72 LION-HUNTING [ch. hi 



waited, uncertain whether we should see the lions 

 charging out ten yards distant or running away. 

 Fortunately, they adopted the latter course. Right 

 in front of me, thirty yards off, there appeared 

 from behind the bushes which had first screened him 

 from my eyes, the tawny, galloping form of a big mane- 

 less lion. Crack ! the Winchester spoke ; and as the 

 soft-nosed bullet ploughed forward through his flank 

 the lion swerved so that I missed him with the second 

 shot ; but my third bullet went through the spine and 

 forward into his chest. Down he came, sixty yards off, 

 his hind-quarters dragging, his head up, his ears back, 

 his jaws open, and lips drawn up in a prodigious snarl, 

 as he endeavoured to turn to face us. His back was 

 broken ; but of this we could not at the moment be 

 sure ; and if it had merely been grazed, he might have 

 recovered, and then, even though dying, his charge 

 might have done mischief So Kermit, Sir Alfred, and 

 I fired, almost together, into his chest. His head sank, 

 and he died. 



This lion had come out on the left of the bushes ; the 

 other, to the right of them, had not been hit, and we 

 saw him galloping off across the plain, six or eight 

 hundred yards away. A couple more shots missed, 

 and we mounted our horses to try to ride him down. 

 The plain sloped gently upward for three-quarters of a 

 mile to a low crest or divide, and long before we got 

 near him he disappeared over this. Sir Alfred and 

 Kermit were tearing along in front and to the right, 

 with Miss Pease close behind, while Tranquillity carried 

 me as fast as he could on the left, with Medlicott near 

 me. On topping the divide Sir Alfred and Kermit 

 missed the lion, which had swung to the left, and they 

 raced ahead too far to the right. Medlicott and I, how- 



