ROUND THE CAMP-FIRE.
II.—DENISON'S HALL-MARK.
(Concluded from page [37].)
My brain recovered its power after a moment or two, and I began to reflect, though, I own, my reflections were somewhat interfered with by the rough treatment to which I was being subjected; for the great brute in whose jaws I lay dragged me without ceremony over stones, roots, scrub, hard knife-like grass, and other obstacles. I felt my clothes tear here, there, and everywhere; I was being gradually torn and bumped into a jelly—still, I reflected, where was I being taken to, and why? Why not eaten at once?
The latter question was easily answered. The lion had had his dinner already, or her dinner—it might, of course, be a lioness—I had as yet had no opportunity of seeing the beast; if so, she might be the mother of a family of cubs, and if so again, I might be destined for their dinner, mamma having already dined.
This was a pleasant reflection! I might have to deal with half-a-dozen lions of various sizes, instead of only one large one. There was very little doubt that I was doomed, in any case; yet my brain had never worked more clearly than at this moment, and I employed it as I went bumping along, in trying to devise some means of escape, poor though the prospect might be. My gun was still in my hand, and determined that no amount of rough travelling should cause me to let it go. A moment might come when I should find an opportunity to turn it somehow in the direction of the lion, and I should keep my wits about me mainly to that end.
We had travelled, I suppose, about a quarter of a mile, and I wish I could convey to you fellows the extreme discomfort of it. Can you imagine it? One's head flopping and wobbling and knocking up against whatever happened to be in the way; one's legs following suit; one's body strained, twisted, scratched, bruised, pounded—really, though I see you fellows laughing at this very moment, and should like to kick you for it if I were not too comfortable to move, I would not wish even such ruffians as you two to suffer such torture.
Suddenly the beast laid me down—tired, perhaps, with dragging eleven stone over rough country. She stood over me for a minute as though listening, one paw on my right shoulder, which prevented me from using my arm, which might otherwise have been employed to advantage during this interval.
Then suddenly she lifted up her voice—it was a lioness, I now saw, not a male lion—and set the air vibrating with a series of roars so loud that they might surely, I thought, be heard at Buluwayo, if not at Capetown. Never in my life had the drums of my ears been so ill-treated. For half a minute without a pause she thundered thus.
Well, she ended. The roars became less loud—less frequent—they thinned down into half-moaning noises something like the end of a donkey's bray, and lastly they stopped altogether, or rather faded into growling or purring sounds. Then she released my shoulder and stood a yard or two from me, gazing into the distance—you know how lions at the Zoo look when the whisper has gone round that it is feeding-time, and every lion and tiger begins to stare into the far-away, over the heads of the spectators.