaning, and with such an
expression of diabolical fury on her countenance as I have not often
seen. I shot her again through the chest, and she fell over on to her
side quite dead.

"That was the first 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 w