opmost branch as quickly
as ever he could climb; not a moment, indeed, was he able to spare to
cast a glance at what was happening beneath. His puggaree had been torn
off by one thorn, and waved gracefully in the breeze; a fancy waistcoat
adorned another spiky branch, and his long white cotton gown was torn
to ribbons in his mad endeavour to put as great a distance as possible
between himself and the dead lion. As soon as I could stop laughing, I
called out to him to come down, but quite in vain. There was no
stopping him, indeed, until he had reached the very top of the tree;
and even then he could scarcely be induced to come down again. Poor
fellow, he had been thoroughly terrified, and little wonder.

My followers now began to emerge from the shelter of the various trees
and bushes where they had concealed themselves after their wild flight
from the resuscitated lion, and crowded round his dead body in the
highest spirits. The Masai, especially, seemed delighted at the way in
which he had been defeated, and to my surprise and amusement proved
themselves excellent mimics, some three or four of them beginning at
once to act the whole adventure. One played the part of the lion and
jumped growling at a comrade, who immediately ran backwards just as I
had done, shouting "Ta, Ta, Ta" and cracking his fingers to represent
the rifle-shots. Finally the whole audience roared with delight when
another bolted as fast as he could to Roshan Khan's tree with the
pseudo lion roaring after him. At the end of these proceedings up came
Brock, who had been attracted to the place by the sound of the firing.
He was much astonished to see my fine dead lion lying stretched out,
and his first remark was, "You are a lucky beggar!" Afterwards, when he
heard the full story of the adventure, he rightly considered me even
more lucky than he had first thought.

Our next business was to go back to the lioness which I had first shot
and left for dead. Like her mate, however, she was still very much
alive when we reached her, so I stalked carefully up to a neighbouring
tree, from whose shelter I gave her the finishing shot. We then left
Mahina and the other men to skin the two beasts, and went on to the
rushes where the second lioness had taken cover. Here all our efforts
to turn her out failed, so we reluctantly abandoned the chase and were
fated to see no more lions that day.

Our only other adventure was with a stolid old rhino, who gave me
rat