, 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 vertebrae 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 out
of hunting. Besides, half the charm of the thing lay in the dangers and
disasters, though they were terrible enough at the time. Another thing
is, my trips were not all disastrous. Some time, if you like, I will
tell you a story of one which was very much the reverse, for I made
several thousand pounds out of it, and saw one of the most extraordinary
sights a hunter ever came across. It was on this trip that I met the
bravest native woman I ever knew; her name was Maiwa. But it is too late
now, and besides, I am tired of talking about myself. Pass the water,
will you!"

End of Project Gutenberg's A Tale of Three Lions, by H. Rider Haggard

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