XXIV BHOOTA’S LAST SHIKAR 273 
wounded lioness. I was now riding “ Blazeaway ” 
and was trotting along in advance of the /onga, 
when suddenly he shied badly at a hyzena, which 
sprang up out of the grass almost from beneath his 
feet and quickly scampered off. I pulled up for a 
moment and. sat watching the hyzna’s ungainly 
bounds, wondering whether he were worth a shot. 
Suddenly I felt ‘“ Blazeaway” trembling violently 
beneath me, and on looking over my left shoulder 
to discover the reason, I was startled to see two fine 
lions not more than a hundred yards away, evidently 
the pair which I had seen the day before and which 
we had really come in search of. They looked 
as if they meant to dispute our passage, for they 
came slowly towards me for about ten yards or SO 
and then lay down, watching me steadily all the 
time. I called out to Spooner, “ Here are the lions 
I told you about,” and he whipped up the ponies 
and in a moment or two was beside me with the 
touga. 
By this time I had seized my ‘303 and dis- 
mounted, so we at once commenced a cautious 
advance on the crouching lions, the arrangement 
being that Spooner was to take the right-hand one 
and I the other. We had got to within sixty 
yards’ range without incident and were just about to 
sit down comfortably to “pot” them, when they 
suddenly surprised us by turning and bolting off. I 
T 
