A DARING SHOT. 
69 
Lord, fired my piece. The ball passed directly 
over my boy’s head, and lodged in the forehead 
of the lion immediately above his eyes, which shot 
forth, as it were, sparks of fire, and stretched him 
on the ground, so that he never stirred more. 
Had I failed in my aim,” Yan Wyk went on to say, 
<e mother and children were all inevitably lost. 
Had the boy moved he would have been struck, 
the least turn in the lion and the shot had not been 
mortal. To have taken an aim from without was 
impossible, as the shadow of anyone advancing in 
the bright sun would have betrayed him, and in 
addition to all these chances against me, the head 
of the creature was in some sort protected by the 
door-post.” 
Freeman tells a somewhat similar story. 
<c A native was fearful,” says he, 66 that ere long 
he himself would be the victim of a lion that haunted 
the neighbourhood, and had already preyed on 
more than one of his family, unless he succeeded 
in getting him killed. He therefore placed a kid 
near to the door of his house to attract the beast, 
intending to shoot him w r hile he was attacking the 
animal. The lion, however, leaped over the kid, 
as if of no value, or not sufficiently dainty to satisfy 
his wishes, and then walked deliberately into the 
house. The man, however, had taken higher 
views ; he had climbed up outside, and was wait¬ 
ing with his loaded gun on the roof, and on the 
beast w'alking out of the house he aimed his gun 
w T ell and shot him dead on the spot, thankful, no 
doubt, at having saved himself and his kid.” 
