"Don't know, and don't care, for he's better off than we are. Good night."
"Good night, old chap; and it was awfully good of you to turn back."
Snore! Venning yawned, and in five minutes they were both asleep in the forest, without so much as a twig to cover them. But they were not altogether unprotected, for when they rubbed the sleep out of their eyes in the morning, they found the jackal curled up at their feet, with one ear cocked and one eye open. But a very different jackal he was from the graceful animal they knew so well. His body was distended to enormous proportions, and it was clear how his absence was to be accounted for. While they had stood in the dark, expecting every moment to be pounced upon, he had been gorging on the dead leopard. They now looked at their foe of the night, and found why it was that it had left them uninjured. There were three wounds on the body—the bullet-hole in the forehead, a fleshy wound on the hind leg, and a hit on the spine, which had disabled it just as it was in the act of springing down upon the roof.
"It's your bag," said Compton. "To think that we stood shivering and shaking for two mortal hours, while all the time the beggar was helpless!"
Venning did not echo the complaint; he was too much occupied examining his prize, and taking exact measurements with a tape, which he entered in his log' book, together with a description of the markings.
"It's a new species," he said, with the pride of an explorer who discovers a new mountain. "I will call it a tree-lion—leo arboriensis Venningii—that is, if you don't wish it called after you."
"Call it anything you like, old fellow; but I should say it was just an ordinary leopard."
"You never saw a leopard with those markings."
"And no one ever saw a climbing lion."
"It has adapted itself to changed conditions. The markings match the colouring of the branches, and there has been a change in the formation of the claws"—holding up a huge paw—"while the forearm is a little curved, and the skin between the elbow and the body bears a resemblance in its growth to that found on the so-called 'flying-squirrel.'"