"I don't know; but I think that those are lion cubs—they look like the ones I've seen in the Bronx Zoo," was the young reporter's reply, "and if they are, this is no place for us. Come on—the storm is letting up. Let's get out quick before the old ones get back."
The storm, with the suddenness with which these furious tropical disturbances arise and vanish, had indeed gone and the sun was shining down once more on the drenched jungle, which glittered with diamond like spangles as the rays struck the dripping fronds and branches. But the boys had no eyes for the scene about them, beautiful as it was, for as they emerged from the cave a low growl greeted them.
Crouched on the ground—her tail lashing the earth like a cat's when it is about to spring—was a huge tawny lioness—her cruel green eyes fixed full upon them.
CHAPTER XV
THE FLYING MEN
For a breath the boys stood petrified and then Billy hastily slipped a cartridge into the rifle he had taken from the dead slave-trader. But even as he did so the lioness curved her lithe body, as if her backbone had been a steel spring, and launched her great form through the air.
That minute would have been Billy's last—for in his excitement he pulled the trigger before he had brought the rifle to his shoulder and the bullet whistled harmlessly into the air—but for a strange thing that now occurred.
While the tawny brute was in mid-spring, her cruel claws outspread to maul the unhappy reporter, a great spear whizzed straight at her and buried itself in her heart just behind the left shoulder. With a howl of pain the brute fell short in her spring and, before she could make another attack, Billy had reloaded and sent a bullet crashing between her eyes. As the lioness rolled over dead, the tall form of a. savage sprung out of the jungle and stood for a second gazing at the boys, as much astonished, it seemed, at them as they were at him.
Billy, seeing that the best plan was to be pacific, threw down his rifle and cried: