16 SPORT, TRAVEL, AND ADVENTURE 



consultation upon the situation was cut short by 

 an exclamation from him, ' Look out, sir, she's 

 coming I ' 



Grunting furiously, her tail waving over the grass- 

 tops marking the line of her rush, she came out 

 straight at us. There was no room for even a pace 

 backwards, though I knew that the oncoming beast 

 would be less than twenty feet from my rifle when 

 she burst out of the long grass. * Now, then, old 

 single Metford, you've accounted for twenty-eight 

 lions since I bought you, but you've never been in 

 a tighter corner.' I could not see the sights, but, 

 levelling for her head as the lioness broke cover nine- 

 teen feet distant, I fired. She fell on her nose, 

 turned a complete somersault, regained her legs, 

 rearing up and clawing wildly at me, while blood and 

 saliva dropped from her jaws. Once again the old 

 single spoke up, and a moment later the lioness was 

 struggling on the ground at the point of death, while 

 Pokane was plying his long whip across her flanks. 

 We did not seek farther for the lion that night, but, 

 while the boys attended to the skinning, I struck a 

 match and cautiously examined the spot from which 

 the charge had been made. No wonder that in the 

 gloom of evening she had been invisible, even at six 

 feet, for the matted vegetation had formed a roof, 

 under which she had crept, and I think it was fortu- 

 nate for me that the thorn-tree was immediately 

 between us. My first shot had broken her near fore- 

 shoulder, while the second, fired as she charged, had 

 entered at the back of the ear, passed over the back 

 of the skull, and into the neck. She was a very old 

 lioness and small, but I had no tape with me to 



