CHAPTER VIII 



THREE LIONS BEFORE BREAKFAST 



" SPOTS " was very excited, but then Spots' repu- 

 tation was at stake. Spots overnight had taken 

 me many weary miles after lions that he declared 

 as we started were "no be too much far away." 

 We had eventually been overtaken by darkness 

 and a thunderstorm, and had returned to camp 

 wet to the skin without seeing any signs of our 

 quarry, whereupon I had unjustly told Spots that 

 I didn't believe there had ever been any lions 

 about ; I also mentioned that in my opinion he 

 was an idiot. Great was his triumph, therefore, 

 when, at about 7 a.m., a native came to tell us 

 that lions had been roaring round his zeriba, some 

 five miles from us, all night. Spots, I should 

 mention, was my Somali hunter, so called because 

 it was a nice short name, and he seemed to answer 

 to it, also incidentally because his black woolly 

 head was interspersed with snow-white tufts as if 

 he had had a series of terrible shocks at some 

 period of his career, or perhaps they were only 



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