exciting, work, for I never was sure from one moment to another but that
he would be on me. I took comfort, however, from the reflection that a
lion rarely attacks a man--rarely, I say; sometimes he does, as you will
see--unless he is cornered or wounded. I must have been nearly an hour
hunting after that lion. Once I thought I saw something move in a clump
of tambouki grass, but I could not be sure, and when I trod out the
grass I could not find him.

"At last I worked up to the head of the kloof, which made a cul-de-sac.
It was formed of a wall of rock about fifty feet high. Down this rock
trickled a little waterfall, and in front of it, some seventy feet from
its face, rose a great piled-up mass of boulders, in the crevices and on
the top of which grew ferns, grasses, and stunted bushes. This mass was
about twenty-five feet high. The sides of the kloof here were also very
steep. Well, I came to the top of the nullah and looked all round. No
signs of the lion. Evidently I had either overlooked him further down
or he had escaped right away. It was very vexatious; but still three
lions were not a bad bag for one gun before dinner, and I was fain to be
content. Accordingly I departed back again, making my way round the
isolated pillar of boulders, beginning to feel, as I did so, that I was
pretty well done up with excitement and fatigue, and should be more so
before I had skinned those three lions. When I had got, as nearly as I
could judge, about eighteen yards past the pillar or mass of boulders, I
turned to have another look round. I have a pretty sharp eye, but I
could see nothing at all.

"Then, on a sudden, I saw something sufficiently alarming. On the top
of the mass of boulders, opposite to me, standing out clear against the
rock beyond, was the huge black-maned lion. He had been crouching
there, and now arose as though by magic. There he stood lashing his