406 THE LION KILLER. 



lioness with cries and missiles, until she charged them, while 

 one or two men in concealment, stole her little ones, and 

 covering them with their burnous, fled away to the plains. 



When she discovered her loss, she started in pursuit, with 

 such a fearful intensity of maternal rage, that no barrier could 

 stop her. She descended the mountain, crossed the open 

 plain, and followed the robbers under their very tents. She 

 seized one man and killed him, another got off badly wounded, 

 and every living thing fled from the camp at the terrible inva- 

 sion, while the lioness made herself quietly at home, and took 

 up her abode in the tent where she had found her 

 cubs. 



The dispossessed Arabs fled to the tents of the Ouled-Sassi, 

 and prayed them for help, and the Sheik, Amar-ben Taieb, 

 came to their assistance with fifteen of his best hunters. 



After dismounting in front of the douar, they advanced 

 slowly side by side to the gate of the douar, and summoned 

 the lioness to show herself. The queenly mother not only 

 complied with the request, but did so with such alacrity, 

 that she fell like a bomb-shell in the middle of the band, tear- 

 ing to the right and left, and died on the bodies of three men, 

 that she had grasped in her great arms, with a long and last 

 embrace. 



One more story of the misadventures that occurred during 

 my short absence, and I return to the chase. 



A few days before the lotus opened its buds to the spring, 

 a lover had wooed and won the heart of a young girl of a 

 neighboring tribe, but as the fates were not propitious, they 

 resolved upon flight and a secret marriage. 



Rendezvous was given at the foot of the great rock of 

 Jehel-Hanout, at the hour when the moon should rest her 

 lower rirn on the western hills. 



The girl arrived as faithful as the moon, and said to her 

 lover, " See what is following me." . 



