408 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



fantastic; they carried ox-hide shields painted with strange 

 devices; and each bore in his right hand the formidable 

 war spear, used both for stabbing and for throwing at close 

 quarters. The narrow spear heads of soft iron were bur- 

 nished till they shone like silver; they were four feet long, 

 and the point and edges were razor sharp. The wooden 

 haft appeared for but a few inches; the long butt was also 

 of iron, ending in a spike, so that the spear looked almost 

 solid metal. Yet each sinewy warrior carried his heavy 

 weapon as if it were a toy, twirling it till it glinted in the 

 sun-rays. Herds of game, red hartebeests and striped 

 zebra and wild swine, fled right and left before the advance 

 of the line. 



It was noon before we reached a wide, shallow valley, 

 with beds of rushes here and there in the middle, and on 

 either side high grass and dwarfed and scattered thorn- 

 trees. Down this we beat for a couple of miles. Then, 

 suddenly, a maned lion rose a quarter of a mile ahead of the 

 line and galloped off through the high grass to the right; 

 and all of us on horseback tore after him. 



He was a magnificent beast, with a black and tawny 

 mane; in his prime, teeth and claws perfect, with mighty 

 thews, and savage heart. He was lying near a hartebeest 

 on which he had been feasting; his life had been one un- 

 broken career of rapine and violence; and now the maned 

 master of the wilderness, the terror that stalked by night, 

 the grim lord of slaughter, was to meet his doom at the 

 hands of the only foes who dared molest him. 



It was a mile before we brought him to bay. Then 

 the Dutch farmer, Mouton, who had not even a rifle, but 

 who rode foremost, was almost on him; he halted and 

 turned under a low thorn-tree, and we galloped past him to 

 the opposite side, to hold him until the spearmen could 

 come. It was a sore temptation to shoot him; but of course 

 we could not break faith with our Nandi friends. We 

 were only some sixty yards from him, and we watched him 

 with our rifles ready, lest he should charge either us, or 



