“What is it?” shouted Hume, as he crept out from under the waggon. He caught the lantern and rushed round, just as Webster had slipped another cartridge into his rifle. The uproar was terrific. The oxen bellowed as they strained at their rheims, the lions beyond the fence roared, and from beside the waggon there rose a series of blood-curdling growls and coughs. Both guns flashed out together and the assailant laid stretched out. It was a huge yellow-maned lion, still gasping. The Kaffir drove his assegai into the heaving body, and then both Hume and Webster rushed to the waggon.
“Are you all right?” they cried.
She drew the canvas flap on one side and looked out, with her hair falling forward in heavy coils.
“What was it?” she asked.
“A wounded lion sprang upon the waggon tent.”
“Is anyone hurt?”
“No; but the lion is dead.”
“I thought something dreadful had happened, and fired as much from terror as anything.”
Hume rolled the great body over and examined it.
“Your bullet went home, at any rate, Miss Laura, and you have killed your first lion.”