“What do you say to making an hour or two of halt here, Wyzinski?” said Hughes, with his mouth full of venison meat. “It’s a sweet spot, and we could pull gently down the river in the cool of the night.”
“I should like very much to secure some specimens of the strange birds I see here,” replied the missionary, “and the moon rises early.”
“Well, then, take Noti with you, and Masheesh and I will be boat-keepers. I shall have a sleep.”
Taking a short gun, and calling to Noti to fetch his rifle and follow him, Wyzinski strolled away leisurely into the bush, having first taken the bearings of the place by means of a small pocket compass he always carried.
Covering up the remains of the buck with green branches to keep it fresh, Hughes took a good pull at the gourd of water, and then lay down, Masheesh strolling towards the boat. The mosquitos were too troublesome, however, so he rose, joined the Matabele in pushing off the canoe, anchored her by means of a rope and stone, lay down, and was soon fast asleep at the bottom of the boat. Half awake at first, the faint report of Wyzinski’s gun came now and then upon his ear, but at last sleep prevailed. The sun was low, and his beams slanting over the forest-land, when, aroused by Masheesh shaking the branches with which he had covered him, Captain Hughes awoke. It is a peculiarity common to those who lead a life of danger and adventure, that the moment of awakening at once restores all their faculties. They begin, as it were, where they left off. Such was the case in the present instance, for one look at the Matabele’s face at once told Hughes that something was wrong. Carefully raising himself in the light canoe, a glance showed the danger. There, on the beautiful green patch where the party had eaten their meal, three splendid lions were walking to and fro, rolling on the grass, growling and playing, and a lioness with one cub had shown herself and retired previously. It was a splendid sight to watch these magnificent animals at their gambols; but what of Wyzinski, what of Noti, the one armed with a shot gun, the other with a rifle he only half understood, and what was worse, both utterly unconscious of the presence of the owners of the land. Presently one of the old lions stopped for a moment, snuffing like a dog with his nose in the air, and then walking deliberately to the travellers’ impromptu, larder, drew forth the remains of the water-buck. A second at once seized it, the third came up, and a tremendous mêlée ensued, during which the body of the deer was riven into pieces, and lions and carrion seemed rolling about in one heap. Motioning to the Matabele, and with his help gently lifting the anchor clear of the ground, the boat was suffered to drop down the stream, its occupants using their hands as paddles on the off side. By this means it arrived within fifteen paces of the bank, where the lions were now feeding quietly, when the stone was again dropped, and the canoe swung head to stream. They, thinking it to be an alligator, had not taken the slightest notice of the boat, and went on feeding, tearing and riving the flesh, but stopping now and then to growl savagely at each other. Just then, Hughes caught a faint report, and the noise of the shot gun being even at that distance easily distinguished from the sharper crack of the rifle, it told him that the missionary was as yet safe and far away, the report coming to his ears only as a distant echo.
Thinking it better to leave the animals to feed, he and Masheesh watched them. Half an hour passed, the flesh being nearly gone, and a few of the larger bones only remaining. The ducks were sailing about the canoe, the birds gliding here and there; but sunset was approaching, and it became absolutely necessary to get rid of them. Leaning his rifle across the slight gunwale, Hughes took a steady aim. Just in front of him sat a great lion, with the last remnants of the buck’s forequarters flung over his paws, crunching at the bones. The report rang out, startling the whole crew, but whether from nervousness, or from some motion of the boat, he knew not, the shot missed; the startled animals, after gazing for a moment, trotted deliberately off, Hughes firing another barrel after them. One of them turned at the second shot, growling fiercely, then the whole disappeared in the cover, while the ring of the shot gun was heard about a mile away, replying to that from the river. The report came from a direction exactly opposite to that in which the lions had disappeared. A quarter of an hour later the long plaintive cry of the Australian bushranger was heard and replied to, and then Wyzinski made his appearance, breaking his way through the bush, his dress torn, and about thirty different kinds of birds dangling round his waist. To his great surprise, Hughes rushed forward and shook him by the hand.
“Why, what’s the matter?” he asked.
“Matter enough; have you seen any lions?”
“I have not seen anything except these birds, some snakes, and a great many different kinds of monkeys, some of them very large.”