“Baas shoot gun,” she said.
Dyke carefully took out and examined the cartridges in his piece, replaced them, and went forth with the woman, the dog bounding before them, but only to be ordered to heel, growling ominously, as they came in sight of the lioness, crouching in precisely the same position, and beginning now fiercely to show her teeth. Then, as Dyke presented his piece, she made an effort to rise, but sank down again, and dragged herself slowly toward them, snarling savagely.
And now Dyke saw what was wrong. His bullet, which he had fired in the night, had taken terrible effect. The brute had made one bound after being struck, and crashed through the fence, to lie afterwards completely paralysed in the hind-quarters, so that a carefully-directed shot now quite ended her mischievous career, for she uttered one furious snarl, clawing a little with her forepaws, and then rolled over dead, close to the unfortunate cow she had dragged down and torn in the most horrible way.
Tanta ran up and kicked the dead lioness, and then burst out with a torrent of evidently insulting language in her own tongue; after which she went, as if nothing had happened, to where the remaining cow stood lowing impatiently, and proceeded to milk her in the coolest way.
Dyke examined the dead beast, and thought he should like the skin, which was in beautiful condition; but he had plenty of other things to think of, and hurried back to the house, followed by Duke, to see how his brother was.
There was no change: Emson was sleeping; and, reloading his piece, the boy went out once more to see to the ostriches, which seemed in a sorry condition, and as he fed them, he felt as if he would like to set the melancholy-looking creatures free.
“But Joe wouldn’t like it when he gets better,” thought Dyke; and at last he returned to the house to find a pail half full of milk standing at the door, while the smoke rising from behind the building showed that Tanta had lit a fire.
The boy’s spirits rose, for the misery and solitude of his position did not seem so bad now, and on walking round to the front of the shed-like lodge, he found the woman ready to look up laughingly, as she kneaded up some meal for a cake.
“Where did you get that?” cried Dyke.
“Wagon,” said the woman promptly. “Jack get mealie wagon. Jack tief. Tanta Sal get mealie for baas.”