There are some who aver that if he has once tasted human flesh he will for ever disdain any other.
With great bewilderment of mind—like one in a dream that is full of nightmare—I beheld a great and dark-skinned lion, with an enormous dusky mane, run out of the wood about a hundred yards off, and, after looking about, he came straight towards me, for by some strange instinct he became sensible of my vicinity in a moment. In his mouth he bore a zebra (about the size of a Shetland pony), which he grasped by its crushed back, and the legs of which were trailing on the ground as he bore it along, with all the air and all the ease of a cat carrying off a large rat.
On beholding me he dropped his prey, which was quite dead, and after uttering another hoarse roar, continued to approach, with his nose close to the ground, while switching his tufted tail and shaking his shaggy mane, preparatory, as I imagined, to making a spring upon me; then I closed my eyes, and with a heart that died within me, resigned myself to my fate.
Onward he came, step by step, for I could hear his footfalls on the ground!
Onward yet, and now every pulse seemed to stand still!
Then a warm and fetid breath played upon my face, I felt his whiskers touch my breast, and there was a strange snuffing sound in my tingling ears.
Opening my eyes, I beheld close to mine the tremendous visage of the lion, the enormous upper lip, in form so suggestive of cruelty and rapacity, and all studded with wiry hairs, bristling out fiercely on either side; the low flat forehead and impending brows; the wild orbs that seemed to glare from amid the masses of his tangled mane; the open jaws and sharp teeth, reeking and steaming with the warm blood of the zebra he had just slain!
After deliberately snuffing at me in this manner for a second or so—a time which seemed an eternity, so much agony of thought and tension of the heart were compressed within it, he quietly turned about, took his dead zebra, as if he deemed it the most preferable supper of the two, trotted into the wood and disappeared.
The agonies of a lifetime seemed concentrated into that minute!
All I had endured now proved too much for me. A sudden insensibility sank like a cloud over all my senses, and a sleep—the sleep of utter prostration of mind and body, fell upon me. Thus, the noon of the next day was far advanced before I became again conscious, or aware of my miserable existence.