CHAP. v. LIONS. 253 



was still upon its first victim and its eyes probably 

 closed, rushed to the nearest trees for safety, but, once 

 there, feeling ashamed of their cowardly desertion of an 

 old companion, they descended, and walking forward 

 together were just on the point of firing, when, with a 

 roar that almost deprived them of the power to run, the 

 lion charged, caught the hindmost, and after shaking him 

 for a second or two, gave chase to the other, who, however, 

 had profited by the time to remove himself, by a bare 

 foot or so, out of reach of the spring the enraged animal 

 gave as it saw that one had so far escaped. It then 

 returned to its last victim, not yet dead, took him up in 

 its mouth, dropped him, tossed him from paw to paw as a 

 cat does a mouse, and at last, as if wearied at so much 

 unaccustomed gentleness, it allowed its savage nature to 

 gain the mastery, and with one crunch of its powerful 

 jaw put him out of his pain. 



It next came back under the tree where the sole 

 survivor of this fearful tragedy was, and looking up at 

 him in a complacent manner, evidently aware that though 

 it might not be able to reach him at present it could at 

 least keep him a prisoner during its pleasure, quietly 

 stretched itself on the ground, and after licking its great 

 paws for a few minutes seemed to be asleep. The tree 

 one of the larger mimosas in which the wretched man 

 was thus confined, had two principal stems separating 

 from the main one about six feet from the ground, into 

 the fork of which he had thrown his gun when he climbed 

 up, and after the lapse of a quarter of an hour without 

 any sign of consciousness on the part of the lion, he could 

 not help his thoughts reverting to it, and to how easily 



