Militant Cotton swell 343 



thickness of the bush could neither see them nor her 

 I shifted my position once or twice in the hope of 

 making out what was going on, standing up in my 

 stirrups, looking for an opening that I might dismount 

 and get a shot. Suddenly the barking of the dogs and 

 snapping snarl of the lioness ceased, and I thought she 

 had broken bay and gone on ; but in a second I heard 

 a roar on the horse's right quarter, in a different 

 direction from that into which I had been peering, and 

 looking round, saw her with her mouth open, clearing 

 a rather high patch of bush twenty yards from me. 

 There was no time to get off the horse and no pos- 

 sibility of a shot from his back, for the charge was on 

 his right flank, and you cannot shoot to the right. I 

 did the only thing that I could jammed the spurs in 

 and tried to make a gallop of it ; but my follower was 

 too close, and before I could get up full speed I heard 

 her strike the ground heavily twice in her bound, and 

 with the third she sat up behind me. She jumped 

 short, however, and failed to get hold with her mouth, 

 but drove her front claws well into the horse's quarters 

 and a hind foot underneath him, and so clung, but only 

 for a moment ; for the poor beast, maddened by fright 

 and pain, and unable to stand up under the extra weight* 

 became unmanageable, threw his head up, and swerved 

 under the projecting bough of a tree, which, striking me 

 on the chest, swept me from the saddle against the 

 lioness, and we rolled to the ground together. A sharp 

 rap on the head from my having fallen on a stump 

 stunned me for a minute or two, and I woke to life to 

 find John kneeling alongside of me, asking me if I was 



