Through the open gates they came, in two indolent yellow lines, male lions, female lions, half-grown lions, cub lions that cuffed each other in play, in all perhaps fifty or sixty of them.  Of these only two or three looked towards the Professor, for none of them ran or galloped, while the rest spread over the den, some of them vanishing into the shadow at the edge of the surrounding cliff where the moonlight could not reach.

Here one of them, at any rate, must have travelled fast enough, for it seemed only a few seconds later that we heard a terrific yell beneath us, and craning over the rock I saw the Prince Joshua running up the ladder more swiftly than ever did any London lamplighter when I was a boy.

But quickly as he came, the long, thin, sinuous thing beneath came quicker.  It reared itself on its hind legs, it stretched up a great paw—­I can see the gleaming claws in it now—­and struck or hooked at poor Joshua.  The paw caught him in the small of the back, and seemed to pin him against the ladder.  Then it was drawn slowly downward, and heaven! how Joshua howled.  Up came the other paw to repeat the operation, when, stretching myself outward and downward, with an Abati holding me by the ankles, I managed to shoot the beast through the head so that it fell all of a heap, taking with it a large portion of Joshua’s nether garments.

A few seconds later he was among us, and tumbled groaning into a corner, where he lay in charge of some of the mountaineers, for I had no time to attend to him just then.

When the smoke cleared at length, I saw that Japhet had reached Higgs, and was gesticulating to him to run, while two lions, a male and a female, stood at a little distance, regarding the pair in an interested fashion.  Higgs, after some brief words of explanation, pointed to his knee.  Evidently he was lamed and could not run.  Japhet, rising to the occasion, pointed to his back, and bent down.  Higgs flung himself upon it, and was hitched up like a sack of flour.  The pair began to advance toward the ladder, Japhet carrying Higgs as one schoolboy carries another.

The lion sat down like a great dog, watching this strange proceeding with mild interest, but the lioness, filled with feminine curiosity, followed sniffing at Higgs, who looked over his shoulder.  Taking off his battered helmet, he threw it at the beast, hitting her on the head.  She growled, then seized the helmet, playing with it for a moment as a kitten does with a ball of wool, and next instant, finding it unsatisfying, uttered a short and savage roar, ran forward, and crouched to spring, lashing her tail.  I could not fire, because a bullet that would hit her must first pass through Japhet and Higgs.

But, just when I thought that the end had come, a rifle went off in the shadow and she rolled over, kicking and biting the rock.  Thereon the indolent male lion seemed to awake, and sprang, not at the men, but at the wounded lioness, and a hellish fight ensued, of which the details and end were lost in a mist of dust and flying hair.