I was to
shoot.

Stephenson took his place on the other bank, twenty-five or thirty yards
from the edge of the reeds. Then the beaters were told to advance, and
they moved forward, throwing rocks and sticks into the reeds ahead of
them. The lion appeared on Stephenson's side. Like a flash it sprang
out. He fired and the lion stopped momentarily under the impact of a
heavy ball. Then it sprang a few yards onward, when a second shot laid
it out. The last shot was fired at less than twenty yards.

The moving-picture machine recorded the thrilling scene and there was an
hour of great rejoicing and jubilation. The animal was an old lioness
and the first shot had torn her lower jaw away and had gone into the
shoulder. It is amazing that she was not instantly killed--but that's a
way lions have. They never know when to quit.

CHAPTER XX

ABDULLAH THE COOK AND SOME INTERESTING GASTRONOMICAL EXPERIENCES.
THIRTEEN TRIBES REPRESENTED IN THE SAFARI. ABDI'S STORY OF HIS UNCLE AND
THE LIONS

Our cook was a dark-complexioned man between whom and the ace of spades
there was considerable rivalry. He was of that deadly night shade. He
was the darkest spot on the Dark Continent. After dark he blended in
with the night so that you couldn't tell which was cook and which was
night.

His name was Abdullah, his nature was mild and gentle, and his skill in
his own particular sphere of action was worthy of honorable mention by
all refined eaters. He was about fifty or sixty years of age, five feet
tall, with a smile varying from four to six inches from tip to tip. It
was a smile that came often, and when really unfurled to its greatest
width it gave the pleasing effect of a dark face ambushed behind a row
of white tombstones.

When Abdullah joined our _safari_ it was freely predicted that he would
do well for the first month or so, after which he would fade away to
rank mediocrity; but, strangely enough, he became better and better as
time went on, and during our last two weeks was springing culinary coups
that excited intense interest on our part. He had a way of assembling a
few odds and ends together that finally merged into a rice pudding par
excellence, while his hot cakes were so good that we spoke of them in
rapt, reverential whispers. There wasn't a twinge of indigestion in a
"three by six" stack of them, and when flooded with a crown of liquid
honey they made one think of paradise and angels' choruses.

Quite naturall