f so again, I might be destined for their
dinner, mamma having already dined.

This was a pleasant reflection! I might have to deal with half-a-dozen
lions of various sizes, instead of only one large one. There was very
little doubt that I was doomed, in any case; yet my brain had never
worked more clearly than at this moment, and I employed it as I went
bumping along, in trying to devise some means of escape, poor though the
prospect might be. My gun was still in my hand, and determined that no
amount of rough travelling should cause me to let it go. A moment might
come when I should find an opportunity to turn it somehow in the
direction of the lion, and I should keep my wits about me mainly to that
end.

We had travelled, I suppose, about a quarter of a mile, and I wish I
could convey to you fellows the extreme discomfort of it. Can you
imagine it? One's head flopping and wobbling and knocking up against
whatever happened to be in the way; one's legs following suit; one's
body strained, twisted, scratched, bruised, pounded--really, though I
see you fellows laughing at this very moment, and should like to kick
you for it if I were not too comfortable to move, I would not wish even
such ruffians as you two to suffer such torture.

Suddenly the beast laid me down--tired, perhaps, with dragging eleven
stone over rough country. She stood over me for a minute as though
listening, one paw on my right shoulder, which prevented me from using
my arm, which might otherwise have been employed to advantage during
this interval.

Then suddenly she lifted up her voice--it _was_ a lioness, I now saw,
not a male lion--and set the air vibrating with a series of roars so
loud that they might surely, I thought, be heard at Buluwayo, if not at
Capetown. Never in my life had the drums of my ears been so ill-treated.
For half a minute without a pause she thundered thus.

Well, she ended. The roars became less loud--less frequent--they thinned
down into half-moaning noises something like the end of a donkey's bray,
and lastly they stopped altogether, or rather faded into growling or
purring sounds. Then she released my shoulder and stood a yard or two
from me, gazing into the distance--you know how lions at the Zoo look
when the whisper has gone round that it is feeding-time, and every lion
and tiger begins to stare into the far-away, over the heads of the
spectators.

A few moments passed during which I slowly drew my rifle towards