A few minutes later the saises, posted like sentinels high on the hills that flanked the swamp, saw the lion again and galloped down to head it off. It left the swamp and continued on down the rush-lined banks of a stream, zigzagging its way back and forth. After a pursuit of a couple of miles it was cornered in a small patch of reeds. Further retreat was impossible and it knew that it had to fight.
The moving-picture machine was set up on one side and I was detailed to guard that side. If the lion came out it was to be allowed to charge a certain distance, within forty feet, before I was to fire. If it didn't charge at us, but attempted to escape, it was to be allowed to run across the strip of open ground in front of the camera before I was to shoot.
Stephenson took his place on the other bank, twenty-five or thirty yards from the edge of the reeds. Then the beaters were told to advance, and they moved forward, throwing rocks and sticks into the reeds ahead of them. The lion appeared on Stephenson's side. Like a flash it sprang out. He fired and the lion stopped momentarily under the impact of a heavy ball. Then it sprang a few yards onward, when a second shot laid it out. The last shot was fired at less than twenty yards.
The moving-picture machine recorded the thrilling scene and there was an hour of great rejoicing and jubilation. The animal was an old lioness and the first shot had torn her lower jaw away and had gone into the shoulder. It is amazing that she was not instantly killed—but that's a way lions have. They never know when to quit.
CHAPTER XX
ABDULLAH THE COOK AND SOME INTERESTING GASTRONOMICAL EXPERIENCES. THIRTEEN TRIBES REPRESENTED IN THE SAFARI. ABDI'S STORY OF HIS UNCLE AND THE LIONS
Our cook was a dark-complexioned man between whom and the ace of spades there was considerable rivalry. He was of that deadly night shade. He was the darkest spot on the Dark Continent. After dark he blended in with the night so that you couldn't tell which was cook and which was night.
His name was Abdullah, his nature was mild and gentle, and his skill in his own particular sphere of action was worthy of honorable mention by all refined eaters. He was about fifty or sixty years of age, five feet tall, with a smile varying from four to six inches from tip to tip. It was a smile that came often, and when really unfurled to its greatest width it gave the pleasing effect of a dark face ambushed behind a row of white tombstones.
When Abdullah joined our safari it was freely predicted that he would do well for the first month or so, after which he would fade away to rank mediocrity; but, strangely enough, he became better and better as time went on, and during our last two weeks was springing culinary coups that excited intense interest on our part. He had a way of assembling a few odds and ends together that finally merged into a rice pudding par excellence, while his hot cakes were so good that we spoke of them in rapt, reverential whispers. There wasn't a twinge of indigestion in a "three by six" stack of them, and when flooded with a crown of liquid honey they made one think of paradise and angels' choruses.