say, how much more is this the case when an animal so active and so
vigorous as the lion is concerned! And now came the further question,
how were we to beguile the lioness to return? Lions are animals that
have a strange knack of appearing when they are not wanted, and
keeping studiously out of the way when their presence is required. Of
course it was possible that if she had found Jim-Jim to her liking she
would come back to see if there were any more of his kind about, but
still it was not to be relied on.

"Harry, who as I have said was an eminently practical boy, suggested
to Pharaoh that he should go and sit outside the skerm in the
moonlight as a sort of bait, assuring him that he would have nothing
to fear, as we should certainly kill the lioness before she killed
him. Pharaoh however, strangely enough, did not seem to take to this
suggestion. Indeed, he walked away, much put out with Harry for having
made it.

"It gave me an idea, however.

"'By Jove!' I said, 'there is the sick ox. He must die sooner or
later, so we may as well utilize him.'

"Now, about thirty yards to the left of our skerm, as one stood facing
down the hill towards the river, was the stump of a tree that had been
destroyed by lightning many years before, standing equidistant
between, but a little in front of, two clumps of bush, which were
severally some fifteen paces from it.

"Here was the very place to tie the ox; and accordingly a little
before sunset the sick animal was led forth by Pharaoh and made fast