TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 
251 
with axes and hangols to the place where the koodoo had 
been. Had been ! For there it was not when we returned. 
The dragging of the bushes and the crushed grass 
showed us the way. There at some two hundred yards 
off was all that now remained of the lesser koodoo. 
A flash of sinuous yellow. A cry of “ Libbah ! 
Libbah ! ” from the left-hand hunter. The durr 
grass waved, and a fine lioness bounded high and 
sank again. Crack ! from Cecily’s rifle. She must 
have been in better place than I was for a shot. I 
should have annihilated one of the men had I blazed 
away. Crack ! again. And then I saw what the 
redoubtable Cecily was firing at. Another animal 
altogether ! A massive lion, with an almost black 
mane and more cumbersome in the front than any 
other of his genus I had ever seen. All lions fall 
away very much behind, but I really think this one 
must have been malformed. However, we never saw 
him again, so the point had, perforce, to remain un- 
settled. As the lion streaked off, evidently not incon- 
venienced by Cecily’s bombardment, his mate made 
a successful effort to follow his lead. Flat, and low 
to earth, snake-like, she crossed the only bare patch 
of clearing to the right of me. Still my line of fire 
was blocked by a hunter who put himself in my way 
every time as if by design, and had not the sense to 
drop and give me a chance. Still there was Clarence 
on the extreme right, armed with a 12-bore. The 
lioness would have to run the gauntlet of his fire. 
“ Maro ! Maro ! ” (Shoot ! Shoot !) I cried to him in 
an agony of nervous Hindostanee. 
