There he was—the African king of beasts—not twenty yards away—crouched, swishing his tail on the grass, and preparing for a spring.
Harry stood spellbound.
Then he tried to raise his rifle.
“No, you don’t,” the lion must have thought. For at that very moment he sprang, and next Harry was down under him.
He remembered a confused shout, and the sharp ring of a rifle. Then all was a mist of oblivion till he found himself lying near the camp-fire, with Jack kneeling by his side holding his arm.
“I’m not hurt, am I?” said Harry.
“Oh, massa, you am dun killed completely,” sobbed little Raggy. “All de blood in you body hab run out. You quite killed. You not lib. What den will poor Raggy do?”
It was not so bad as Raggy made out, however. But Harry’s wounds were dreadful enough, back and shoulder lacerated and arm bitten through.
Harry had made it a point all the journey since leaving the hill he called Mount Andrew to camp each night on the same place Mahmoud had left days before, and to build the fire in the self-same spot, and on departing in the morning to leave nothing behind that could tell the Arab’s sharp-eyed Somalis the ground had been used.
It was well he had taken this precaution, for now he was wounded and ill, and must remain near this place for weeks at least.