“‘Come on, Inkoos,’ said Tom, ‘let’s get back to the waggon.’

“‘All right, Tom,’ I answered.  ’I will when I have killed those three other lions,’ for by this time I was bent on shooting them as I never remember being bent on anything before or since.  ’You can go if you like, or you can get up a tree.’

“He considered the position a little, and then he very wisely got up a tree.  I wish that I had done the same.

“Meanwhile I had found my knife, which had an extractor in it, and succeeded after some difficulty in pulling out the cartridge which had so nearly been the cause of my death, and removing the obstruction in the barrel.  It was very little thicker than a postage-stamp; certainly not thicker than a piece of writing-paper.  This done, I loaded the gun, bound a handkerchief round my wrist and hand to staunch the flowing of the blood, and started on again.

“I had noticed that the lioness went into a thick green bush, or rather a cluster of bushes, growing near the water, about fifty yards higher up, for there was a little stream running down the kloof, and I walked towards this bush.  When I got there, however, I could see nothing, so I took up a big stone and threw it into the bushes.  I believe that it hit the other cub, for out it came with a rush, giving me a broadside shot, of which I promptly availed myself, knocking it over dead.  Out, too, came the lioness like a flash of light, but quick as she went I managed to put the other bullet into her ribs, so that she rolled right over three times like a shot rabbit.  I instantly got two more cartridges into the gun, and as I did so the lioness rose again and came crawling towards me on her fore-paws, roaring and groaning, and with such an expression of diabolical fury on her countenance as I have not often seen.  I shot her again through the chest, and she fell over on to her side quite dead.

“That was the first and last time that I ever killed a brace of lions right and left, and, what is more, I never heard of anybody else doing it.  Naturally I was considerably pleased with myself, and having again loaded up, I went on to look for the black-maned beauty who had killed Kaptein.  Slowly, and with the greatest care, I proceeded up the kloof, searching every bush and tuft of grass as I went.  It was wonderfully exciting work, for I never was sure from one moment to another but that he would be on me.  I took comfort, however, from the reflection that a lion rarely attacks a man—­rarely, I say; sometimes he does, as you will see—­unless he is cornered or wounded.  I must have been nearly an hour hunting after that lion.  Once I thought I saw something move in a clump of tambouki grass, but I could not be sure, and when I trod out the grass I could not find him.