There was no digging done the next morning, for both we and the rival camp spent all our time wandering about in the forlorn hope of finding poor Strong—wounded, but perhaps still alive—left by the lion, who, we hoped but scarcely believed, might have been terrified by our shouts and by the shots we fired for the purpose of frightening the brute, and have dropped his victim and departed.
James Strong, though frequently within speaking distance of us, neither spoke to us nor looked at us, excepting now and again to scowl fiercely as his way, in the searching, crossed ours. But Clutterbuck spoke to me several times and to Jack also, entreating us, for the love of Heaven, either to provide him with firearms, or to take him at nighttime under our protection. If he had to pass another night unarmed, he said, after this, he should certainly go mad.
We promised, however, to protect the unfortunate fellow, and this soothed him wonderfully.
That night both James Strong and Clutterbuck were encamped close to our fire, between their own and ours, the two fires being built up within ten yards of one another. Strong was too proud to ask for protection as Clutterbuck had, but anyone could see that he was glad and greatly relieved when we came and made our camp near theirs. I was sorry for the fellow, rogue though he was, and thought that it was certainly the least we could do to take him under our wing, since we had deprived him of the means of protecting himself.
As for his brother's death, I do not take any share of responsibility for that misfortune. For, as we learned afterwards from Clutterbuck himself, in all probability no shot would have been fired even if the three men had still been in possession of their rifles.
According to Clutterbuck's narrative, the thing happened something like this: He, Clutterbuck, had been deputed to watch for the first three hours of the night, the two Strongs sleeping meanwhile. But Clutterbuck himself fell asleep, and allowed the fire to languish and almost die out, when of a sudden the roaring of the lion awoke not only him but the Strongs also. Then all three men rushed about, getting brushwood and sticks to make a blaze that would keep the lion at a distance; but while poor Charles Strong was ten yards away in the bush there was a sudden roar and a scuffle, and a shriek for help from him, and that was all that either Clutterbuck or James Strong knew of the matter. Neither of them had seen the lion.
All this Clutterbuck himself told me as we lay awake together on the first night after the mishap, during my watch. The poor fellow, naturally a timid creature, was far too frightened to sleep, and was, I think, grateful for being allowed to talk.
The lion did not come near us, neither did he treat us, even at a distance, to any of those terrible roars which I had found so unmanning. Clutterbuck was even more communicative to Jack when his watch came round; he told Jack many interesting things, and among others this—which I suspect the artful Henderson gradually wormed out of him—that he found himself a companion and partner of the Strongs, whom he disliked, by the stress of circumstances rather than of deliberate choice.
Our suspicions as to the affair near Las Palmas were well founded, said Clutterbuck; for it was the simple truth that the Strongs and he himself set out that day with the deliberate purpose of murdering us. It was James Strong's idea, he declared, and his brother had accepted it readily. He, Clutterbuck, had pretended to do so, but in reality had had no intention of hurting us.
"No, no, Clutterbuck, that won't do!" said Jack at this point of the narrative; "for we counted the shots fired, and there was at least one volley of six shots! You fired with the rest, man; I am not so easily taken in!"