biting his ear, and then hopping to a safe distance from his awakening
fists and crying out, 'Make up the camp fire--look alive. It's lions.'
The dogs were whining and barking, and Brenda was earnestly trying to
climb a palm tree. Max faced the danger, it is true, but he seemed to
have no real love of sport.

Philip sprang up and heaped dead palm scales and leaves on the dying
fire. It blazed up and something moved beyond the bushes. Philip
wondered whether those pairs of shining things, like strayed stars, that
he saw in the darkness, could really be the eyes of lions.

'What a nuisance these lions are to be sure,' said the parrot. 'No, they
won't come near us while the fire's burning, but really, they ought to
be put down by law.'

'Why doesn't somebody kill them?' Lucy asked. She had wakened when
Philip did, and, after a meditative minute, had helped with the palm
scales and things.

'It's not so easy,' said the parrot; 'nobody knows how to do it. How
would _you_ kill a lion?'

'_I_ don't know,' said Philip; but Lucy said, 'Are they Noah's Ark
lions?'

'Of course they are,' said Polly; 'all the books with lions in them are
kept shut up.'

'I know how you could kill Noah's Ark lions if you could catch them,'
Lucy said.

'It's easy enough to catch them,' said Polly; 'an hour after dawn they
go to sleep, but it's unsportsmanlike to kill game when it's asleep.'

'I'm going to think, if you don't mind,' Lucy announced, and sat down
very near the fire. 'It's just the opposite of the dragon,' she said
after a minute. The parrot nodded and there was a long silence. Then
suddenly Lucy jumped up.

'I know,' she cried, 'oh--I really _do_ know. And it won't hurt them
either. I don't a bit mind killing things, but I do hate hurting them.
There's plenty of rope, I know.'

There was.

'Then when it's dawn we'll tie them up and then you'll see.'

'I think you might tell _me_,' said Philip, injured.

'No--they may understand what we say. Polly does.'

Philip made a natural suggestion. But Lucy replied that it was not
manners to whisper, and the parrot said that it should think not indeed.

So, sitting by the fire, all faces turned to where those strange twin
stars shone and those strange hidden movements and rustlings stirred,
the expedition waited for the dawn. Brenda had given up the
tree-climbing idea, and was cuddling up as close to Lucy as possible.
The camel, who had been trembling with fear all the while