At ten, Charlie heard the moaning roar of lions not far away. Shortly after followed the sharp, dissonant yells of the Mashonas from their hut, fifty yards distant. Lions were abroad, plainly. Thirlmere opened the hut door and fired a couple of cartridges, by way of scaring off the night prowlers. Then he lay down on his skin couch, pulled his blanket over him, and dozed off.
How soon afterwards it was he could never tell, but he was awakened in the black darkness by hearing some noise at the door of the hut. He picked up his loaded carbine, and went softly that way. Gently lifting the latch, he opened the door and peered out. Almost in the same instant, his left hand, which was thrust a little forward, was seized in the jaws of some savage creature, armed with frightful teeth. With a yell that leapt from rock to rock of the quiet valley, and seemed to split the very darkness, the unfortunate man lifted his carbine and belaboured the brute that held him fast, fiercely about the head. But the lion—for such it was—held on grimly, chewing, and crunching, and tugging hard at the hand now gripped so ruthlessly in those ferocious jaws. During this frightful struggle Thirlmere felt, curiously enough, little of actual physical pain. He was conscious of some sudden shock, just such as he remembered from a heavy fall in hunting; but, chiefly, his mind was concentrated in a determination to free himself at all hazards from his captor. He ceased hitting the brute with his carbine, and instinctively poked at the lion’s head with the muzzle end. Suddenly he encountered something soft. It was the brute’s eye. His forefinger slipped from the trigger-guard to the trigger itself and pulled. The bullet crashed deep into the lion’s brain, and upon the instant the fierce creature fell dead at his feet, dragging him to earth in its fall. Then his mind reeled into unconsciousness and he remembered no more.
Three minutes later, John Brightling, who had started from his bed of fever at the sound of Charlie’s yell and the report of the rifle, had lit a lantern, and was outside. He could scarcely believe his senses when he found, just beyond the doorway, the body of the dead lion, with his comrade’s senseless form lying across the grim beast’s forelegs, his left hand still imprisoned in that terrible grip.
Rousing the trembling natives from the adjacent hut, John, after some trouble, succeeded in prising open the huge teeth, forcing the jaws apart, and releasing the mangled hand—or rather, what remained of it. For the lion had bitten three parts of that member from the rest of the limb. They got Thirlmere into the hut; and then, while he lay still insensible, Brightling tied a ligature tightly round the wrist, trimmed off the ghastly wound, washed the poor maimed stump, and wrapped it in linen. Then he administered a stiff dose of brandy and water, and Thirlmere presently began to come round. In a little while he had pulled himself together wonderfully, and they discussed the situation. It would take two days at least to get the doctor from Salisbury; and they had no carbolic, meanwhile, to keep the wound sweet. What was to be done? A pot of liquid pitch stood in one corner of the hut. Into that they inserted the still bleeding stump, and bound up the wound again. It seemed the only thing to be done, rude and barbarous as was the precaution. At the first streak of dawn they despatched the fleetest among their native boys, with an urgent letter to Salisbury for help. Fired by the promise of two sovereigns on his return, the man set off at a steady jog-trot, vowing he would be in at the township that evening. By eleven o’clock next day Brightling was down again in a hot fit of malaria, while Charlie Thirlmere lay in his corner, feeling the fever of his wound coursing through his veins and mounting to his brain. Presently he wandered in a delirium; strange shapes and scenes passed before his distempered mind; his tongue rambled. He called incessantly for Sybil. So the two men lay: the hours passing on leaden wings.
And Sybil herself was near. For a month or two after her husband’s departure for Africa, she had led pretty much her old whirling life of pleasure and excitement. Then things began to pall a little, and she took breath and thought. After all, without Charlie, life seemed somehow different. She missed him in a thousand ways. Even Cecil Cloudesley began to seem empty and inane, and, after all, horseflesh and the society of smart people have their limitations. By the time Goodwood was reached Sybil had made up her mind. She had been chiefly to blame; she would try and do something for dear old Charlie, grinding in the hot sun, in some horribly uninteresting place, out there in Rhodesia. She sold off her ponies, gave up the flat, went down to her mother’s, and announced that she and her child had come to stay for six months. The stay resolved itself into much more than that period. A year and more went by; Sybil wrote often to Charlie, but, during his long absence towards the Zambesi, very few letters of his reached her. She became more and more uneasy, and presently, hearing at last that he had settled for a time near Salisbury, she determined to go out to him. Persuading her brother to accompany her, the pair sailed for Cape Town, trained thence to Mafeking (the then limit of the railway), and made their way by road to Salisbury. As fortune willed it, they reached that place early in December, and made preparations to take Charlie Thirlmere by storm. Their Cape cart and a buggy were loaded up with a supply of good things, and they were to start at daybreak next morning. Late that evening the Salisbury doctor came round to their hotel with a grave face. He had had serious news of Thirlmere by a native runner; an accident had happened; could he accompany them early next morning?
The matter was urgent; they set off with four horses in each trap, two hours before sun-up, and, travelling rapidly, reached Charlie Thirlmere’s hut soon after three o’clock. Right or wrong, Sybil could not, would not, be gainsaid. She slipped down, ran to the hut, and, standing at the open door, looked at her husband lying there, drawn, pale, and dishevelled, in the corner. All her heart leaped out to him. He was conscious, and knew her.
“Sybil!” he cried feebly. “Where in God’s name have you sprung from?”
“My darling old boy,” she returned, kneeling at his side, and kissing him tenderly, “it is I, surely enough, come to nurse you and get you well, and,” (she whispered in his ear) “never to let you go again, my husband.”
She kissed him again and again, and then the doctor came forward. It was a very near thing. Another dozen hours or so, and mortification would have set in. They amputated above the wrist, and, after a most anxious and most miserable time, pulled Charlie Thirlmere through towards Christmas. He lost his left hand, it is true; but, as he always says, it was cheap at the price of his subsequent happiness.