"Said I not that the weeds grow almost visibly, O Strongarm?" Gontze, to whom the remark was addressed, returned. "The lion gorged himself two suns ago, and still lies sleeping. The grass has covered his spoor."
Paul Armstrong nodded, and stepped aside to confer with his chum.
They were both anxious to obtain the two golden tusks that the chief had promised them, and they wanted to make sure of the man-eater at the first shot, if possible. If they allowed him to escape from his lair, it might be days before they could entice him within firing distance again.
However, their plan of campaign was soon formed, and they returned to the place where they had left Gontze, to find that the chief, with most of his retainers, had drawn off and left them to their own devices, a fact for which they were duly thankful. Three of the Selekes had been left behind—Gontze and two other men, who had evidently been picked for their strength, to judge by their gigantic stature.
"I am going to walk up to the lair and entice the beast out," Paul said calmly. "My friend will be seated up in a tree, and will pop off Mr. Man-eater as he passes. You three had better be up in the trees, too; only don't stick those assegais into me by accident, please."
The Seleke listened in amazement to this proposition.
"But the white man is surely mad!" he broke out, in dismay, so soon as he could speak. "It is sure death to walk up to the lair!"
"It will take a lively lion to catch me, in this maze of trees," Paul answered carelessly. "You'd better hurry up, I think, or the lion might take a fancy to come out before we are ready."
Jack Percival was already settling himself, with a grimly determined air, in the tree that Paul had indicated, and at a word from Gontze, who still shook his head dismally, the two natives followed suit, clambering into a tree on the opposite side of the glade, and holding their assegais ready for instant use.
Waving his hand to Jack, Paul gripped his rifle firmly, and stepped carefully through the tangle of weeds that carpeted the kloof. Before he had gone far he came suddenly upon a cavernous opening in the clay bank, around the mouth of which hundreds of bones were strewn, picked to an ivory whiteness by the voracious driver-ants, which swarmed in hordes, like poor relations, about the entrance to the great beast's den.