"I should think it must taste rather nice—they like it. Besides, one never knows till one tries," remarked her brother. "I want to be a lion!!"
At once the King of Beasts confronted Dulcie. With a shriek she tore away as fast as her small feet could scamper. Then she changed her mind. And as a lioness, full of courage, she rejoined him.
Grand beasts they were as they bounded into the Jungle with a mighty roar. Startled creatures hurried out of their path, and the very landscape appeared insignificant in their presence. Monarchs of all they surveyed! This at last was splendid freedom.
At a river, sparkling like glass in the burning sun, they stopped and slaked their thirst, lapping up the water greedily. Then they turned again into the tangle of vegetation and laid themselves down to rest.
Purring with delight in the hot sunshine, they lazily lashed their tails. The lion was just dozing when he was roused by something heavy and strong winding itself in great coils around his limbs and body. He gave forth a roar half of anger, half of fear. Struggle as he would he could not free himself; it was a huge boa-constrictor that was closing about him like bands of iron, and was just about to crush him to death when the lion disappeared and a little boy in a blue serge suit wriggled away, sobbing out: "Oh, Mother! Dulcie!"
Just then Cyril's eye caught sight of a rifle pointed from a neighbouring tree. To his horror it was aimed straight at the recumbent, lazily-blinking lioness. His heart stood still with terror. He could neither scream nor stir. Quite forgotten was the huge reptile, which had jerked back its head in astonishment at the remarkable disappearance of its quarry, with an undulating movement of surprise in that part of its anatomy which might be termed its neck. But now the creature was quite close to the lad and rearing itself up to strike at him when—crack! crack! crack! Bullets were whizzing all around. Cyril, bewildered, stumbled over the dead body of the reptile and fell to the ground. The next moment he felt Dulcie's hair over his face as she pulled him on to his feet.
"Great snakes!" exclaimed Lord Algy. Captain Waring, who was eagerly peering through the branches of another tree close by, laughed as he rejoined, "Only one, my friend."
"Eh, what? Well I'm—" drawled his lordship, craning his neck and letting his eyeglass drop and dangle—he had stopped short in his sentence, not seeming quite to realise what he was. "By Jove!" he now added, "I certainly thought I hit one of those two fine brutes; most remarkable thing I ever saw in my life."
"Didn't see, you mean, my dear Algy," replied the Captain coolly and not without vexation. "I've seen a dead serpent before. Where have they moved to? that's the question: we shall have to track them again. A dead snake in the grass is not worth two fine lions in the Jungle."
"No, my dear fellow, I don't think so either—I agree with you there—it's quite the contrary, of course," remarked his lordship with a certain amount of energy.