HUNTING THE LION 15 



stood in front of me. I walked up to it and 

 actually put one hand upon it as, stooping, I sought 

 for an opening through which I could pass. A 

 dense mass of grass and creepers grew around its 

 base, and in this shall I venture the apparently absurd 

 exaggeration? six feet from me lay the wounded 

 lioness. I will not pretend to say why she did 

 not instantly seize me, as she could so easily have 

 done; she merely growled furiously, and I backed 

 promptly, for of course I did not even get a 

 glimpse of her among her tangled surroundings. Ten, 

 fifteen yards, still too close to be pleasant. Another 

 few feet, and I was up against the projecting tongue 

 of bush, with a fallen tree across the middle of my 

 back. Glancing over my shoulder to see the nature 

 of the obstruction, I heard in the bush behind me 

 the deep growl of a lion, and then for the first time 

 I realized that I had two wounded beasts to deal 

 with. The growl was followed by a heavy rush which 

 turned me cold from head to heel. Luckily the 

 rush was away from me ; his heart had failed 

 him, and I last heard him in the vicinity of the 

 lioness. 



* Woh-k, ah now 1 ' How friendly and reassuring 

 sounded the driver's call to his oxen and the tinkle 

 of the ox-bell, as the span came to a halt by the 

 point of the projecting tongue of bush 1 A growl 

 from the lioness had caused them to pull up short 

 and had sent Seba-ha, the hunter, flying away in 

 terror. Not so the plucky driver, Pokane (a trooper 

 in the Bechuanaland Protectorate Police), who walked 

 boldly up to me, whip in hand, and a broad grin 

 overspreading his ugly, good-natured face. A brief 



