“Here!” said I, and told him something of what I had gone through; only something. I did not think it necessary to go into details about my terror, nor to tell him I had fainted. I left him to suppose that I had been asleep when he came to camp. He looked at me keenly at this part of my story, remembering, I suppose, his pleasant remarks about women. But I returned his gaze with frank eyes.
“Ah! I heard those shots,” he said at last. “I was about two miles off then, and supposed some one was camping round here, but I could not locate them at all; no sign or smell of fire anywhere; so on finding the river full I camped here, ready to cross the drift the first thing in the morning. I looked into the post-cart, but only casually, for naturally I didn’t expect any one to be in it. I guessed that the driver had locked himself in with the mules—they usually do in such circumstances, but not when there are passengers. Those were not lions, by the way. As soon as I got here I knew by the behaviour of my horse that there had been beasts of some kind about, and when I had made fires I looked for spoor and found traces of about half-a-dozen hyenas. They must have been hungry, too, for they had chewed the mule harness to ribbons.”
He smiled at me gaily, but I felt myself turning pale.
“Hyenas! How horrible! How glad I am I did not know! I’d much rather they had been lions!”
“Thank God they were not,” he said quietly. “I’m afraid your revolver would not have been much use. Hyenas, on the contrary, hardly ever touch a human being, and are easily scared off.”
“But they laugh!” I cried, shuddering, and then sprang to my feet, for the most terrifying noise I had ever heard in my life suddenly split the stillness and rang around us. I have heard lions roar in the Zoo, and that is bad enough; but the cry of a caged lion is a dove-like call compared to the awe-inspiring, mournful, belching, hollow roar of the king of beasts when he makes his presence known to the wide and empty veldt. My companion was on his feet too.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said quietly, “but get into the cart again as quickly as possible.”
I obeyed without the least delay, another roar, closer at hand, considerably accelerating my steps. In a moment I was back in my old place on the floor; and he was swiftly untethering the horse from the back of the cart, to fasten it in front, more fully in the glare of the fires. Then he stepped into the driver’s place, and half-sitting, half-stooping, laid his rifle across the splash-board, right over the horse’s head. We waited.
“Don’t make a sound,” he said over his shoulder. There was no alarm in his voice, but rather a kind of gay elation, and my fear immediately died away. I began to watch and listen with interest for what was to happen next. There were no more roars, only an ominous stillness, that was broken presently by the restless moving and shuddering of the horse. The poor beast began to try to break loose and get away, but its master leaning forward, spoke to it in a soothing gentle voice, and the terrified creature was presently quiet, except for an occasional shudder that it could not control.
Silence again for a time that seemed hours, then at last the click of a broken twig that sounded to my straining ears like a pistol shot. There was just the faintest suspicion of a rustling of leaves. An instant later something in my companion’s intent gaze and attitude told me that the psychological moment had come. He could see something, and was taking aim. I glanced at the dim, shadowy mass of foliage towards which his rifle pointed, and for one moment saw nothing. Then something huge and pale and massive came bounding high in the air out of the shadows, and the horse cried out like a human being. The Martini-Henry cracked twice and a blinding flash of gunpowder filled the air. Later I heard my friend’s voice speaking to his leaping horse and as the smoke died away my dazed eyes saw lying stretched between the fires something that had not been there before. The only sounds to be heard were the creaking of the cart caused by the shudderings of the horse, and the chattering of my teeth. I don’t know which was the louder. But I know that I crouched beside the man’s knee and was grateful and glad for one of his strong brown hands on mine, and his crakey, thrilly voice saying close to my ear: