A TALE OF THREE LIONS
Page: 29

to her hind-legs, and as she did so I noticed that one of her fore-
paws was broken near the shoulder, for it hung limply down. Up she
went, towering right over Pharaoh's head, as she did so lifting her
uninjured paw to strike him to the earth. And then, before I could get
my rifle round or do anything to avert the oncoming catastrophe, the
Zulu did a very brave and clever thing. Realizing his own imminent
danger, he bounded to one side, and swinging the heavy axe round his
head, brought it down right on to the back of the lioness, severing
the vertebrę and killing her instantaneously. It was wonderful to see
her collapse all in a heap like an empty sack.

"'My word, Pharaoh!' I said, 'that was well done, and none too soon.'

"'Yes,' he answered, with a little laugh, 'it was a good stroke,
Inkoos. Jim-Jim will sleep better now.'

"Then, calling Harry to us, we examined the lioness. She was old, if
one might judge from her worn teeth, and not very large, but thickly
made, and must have possessed extraordinary vitality to have lived so
long, shot as she was; for, in addition to her broken shoulder, my
express bullet had blown a great hole in her middle that one might
have put a fist into.

"Well, that is the story of the death of poor Jim-Jim and how we
avenged it. It is rather interesting in its way, because of the fight
between the two lions, of which I never saw the like in all my
experience, and I know something of lions and their manners."



"And how did you get back to Pilgrim's Rest?" I asked Hunter
Quatermain when he had finished his yarn.

"Ah, we had a nice job with that," he answered. "The second sick ox
died, and so did another, and we had to get on as best we could with
three harnessed unicorn fashion, while we pushed behind. We did about
four miles a day, and it took us nearly a month, during the last week
of which we pretty well starved."

"I notice," I said, "that most of your trips ended in disaster of some
sort or another, and yet you went on making them, which strikes one as
a little strange."

"Yes, I dare say: but then, remember I got my living for many years