further hostility on my
part. Just at this juncture the lion seemed to grow suddenly very weak.
He staggered some ten yards back towards his lair, and then fell to the
ground; the lioness followed, and lay down beside him--both still
watching us, and growling savagely. After a few seconds the lion
struggled to his feet again and retreated a little further, the lioness
accompanying him until he fell once more. A third time the same thing
took place, and at last I began to breathe more freely, as they had now
reached the thicket from which they had originally emerged. Accordingly
I took a shot at the lioness as she lay beside her mate, partly
concealed in the long grass. I do not think I hit her, but anyhow she
at once made off and bounded away at a great rate on emerging into the
open.

I sent a few bullets after her to speed her on her way, and then
cautiously approached the wounded lion. He was stretched out at full
length on his side, with his back towards me, but I could see by the
heaving of his flanks that he was not yet dead, so I put a bullet
through his spine. He never moved after this; but for safety's sake, I
made no attempt to go up to him for a few minutes, and then only after
Mahina had planted a few stones on his body just to make sure that he
was really dead.

We both felt very pleased with ourselves as we stood over him and
looked at his fine head, great paws, and long, clean, sharp tusks. He
was a young, but full-grown lion in fine condition, and measured nine
feet eight and a half inches from tip of nose to tip of tail. My last
shot had entered the spine close to the shoulder, and had lodged in the
body; the first shot was a miss; as I have already said; but the second
had caught him on the forehead, right between the eyes. The bullet,
however, instead of traversing the brain, had been turned downwards by
the frontal bone, through which it crashed, finally lodging in the root
of the tongue, the lead showing on both sides. I cut out the tongue and
hung it up to dry, intending to keep it as a trophy; but unfortunately
a vulture swooped down when my back was turned, and carried it off.

From the time I knocked the lion over until he first staggered and fell
not more than a minute could have elapsed--quite long enough, however,
to have enabled him to cover the distance and to have seized one or
other of us. Unquestionably we owed our lives to the fact that we both
remained absolutely motionless; and I c