The two boys were squatting on the ground to my right.
Presently a louder rustling in the grass, within forty yards in my
front, was followed by the head and shoulders of a large lioness, who
apparently saw the two boys, and with her brilliant eyes fixed, she
advanced slowly towards them.
Not wishing to allow a closer acquaintance, I aimed at her chest, and
fired the "Dutchman."
The lioness rolled completely over, backwards, and three times she
turned convulsive somersaults, at the same time roaring tremendously;
but to my astonishment she appeared to recover, and I immediately fired
my left-hand barrel. At this she charged in high bounds straight towards
my two boys.
I had just time to snatch up my spare gun and show myself from behind
the ant-hill, when the lioness, startled by my sudden appearance,
turned, and I fired a charge of buck-shot into her hind-quarters as she
disappeared in the high grass upon my right.
I now heard her groaning in a succession of deep guttural sounds, within
fifty yards of me.
In a few minutes I heard a shot from Abd-el-Kader, and he shortly came
to tell me that the wounded lioness, with her chest and shoulder covered
with blood, had come close to his hiding-place; he had fired, and had
broken her ankle joint, but she was still concealed in the grass.
