44 
ON SAFARI 
lion could still be lying in so small a bush without my 
seeing it. They must, I thought, have slipped away 
unobserved, and I was walking on almost carelessly 
until within ten yards of the right-hand bush, when 
Elmi suddenly seized my arm, pointing the rifle he 
carried into the base of the bush, and hissed, “ See ! see ! 
the lion ! Shoot—him spring ! ” Once more I-must admit 
that I could see nothing. Strain my eyes as I would, 
I could distinguish nothing like a lion in that bush— 
nothing beyond a very small patch of monotone in the 
further corner. Yet Elmi was so positive, and the bush 
so small and so near, that I decided, rather recklessly— 
and perhaps from some sense of shame that a black man 
should be so superior in eyesight—to fire. There was 
no mistaking the response—a growl more savage than 
ever I had heard in my life before. I also saw, through 
the thick smoke from the Paradox, the electric con¬ 
vulsion with which the beast pulled itself together for a 
spring. That movement disclosed the position of the 
head and shoulder, and before there was any time for 
mischief I got the second bullet well in behind the 
shoulder. That knocked out any idea of fight, and the 
beast, still growling but mortally sick, crawled out 
beyond. I now saw it was a lioness^ Elmi handed me 
the *450, and a third bullet, raking forward from the 
stern, stretched her among the grass. My first ball was 
in the ribs amidships, the second high on shoulder. 
While rushing forward to examine the beast, and in 
the excitement of the moment utterly forgetting the 
second lion in the other bush, now behind us, 1 was 
promptly reminded by shouts and two rapidly-fired 
shots in that direction. Turning round, I was just in 
time to see this second beast, also a lioness, bound out, a 
yellow streak, from the thick covert, growling as the first 
had done. On seeing me she stopped dead, standing 
with head erect among the green rushes by the lake-shore, 
and looking over her shoulder towards us. I remember 
seeing her white teeth as she commenced another growl 
—she was only twenty yards away—but that movement 
