191 
CH. vm] A CHARGING LION 
lungs and the big bloodvessels of the heart. Painfully 
he recovered his feet, and tried to come on, his ferocious 
courage holding out to the last; but he staggered, and 
turned from side to side, unable to stand firmly, still 
less to advance at a faster pace than a walk. He had 
not ten seconds to live, but it is a sound principle to 
take no chances with lions. Tarlton hit him with his 
second bullet, probably in the shoulder, and with my 
next shot I broke his neck. I had stopped him when 
he was still a hundred yards away, and certainly no 
finer sight could be imagined than that of this great 
maned lion as he charged. Kermit gleefully joined us 
as we walked up to the body ; only one of our followers 
had been able to keep up with him on his two-miles 
run. He had had a fine view of the charge, from one 
side, as he ran up, still three hundred yards distant; he 
could see all the muscles play as the lion galloped in, 
and then everything relax as he fell to the shock of my 
bullet. 
The lion was a big old male, still in his prime. 
Between uprights his length was nine feet four inches, 
and his weight four hundred and ten pounds, for he was 
not fat. We skinned him and started for camp, which 
we reached after dark. There was a thunderstorm in 
the south-west, and in the red sunset that burned behind 
us the rain-clouds turned to many gorgeous hues. Then 
daylight failed, the clouds cleared, and, as we made our 
way across the formless plain, the half moon hung high 
overhead, strange stars shone in the brilliant heavens, 
and the Southern Cross lay radiant above the sky-line. 
Our next camp was pitched on a stony plain, by a 
winding stream-bed still containing an occasional rush- 
fringed pool of muddy water, fouled by the herds and 
flocks of the numerous Masai. Game was plentiful 
