"The lion surely is there!" they whispered. "We do not see him, but he sees him! How he watches his least motion! How resolute he is! He will not allow himself to be surprised——"
Suddenly the Sicilian leaps; with a bound he has crossed from one palm-tree to another, and, with a second spring, has climbed half-way up the tree, still holding his massive club in one hand. One understands by his movements that the lion has followed him, and, crouched and angry, stops at the foot of the tree. The Sicilian, leaning over, notes the slightest change of posture; then, like a flash of light, he leaps to the ground behind the trunk of the tree; the terrible club makes a whistling sound as it swings through the air, and the lion falls to the ground.
The scene was so well played that the wildest applause came from all parts of the audience.
Then the interpreter came in, and, throwing at the feet of the Hercules a magnificent lion's skin, cried:
"Behold the skin of the lion that the Christian killed in the country of Damascus."
The fame of the Sicilian reached the ears of the Bey of Tunis. But the royal dignity of the Bey, the reigning prince of that country, would not allow him to be present at exhibitions given to the common people. Finally, however, having heard so much about the handsome and strong Sicilian, he became curious to see him, and said:
"If this Christian has killed one lion with a club, he can kill another. Tell him that if he will knock down my grand lion with it, I will give him a thousand ducats"—quite a large sum in those days, a ducat being about equal to the American dollar.
At this time the Bey had several young lions that ran freely about in the court-yard or garden of his palace, and in a great pit, entirely surrounded by a high terrace, on a level with the ground-floor of the palace, a superb Atlas lion was kept in royal captivity. It was this lion that the Bey wished the Sicilian to combat. The proposition was sent to the Sicilian, who accepted it without hesitation, and without boasting what he would do.
The combat was to take place a week from that time, and the announcement that the handsome Sicilian was to fight a duel with the grand lion was spread far and wide, even to the borders of the desert, producing a profound sensation. Everybody, old and young, great and small, desired to be present; moreover, the people would be freely admitted to the garden of the Bey, where they could witness the combat from the top of the terrace. The duel was to be early in the morning, before the heat of the day.
During the week that intervened, the Sicilian performed every day in the show, instead of two days a week, as had been his custom. Never was he more calm, graceful and fascinating in his performances. The evening before the eventful day, he repeated in pantomime his victory over the lion near Damascus, with so much elegance, precision and suppleness as to elicit round after round of enthusiastic cheers. Of course everybody who had seen him play killing a lion was wild with curiosity to see him actually fight with a real lion.