232 LARGE GAME. chap. v. 



roaring in the most fear-inspiring manner, and in its agony- 

 tearing up great clods and tufts of grass with those terrible 

 claws. Seizing another gun, I fired again right and left 

 as quick as I could, and then catching up a little small- 

 bore rifle, I emptied it also, thus expending my whole 

 battery. 



Shouting to the hunters to fire, I hurriedly commenced 

 loading, glancing meanwhile to see what had become of 

 the men. There was a cluster of some dozen round the 

 trunk of the fig-tree, impeding each other in their eager- 

 ness to place themselves in safety, while its branches were 

 as crowded as it appeared possible they could be. My 

 reiterated cries of " Fire " were at last responded to by a 

 solitary shot from some hunter, who, not completely over- 

 come by terror, had taken his gun up with him, and the 

 lion, who had never ceased his furious struggles, nor 

 ceased to roar, answered it by regaining his legs, and 

 tottering towards the tree. The men around it rushed 

 frantically away into the darkness ; but as I watched, 

 while I rammed my bullet home, I could distinguish the 

 dark outlines of two figures crouching at its roots, with 

 the dying flicker of the fires gleaming on their gun- 

 barrels. The lion staggered on, weak but vindictive, and 

 seemed to me to have almost reached them, when two 

 flashes of red light blazed out, and he fell without a 

 movement, shot simultaneously through the heart and 

 brain, while the two hunters, uncertain of the effect of 

 their bullets, bounded away in opposite directions. 



As soon as I could see that the brute was really dead, 

 I went to look after the man who had been seized, and 

 who was still lying moaning where he had been dropped, 



