332 THE LION KILLER. 



he became calm and caressing as before, handling me with 

 his huge paws, rubbing against the bars, and licking my 

 hand, while every gesture, and moan, and look, told of his 

 joy and his love. 



I cannot express how hard a thing was our parting of 

 that day. 



Twenty times I came back to speak to him, and to try and 

 make him understand that I was coming back again, and 

 each time that I started to go, lie shook the gallery with his 

 bounds and heart-rending roars. 



For some time I came every day to see my friend in his 

 solitary prison-house, and sometimes we passed several, hours 

 together in most familiar intercourse. But after a little 

 while I noticed that he became sad and changed, and 

 seemed utterly dispirited. 



I consulted the keepers of the garden, and they thought 

 that it was owing to my visits and the regret at my leaving. 

 I then tried to keep away, and gradually to accustom him to 

 my absence, hoping to win him over to a calmer state of 

 mind. 



One flowering day in the month of May, I entered the 

 garden as usual. One of the keepers came forward, and 

 respectfully saluting me, said, with sorrow : 



" Don't come any more, sir, Hubert is dead /" 



I turned on my heel and hastened out of the garden, 

 bowed down by the heavy grief at the loss of my dearest 

 friend, and the crowding memories of the past. The lonely 

 mountain post, his dead leaf cradle, the burnous that had 

 covered us both, the camp life at Guelma, all flicker and go 

 before me even at this time, when I return to the garden, as 

 I sometimes do, to wander and think of my poor friend. 



Thus died this child of the wilderness, that I had taken 

 from his mother's breast, from the pure air of the mountain, 

 from liberty and the supremest dominion, to wither in a 



