by getting
its back beneath the body, was deliberately hoisting it over the wall,
to drag it away to devour at its leisure.

There was the brute within twelve feet of me, and what is more, it saw
me as I saw it, and stopped, still holding the ox by the throat.

"What a chance for Allan Quatermain! Of course he shot it dead," one can
fancy anyone saying who knows me by repute, also that by the gift of
God I am handy with a rifle. Well, indeed, it should have been, for even
with the small-bore piece that I carried, a bullet ought to have pierced
through the soft parts of its throat to the brain and to have killed
that lion as dead as Julius Caesar. Theoretically the thing was easy
enough; indeed, although I was startled for a moment, by the time that
I had the rifle to my shoulder I had little fear of the issue, unless
there was a miss-fire, especially as the beast seemed so astonished that
it remained quite still.

Then the unexpected happened as generally it does in life, particularly
in hunting, which, in my case, is a part of life. I fired, but by
misfortune the bullet struck the tip of the horn of that confounded ox,
which tip either was or at that moment fell in front of the spot on the
lion's throat whereat half-unconsciously I had aimed. Result: the ball
was turned and, departing at an angle, just cut the skin of the lion's
neck deeply enough to hurt it very much and to make it madder than all
the hatters in the world.

Dropping the ox, with a most terrific roar it came over the wall at
me--I remember that there seemed to be yards of it--I mean of the
lion--in front of which appeared a cavernous mouth full of gleaming
teeth.

I skipped back with much agility, also a little to one side, because
there was nothing else to do, reflecting in a kind of inconsequent way,
that after all Zikali's Great Medicine was not worth a curse. The lion
landed on my side of the wall and reared itself upon its hind legs
before getting to business, towering high above me but slightly to my
left.

Then I saw a strange thing. A shadow thrown by the moon flitted past
me--all I noted of it was the distorted shape of a great, lifted axe,
probably because the axe came first. The shadow fell and with it another
shadow, that of a lion's paw dropping to the ground. Next there was a
most awful noise of roaring, and wheeling round I saw such a fray as
never I shall see again. A tall, grim, black man was fighting the great
lion, that now l