GOOD-BYE SERGOIT 241 
well. He on the last lion’s flank, H. on the leader’s. I 
was very near the white pony J. J. W.’s syce was riding, 
when in an instant, the second lion turned between two 
bushes and was literally swallowed up in the waving grass. 
The leading beast held gallantly on past the covert, and H., 
riding a few score yards furiously, turned him to bay under 
a fine tree. There he stood, a noble sight indeed, advancing 
first toward one man then toward the other. Right behind 
him, not twenty yards away, was the cover that had swal- 
lowed up his companion; but he seemed to want to fight, 
and never even looked behind him for the support he surely 
deserved. They might both be on us any moment. It 
was a very nasty place indeed, the grass waving as high as 
our ponies’ backs. SoI shot him just as quickly as I could. 
We waited where we were for a quarter of an hour; no 
knowing in the least where the second lion might be crouch- 
ing, and frankly not too anxious to go into the thick cover 
where the dead lion lay. After a while we went in and 
measured and skinned him. He was a splendid beast, 
with a rich, dark mane covering his shoulders. Not so 
fine a one as J. J. W. shot on our way to the Rock, but a 
very fine one and very large, nine feet eleven inches as he 
lay. Four lions in three days, seven shots to the four, not 
so bad; and this one the very, very last I will ride in long 
grass or bushy country. 
I thought I had had the very best of lion hunting, when 
on the lower part of this same plateau three months 
before, I got in five consecutive days three lions. J never 
expect to experience any sensation quite equal to that 
of the moment when, after five months’ fruitless search, I 
at last saw the great black-maned fellow step grandly out 
of his harem, and stand alone in the morning sunlight 
within one hundred and seventy yards of my rifle’s muzzle. 
It was a grand day’s hunting too, when, from morning till 
late afternoon, I followed up in long grass two lions I had 
