I seized my rifle and sprang to my feet, as wide awake as ever I was in my life, and there I saw, not six paces off, a creature with glaring eyes; not a lion, however, but looking unusually large as it emerged from the darkness into the light of the fire.
It crouched as if for a spring; at the same moment I heard Hans shriek out. For an instant I glanced round, and caught an indistinct sight of another big cat-like creature stealing towards the rear of the camp.
“You and Jan must look out after that brute, and we’ll attend to this one,” I shouted.
As I spoke, the leopard, for such it was, notwithstanding our cries,—Harry, I should have said, had begun to bawl away as loudly as I was doing,—made a furious spring towards him; but though he was shouting lustily, he remained as cool as a cucumber, holding his rifle ready.
We fired, and both our balls took effect, when the leopard literally turned, with its feet uppermost, and fell right down into the centre of the fire, where it lay struggling convulsively, utterly unable to rise. Directly afterwards I heard the report of a pistol, and, while hastily reloading, I saw that Hans had shot the other leopard through the head.
As we did not wish to lose the skin of the one we had shot, Harry again firing gave it its quietus; we then seizing it by its hind legs dragged it out of the fire, and Jan’s knife soon finished the other.
We thus gained two magnificent leopards’ skins: the fire had but slightly injured the one we had killed.
“There is some use in keeping watch at night, Hans,” observed Harry; “what would have become of us if I had not been awake? Those brutes would have been in our midst before we were able to lift a hand in our defence. As it was, I caught sight of only one of them stealing towards us, and had barely time to rouse up the rest of you, so that if Fred hadn’t been very quick, the brute would have been down upon us.”
“All right,” answered Hans, “such a thing is not likely to happen a second time in a night, so I suppose we may now go to sleep in quiet.”
“I don’t suppose anything of the sort,” replied Harry; “there are no end of lions and leopards prowling about, and you would have heard them if you hadn’t snored so loudly. It will be your turn to keep watch, and I intend to rouse you up in half an hour.”