168 MY SOMALI BOOK 



Subsequently, no doubt the lioness or leopard, which- 

 ever it was, noticed my gun-barrel, and took it 

 for the spear about to be used again. The visiting- 

 card that I had fixed to the muzzle as a night-sight 

 had been torn off. I replaced this and sat down to 

 wait. Not more than three or four minutes had 

 elapsed when a crouching figure came into view and 

 came straight up to the kill. The next moment I let 

 drive with the charge of S.S.G. in the right barrel, and 

 the thing sprang out of sight. We heard it struggling 

 and growling on the ground twenty or thirty yards 

 away, evidently very badly hit. Presently I caught a 

 shadowy glimpse of something else moving towards 

 the sound, and then began a duet, the moans of the 

 wounded animal mingling with the sympathetic growls 

 of, presumably, its mate, and every now and then a 

 different scratching sound ; No. 2 apparentl}^ stroking 

 and soothing its unhappy partner with affectionate 

 caresses ! 



This was going on a short distance to ni}^ left front 

 and I was straining my vision to see something in that 

 direction, when out of the corner of my eye I caught 

 sight of another shadow creeping up to the kill from 

 more to the right : I glanced round, and the left barrel 

 blazed out. The newcomer sprang high into the air, 

 and fell the other side of the kill, lying without a 

 move ; but after a few moments a raised head showed 

 it was not quite dead, so I fired again and then all was 

 still. I did not think either of the animals, as I fired 

 at it, seemed large enough for a lioness, though in the 

 crouching position assumed by both one could not be 

 certain in the very dim light. I now turned on my 



