IS THE LION KILLER. 



branch in the dry heap, reflecting from bush to tree-top, 

 until they finally illuminated the dark slopes of the two 

 mountains with a ruddy glare, like morning. Presently I 

 heard a gun in the valley, and then a distant fusillade from 

 the douar of the Sheik, the sign that my signal was recog- 

 nized. The sound of victory was answered from douar to 

 douar, till all the tents of Mahouna where ringing with the 

 chorus of barkings and cries, and the rattle of fire-arms. All 

 night I sat by my lion, and listened to the triumph that was 

 answered from valley to valley. I alone on the hill-side, and 

 all the country ringing triumph to my victory. 



"With the dawning of the day, more than two hundred 

 Arabs, men, women and children, climbed the hills to see 

 their fallen foe, and heap insults on his head ; and the Sheik 

 Tai'eb informed me that while I had been watching the 

 young ones, the seignor with the big head, accompanied by 

 his wife, had visited the plain and carried off from him an- 

 other cow for their breakfast. 



Although the history of this famous enemy of Taieb's 

 has no relation to the history of the panther, which I am 

 writing, yet still I cannot resist narrating the manner of his 

 death, which occurred in the following year. Although 

 scarcely a twelvemonth had elapsed since, I had waited for 

 him at the ford of the Ouled Cherf, yet the sum of his wicked- 

 ness had increased to a dreadful extent. Horses, sheep, 

 beeves and belated herdsmen, all followed the same capacious 

 road, and still his appetite remained unsatisfied. One of the 

 people of Mahouna, a herdsman named Lakdar had lost by 

 his attacks, forty-five sheep, one horse, and twenty-nine beevos, 



