sight of the place. Suppose we climb a tree and scout about a
bit."

It was not a very big tree that we selected, but it was the biggest;
it had low branches, and the merit of being easy to climb.

When the pale latter half of the moon announced itself we could dimly
make out from the upper branches all of the flat ground where the camp
had been. There was no sign of Coutlass. None of Schillingschen. A
lioness and two enormous lions stood facing one another in a triangle,
almost exactly on the spot where the larger tent had stood, not fifty
yards from us.

"Gee!"' whispered Will excitedly. "We nearly stumbled on 'em!"

"Shoot!" I whispered. My own position on the branch was so insecure
that I could not have brought my rifle into use without making a
prodigious noise. Will shook his head.

"I can see Coutlass now! Look at that rock--he's hiding behind
it--see, he's climbing! And look, there's Schillingschen!"

Neither man was aware of the other's presence, or of ours. They were
out of sight of each other, Coutlass on the very rocks against which we
had leaned to watch the tent the afternoon before, and neither man
really out of reach of anything with claws that cared to go after them
in earnest.

The arrival of the dim moon seemed to give the lions their cue for
action. The lioness turned half away, as if weary of waiting, and then
lay down full-length to watch as one lion sprang at the other with a
roar like the wrath of warring worlds. They met in mid-air, claw to
claw, and went down together--a roaring, snarling, eight-legged,
two-tailed catastrophe--never apart--not still an instant--tearing,
beating--rolling over and over--emitting bellows of mingled rage and
agony whenever the teeth of one or other brute went home.

Even as shadows fighting in the shadows they were terrible to watch.
They shook the very earth and air, as if they owned all the primeval
bestial force of all the animals. And the she-lion lay watching them,
her eyes like burning yellow coals, not moving a muscle that we could
see.

Iron could not have withstood the blows; the thunder of them reached
us in the tree! Steel ropes could not have endured the strain as claws
went home, and the brutes wrenched, ripped, and yelled in titanic
agony. Their fury increased. Wounds did not seem to enfeeble them.
Nothing checked the speed of the fighting an instant, until suddenly
the lioness stood erect, gave a long loud call like a cat'