A HUNT WITH THE ARAB LADIES. 395 



CHAPTFR XXXIII, 



A HUNT WITH THE ARAB LADIES. 



Two days after, while smoking my pipe in my tent, and 

 dreaming of a land where lions roamed in herds like gazels, 

 my fancies were put to flight by the sudden irruption of a 

 half-dozen Arab women, tearing their hair and weeping small 

 rivulets of tears. 



My first thought was that Amar-ben-Sigha was dead, and 

 the women were deploring his loss. I felt my heart melting 

 under the softening influences of their grief, and a sympa- 

 thetic sorrow arose in my throat ; but when they told me the 

 reason of their coming, I had to roar out with laughter to 

 learn that it was simply on account of another lion that had 

 just arrived in the country, and killed three of their cattle. 

 As their tears and sobs were all the while increasing, I 

 hastened to rid myself of such lugubrious company, by assur- 

 ing them that I would do my best to relieve them from their 

 guest ; when their tears ceased as if by magic, and they 

 departed, fully satisfied that their enemy was already 

 numbered with the dead. 



The douar to which the cattle that had been killed 

 belonged, was situated at a short distance from my tent, and 

 I sent for the guards in order to get from them any informa- 

 tion they could give concerning the new comer. They told 

 me that at about six o'clock in the evening while driving the 

 herds down the mountain road, the animals scampered off on 



