BEYOND ALL SUCCOUR. 85 
He looked round, growling horribly to him- 
self in hollow rumblings. He stared back at 
the bent and broken reeds, and for a moment 
it looked as if he was going back to finish the 
fight he had not commenced. Then he moved 
on again, and a host of flies swarmed, buzzing, 
on to the pool of blood that had collected 
where he stood. 
The heat was intense, and the air thick 
with a thousand swarming insect plagues. A 
single vulture thing hung as if suspended by 
a string from the brazen-copper dome of the 
heavens, and some antelope beast crashed 
away, unseen, to one side of him. 
The lion took no notice of anything. He 
was limping now, and the flies followed him 
like a halo. 
He stopped by the river and drank in the 
shallows feverishly, till the water reddened 
about him, and his quick eyes detected a 
swirl made by a crocodile following up the 
blood-scent. Thereafter he retired into the 
bushes and lay down. He was still growling 
a little, and his eyes, burning deep in his 
great head, were awful to look upon. 
Night came down swiftly, as it does in those 
sinister lands; the flies gave way to the steady 
song of mosquitoes, and the beasts came to 
drink—zebra, antelope, gazelle, jackal, hyena, 
