All this time, but without ever taking my eyes off the lion, I was noiselessly moving the muzzle of my little rifle from the right-hand side opening to the space that commanded a view of his head. This I was obliged to do very cautiously, for fear of touching a branch behind me and making a noise. I could see the black crest of mane between his ears move lightly in the wind, for he was so near that had I held my rifle by the small of the stock I could have touched him with the muzzle by holding it at arm’s length. Once only he turned his head and looked round right into my eyes, but of course without seeing me, as I was in the dark, and apparently without taking the slightest alarm, as he again turned his head and stood looking at the waggon as before. I could only see his head, his shoulder being hidden by the right-hand stem of the tree, and I had made up my mind to try and blow his brains out, thinking I was so near that I could not fail to do so even without being able to see the sight of my rifle. I had just got the muzzle of my rifle into the fork of the tree, and was about to raise it quite leisurely, the lion having hitherto showed no signs of uneasiness. I was working as cautiously as possible, when without the slightest warning he suddenly gave a low grating growl, and turned round, his head disappearing instantly from view. With a jerk, I pulled the muzzle of my rifle from the one opening and pushed it through the other, just as the lion walked rapidly past in the direction from which he had come. He was not more than four or five yards from me, and I should certainly have given him a mortal wound, had not my rifle missed fire at this most critical juncture, the hammer giving a loud click in the stillness of the night. At the sound the lion broke into a gallop, and was almost instantly out of sight.
For a moment I was almost paralysed by the magnitude of the misfortune that had befallen me. That a magnificent black-maned lion should have been within six feet of the muzzle of my rifle, and should yet have escaped, owing to a miss-fire, seemed the very irony of fate. I could scarcely believe that the whole scene was not an illusion or a vivid dream; but when I called out in Dutch, ‘Myn Gott, John, myn roer het dopje afgeklap’ (‘My God, John, my gun has missed fire’), and heard him answer, ‘Ik hor em, Sir’ (‘I heard it, Sir’), then I knew that I had really experienced a most extraordinary piece of ill-luck. It was not yet half-past eight, and the first thing I did was to go up to Dr. Edgelow’s hut, and take my rifle to pieces. The cap had been untouched by the striker, and I thought at first that the point of the latter was broken, but I found it in perfect order. Finally I discovered that the miss-fire was owing to the safety-bolt having got so loose that it must have shifted up a little when I jerked the rifle rapidly from one opening to another, and thus prevented the striker from coming down on the cap. After fixing the safety-bolt down to full cock I went to my waggon. I felt sure the lion would not now return, if he came back at all, till just before daybreak, when the moon would have set and it would be very dark.
I was so upset and exasperated by the cruel experience I had met with that I could not lie still or sleep, and so spent the greater part of the night in walking about round my waggon. At last the moon went down, and I then turned in and lay listening, hoping to hear the lion at the carcase, but he did not return, and presently, just as the day was breaking, John brought me the usual early cup of coffee. As I had not slept at all, I told him to see if he could follow the lion’s spoor and see in which direction he had gone, and then tried to doze a bit. Presently I got up, when John came up with a broad grin on his face, and said, ‘Sir, after the lion went off when your rifle missed fire, he went up to Mr. Johnson’s kraal and killed a lot of sheep and goats. One of these he ate in the kraal, and he has taken another away with him. I can see the spoor plainly where he has dragged it along towards the little stream running below Hartley Hills.’
I felt there was yet a chance, and a good one, of retrieving my evil fortune of the previous evening, and at once had my horse saddled up. The spoor of the lion himself was easy enough to follow in the soft ground at the foot of the hill, and the tracking was made all the easier by the fact that he had dragged the goat alongside of him, holding it, I suppose, by the back of the neck, and trailing its hind-quarters on the ground. In less than five minutes after I had put the saddle on my horse we were down at the little stream across which we had followed the lion on the preceding day. Here the ground became stony, and we lost the spoor. John was looking about near the edge of the shallow water, and I had turned my horse’s head to look along the bank higher up, when the unmistakable growl of a lion issued from the bushes beyond the rivulet, and at the same time John said ‘Daar’s hij’ (‘There he is’). I was off my horse in an instant to be ready for a shot, when he turned round and trotted away, and John ran to try and catch him. I thought the luck was all against me, as I expected the lion would make off and get clean away; but I ran forward, trying to get a sight of him, when he suddenly made his appearance in the bush about fifty yards away, and catching sight of me, came straight towards me at a rapid pace, holding his head low and growling savagely. I suppose he wanted to frighten me, but he could not have done a kinder thing. He came right on to the further bank of the little stream just where it formed a pool of water, and stood there amongst some rocks growling and whisking his tail about, and always keeping his eyes fixed upon me. Of course he gave me a splendid shot, and in another instant I hit him, between the neck and the shoulder in the side of his chest, with a 360-grain expanding bullet. As I pulled the trigger I felt pretty sure he was mine. With a loud roar he reared right up, and coming over sideways fell off the rock on which he had been standing into the pool of water below him. The water was over three feet deep, and for an instant he disappeared entirely from view, but the next instant regaining his feet, stood on the bottom with his head and shoulders above the surface. I now came towards him, when again seeing me he came plunging through the water towards me growling angrily. But his strength was fast failing him, and I saw it was all he could do to reach the bank, so I did not fire, as I was anxious not to make holes in his skin. He just managed to get up the bank, when I finished him with a shot through the lungs, to which he instantly succumbed. He proved to be a splendid specimen of a wild lion, an old animal, but in good condition, with an excellent coat and a full, long, and silky black mane.
My best koodoo
This is the largest lion it has yet been my good fortune to kill, and I have given his weight and dimensions in a former part of this chapter. After leaving the carcase of the ox he had killed, which I suppose he considered to be too near to my waggon to be altogether safe, he had gone up to Mr. Johnson’s kraal, and, forcing his way in by separating two of the poles that formed the palisade, had deliberately killed seven sheep, seven goats, and one calf. These poor animals had evidently all huddled into a corner, where they had stood paralysed by terror. I examined all the carcases carefully, and found that every one had been killed by a single bite in the head. In every case the long fang-teeth had been driven deep into the brains, which in several cases protruded from the fractured skulls. One sheep had been eaten in the kraal, and a goat had been dragged away to be devoured at leisure; and the assurance of this lion may be imagined when I say that the spot where he had taken up his quarters for the day was within three hundred yards of the compound on the top of the hill.
CHAPTER XVIII
BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA
By Clive Phillipps-Wolley