THE LION 247 



Not knowing whether she was dead or not, or whether she 

 was still behind the zebra, I listened for some time, but could 

 hear nothing on account of the buzzing of swarms of large 

 red-headed bluebottle flies, and then crawled forward very 

 cautiously to the carcase, but found she had gone. As there 

 was a considerable amount of blood about, I lost no time 

 in following her. For a long time the lion stuck to his mate, 

 but finally left her, and went off by himself, after being harassed 

 and kept constantly on the move, which was in all probability 

 distasteful to him after his feed. From 12.30 to 5.30, most 

 of the time on my hands and knees owing to the denseness of 

 the bush, I followed the lioness, and kept putting her up with 

 a low growl every 100 yards or so ; but I only once saw her 

 a mere glimpse when she was on the move and about 20 yards 

 off as she kept down wind nearly the whole time, and never 

 allowed me to come near enough to see her well, but slunk away 

 with a low growl. Finally it became too dark to see anything, 

 so I had to abandon the hunt for that day. 



Next morning I was back at daylight, and visited a small 

 water-hole just outside the bush, close to where I had left her, 

 and found from her spoor and faint traces of blood that she 

 had been there to drink during the night. She had afterwards 

 re-entered the bush and was lying down just inside, but was 

 disturbed by our talking, as we heard her growl and move off. 

 She must then have skirted along just inside the edge of the 

 bush, for whilst we were consulting as to the best means of 

 following her up, or whether we should attempt to drive her 

 out, she left the covert some 300 yards off on our side, and went 

 limping away across a small tongue of open ground towards a 

 narrow strip of bush, which she entered. Hurrying round with 

 my gun-bearers in a wide circuit to the other side, I was just 

 in time to see her come to the edge of the bush, but at the 

 same time she saw me, and lay down facing me, with her head 

 well raised. This gave me a capital chance ; a shot in the 

 chest rendered her hors de combat, and another at close quarters 

 finished her off. The Express bullet of the day before had 



