“At last I worked up to the head of the kloof, which made a cul-de-sac.  It was formed of a wall of rock about fifty feet high.  Down this rock trickled a little waterfall, and in front of it, some seventy feet from its face, was a great piled-up mass of boulders, in the crevices and on the top of which grew ferns, grasses, and stunted bushes.  This mass was about twenty-five feet high.  The sides of the kloof here were also very steep.  Well, I came to the top of the nullah and looked all round.  No signs of the lion.  Evidently I had either overlooked him further down, or he had escaped right away.  It was very vexatious; but still three lions were not a bad bag for one gun before dinner, and I was fain to be content.  Accordingly I departed back again, making my way round the isolated pillar of boulders, beginning to feel, as I did so, that I was pretty well done up with excitement and fatigue, and should be more so before I had skinned those three lions.  When I had got, as nearly as I could judge, about eighteen yards past the pillar or mass of boulders, I turned to have another look round.  I have a pretty sharp eye, but I could see nothing at all.

“Then, on a sudden, I saw something sufficiently alarming.  On the top of the mass of boulders, opposite to me, standing out clear against the rocks beyond, was the huge black-maned lion.  He had been crouching there, and now arose as though by magic.  There he stood lashing his tail, just like a living reproduction of the animal on the gateway of Northumberland House that I have seen in a picture.  But he did not stand long.  Before I could fire—­before I could do more than get the gun to my shoulder—­he sprang straight up and out from the rock, and driven by the impetus of that one mighty bound came hurtling through the air towards me.

“Heavens! how grand he looked, and how awful!  High into the air he flew, describing a great arch.  Just as he touched the highest point of his spring I fired.  I did not dare to wait, for I saw that he would clear the whole space and land right upon me.  Without a sight, almost without aim, I fired, as one would fire a snap shot at a snipe.  The bullet told, for I distinctly heard its thud above the rushing sound caused by the passage of the lion through the air.  Next second I was swept to the ground (luckily I fell into a low, creeper-clad bush, which broke the shock) and the lion was on the top of me, and the next those great white teeth of his had met in my thigh—­I heard them grate against the bone.  I yelled out in agony, for I did not feel in the least benumbed and happy, like Dr. Livingstone—­who, by the way, I knew very well—­and gave myself up for dead.  But suddenly, as I did so, the lion’s grip on my thigh loosened, and he stood over me, swaying to and fro, his huge mouth, from which the blood was gushing, wide open.  Then he roared, and the sound shook the rocks.

“To and fro he swung, and suddenly the great head dropped on me, knocking all the breath from my body, and he was dead.  My bullet had entered in the centre of his chest and passed out on the right side of the spine about half-way down the back.