“Yes, I will watch whilst you sleep, then you sleep whilst I watch,” replied the Kaffir addressed as ’Nquane. “We shall shoot elephants to-morrow, I think; and the young chief must be now close to them, that is why he does not return.”
“No: he would return to tell us if he could, I fear he must have lost himself,” replied Tembili.
“The ‘strong’ lose himself,” exclaimed ’Nquane, “no, as soon the vulture lose his way in the air, or the springbok on the plains, or the elephant in the forest, as the strong lose himself any where. He sees without eyes and hears without ears. Hark! is that the lion?”
Both Kaffirs listened attentively for some minutes, when ’Nquane said, “It is the lion moving up the krantz: he smells something or hears something; he must have tasted man’s flesh, to have stopped here so long close to us. What can he hear now? Ah, there is something up high in the bushes, a buck perhaps, the lion will soon feast on it, and that will be the better for us, as when his belly is full he will not want to eat you or me.”
Attentively as the Kaffirs watched the bushes, and listened for some sound indicative of the lion’s position, they yet could hear nothing; so quietly did the creature move, they had almost given up their attention to eating, when a sudden flash of light burst from the bushes on the top of the kloof, followed by a thundering roar which was succeeded by a silence, broken only at intervals by the distant echoes of the report of the gun, which at first had scarcely been audible in the midst of the lion’s roar, for such it proved to be.
As these sounds burst over the camp, each hunter started from his slumber, and stood waiting for some fresh indication of danger, or cause for action; for half a minute no man spoke, but then Bernhard exclaimed—
“That must have been Hans, he must have met the lion in the dark;” and, “Oh, Hans! Hans!” he shouted:
“Here so,” replied a voice from the summit of the kloof; “is that Bernhard?”
“Yes, Hans: are you hurt?”
“No, but the lion is: he is dying in a bush not far off. I don’t like to move, as I can’t see him: could you bring some lighted branches here?”