A COLLEGE FACULTY EATEN BY A LION. 343 



In a little while after, the douars that were located in the 

 neighborhood of the mosque became the prey of his 

 heretical appetite. 



One evening the head of the holy fathers of Jema-el-Bechira 

 was missing from prayers. 



The next evening one of his assistants was found absent 

 from his supper, a thing very unusual with a good mussul- 

 man. 



So on for forty days, one by one the number of these wise 

 men diminished gradually, the responses became fainter at 

 prayers and the platters fewer at table. The lion lay in 

 ambush by the brook, and when they came down to make 

 their daily ablutions, they found their way into his infidel 

 maw. 



It was not until the fortieth professor had disappeared 

 (a whole faculty devoured by a lion), that the ten of the 

 faithful who remained took the better part of valor, and 

 emigrated to a safer country, and the mosque was 

 deserted. 



Then the lion not having his stomach toned for the coarser 

 fare of horse or beef, descended to the laity, and taking his 

 post on the road, seized on every traveller that passed, until 

 he had placed a perfect embargo on the route, and there was 

 not an Arab, brave as he might be, that dare go over that 

 road even in the daytime. 



At last the lion growing melancholy in the perfect isolation 

 that his predatory habits had imposed on himself, left the 

 country probably in search of another mosque, and thence- 

 forth the El-Bechiva road was travelled by every one in 

 perfect security. 



Since my arrival in the Mahouna country, I had seen great 

 herds of wild hogs feeding in the forest, a sure sign that the 

 lion was not in the neighborhood. Yet still I had not 

 become a convert to Lakdar's opinion, that he had fled my 



