204 THE LION KILLER. 



you have killed him, we will come here to kiss your hands 

 and feet, and to call you our master ; in the meanwhile we 

 will go about our business.' 1 



Without more words the gentlemen retraced their steps to 

 the douar. 



As if these words had been a sort of command to me, I took 

 my seat on a stone at the side of the path, and would have 

 spent the whole day alone immersed in the various reflections 

 they called up, had not a jackal that hovered around, by his 

 screams recalled me to action, and the perception of the 

 coming on of night. 



It was already too late, and- 1 was too poorly armed, to do 

 anything that night, and I returned to the camp thinking of 

 the cold reception that had been given me by the people of 

 the village. Having come to their camps to free them from 

 an enemy that pillaged their property, and whose anger they 

 dare not awaken by any act of their own, I had hoped to see 

 some expression of thankfulness, and some readiness to teach 

 and to guide me. Instead of that, I had found them scoffing, 

 distant, and almost menacing in their addresses, for the great 

 Hercules of whom I have before spoken, gave evident symp- 

 toms of a desire to convince me by direct proof, that his arm 

 was stronger than mine. 



I concluded from all this, that my task was more difficult 

 and hazardous- than I had first supposed,' and that since they 

 all regarded my enterprise as quixotical and foolish, they 

 would hail its success with so much the more joy and 

 devotion, and after that time 1 did nothing but think of the, 

 means of success I might adopt. 



