72 
LION-HUNTING 
[CH. Ill 
waited, uncertain whether we should see the lions 
charging out ten yards distant or running away. 
Fortunately, they adopted the latter course. Right 
in front of me, thirty yards off, there appeared 
from behind the bushes which had first screened him 
from my eyes, the tawny, galloping form of a big mane¬ 
less lion. Crack ! the Winchester spoke ; and as the 
soft-nosed bullet ploughed forward through his flank 
the lion swerved so that I missed him with the second 
shot ; but my third bullet went through the spine and 
forward into his chest. Down he came, sixty yards off, 
his hind-quarters dragging, his head up, his ears back, 
his jaws open, and lips drawn up in a prodigious snarl, 
as he endeavoured to turn to face us. His back was 
broken ; but of this we could not at the moment be 
sure; and if it had merely been grazed, he might have 
recovered, and then, even though dying, his charge 
might have done mischief. So Kermit, Sir Alfred, and 
I fired, almost together, into his chest. His head sank, 
and he died. 
This lion had come out on the left of the bushes ; the 
other, to the right of them, had not been hit, and we 
saw him galloping off across the plain, six or eight 
hundred yards away. A couple more shots missed, 
and we mounted our horses to try to ride him down. 
The plain sloped gently upward for three-quarters of a 
mile to a low crest or divide, and long before we got 
near him he disappeared over this. Sir Alfred and 
Kermit w^ere tearing along in front and to the right, 
with Miss Pease close behind, while Tranquillity carried 
me as fast as he could on the left, with Medlicott near 
me. On topping the divide Sir Alfred and Kermit 
missed the lion, which had swung to the left, and they 
raced ahead too far to the right. Medlicott and I, how- 
