The cartridge snapped.
"If you will kindly stoop down-" said I, in what I now remember
to be rather an exaggeratedly polite tone. As F.'s head
disappeared, I placed the little gold bead of my 405 Winchester
where I thought it would do the most good, and pulled trigger.
She rolled over dead.
The whole affair had begun and finished with unbelievable
swiftness. From the growl to the fatal shot I don't suppose four
seconds elapsed, for our various actions had followed one another
with the speed of the instinctive. The lioness had growled at our
approach, had raised her head to charge, and had received her
deathblow before she had released her muscles in the spring.
There had been no time to get frightened.
We sat back for a second. A brown hand reached over my shoulder.
"Mizouri-mizouri sana!" cried Memba Sasa joyously. I shook the
hand.
"Good business!" said F. "Congratulate you on your first lion."
We then remembered B., and shouted to him that all was over. He
and the other men wriggled in to where we were lying. He made
this distance in about fifteen seconds. It had taken us nearly an
hour.
We had the lioness dragged out into the open. She was not an
especially large beast, as compared to most of the others I
killed later, but at that time she looked to me about as big as
they made them.
