232 THE LION KILLER. 



followed her tracks, and springing on the tent after her, the 

 whole of the frail structure fell to the ground under his 

 weight. The mad beast, feeling the living bodies under him 

 struggling in the folds of the tent, relinquished his hold of the 

 woman and child, already dead and mutilated, and with teeth 

 and claws, commenced tearing and crushing every moving 

 thing he could find under his paws. 



To crown the tragedy, the fires caught the fallen tent, and 

 though driving away the lion, burned every living soul of 

 the family that had not been already destroyed by the rag- 

 ing beast, all the inhabitants of the douar that were free, hav- 

 ing taken advantage of the occurrence to escape. 



On the morrow, forty armed men returned to the scene of 

 the disaster, to find only the charred and mutilated bodies of 

 their friends ; the lion had departed after proving to the chil- 

 dren of Adam that there was no strength equal to his, and 

 that whatever they possessed was owned together in com- 

 mon. 



" And this lion, what has become of him V I asked. 



" The lion is still living, he is cured of his wound, only he 

 limps in his fore foot ; we have often seen him, and he is called 

 el Haib, the limper, and £ou-Acherin-Badjel y murderer of 

 twenty men." 



I understood, after the story, that the lion was never bewil- 

 dered by his nocturnal excursions among the tents of the low- 

 lands, and could readily comprehend why it was that Bou- 

 Aziz did not want me to know of his coming. 



Nevertheless, I resolved to see if I could find what had 

 become of the missing black bull ; and early in the morning I 



