e; and Ben, without more ado, drew his great
jack-knife, and struck the blade forcibly into the bark.

Whether there came out red juice or yellow juice, or any juice at all
neither of us waited to see; for as if the stroke of the knife had been
a signal, a huge animal leaped up out of the grass, not twenty feet from
where we stood, and remained gazing at us. To our horror we saw that it
was a lion! It needed no naturalist to recognise this fellow. The
dun-coloured body, with dark, shaggy mane--the broad, full face, and
wrinkled jaws--the fierce, yellow eye, and bristled, cat-like snout,
were not to be mistaken.

My companion and I had both seen lions in shows and menageries, as who
has not? But even had we never looked on one before, it would have been
all the same. A mere infant might recognise the terrible animal and
point him out amidst all the beasts in the world.

Ben and I were horror-struck--perfectly paralysed by the unexpected
apparition; and remained so for some seconds--in fact, so long as the
lion stood his ground. To our great joy that was not a long while. The
enormous beast gazed at us a few seconds--apparently more in wonderment
than anger--and then, uttering a low growl to express some slight
displeasure at having his rest disturbed, he dropped his tail and turned
sulkily away. And thus do lions generally behave at the approach of
man--especially if they are not hungry, and be not assailed by the
intruder.

He moved off, however, but very slowly--at intervals crouching down and
turning his head backward, as if "looking over his shoulder" to see
whether we were following. We had no notion of such a thing. Not a
foot did we intend to follow him, not even an inch. On the contrary, we
had rather receded from our position, and placed the huge trunk of the
tree between him and us. Of course this would have been no protection
had he chosen to return and attack us, but, although he did not go as
fast as we could have wished, he showed no signs of coming back and we
began to recover confidence.

We might have retreated upon the plain, but that would have been of no
use, and very probably would have been the means of drawing the lion
after us. We knew very well he could soon overtake us, and of course a
blow apiece from his enormous paws would have knocked us into
"smithereens," or, as my companion more elegantly expressed it, "into
the middle of next week."

It is quite probable that had this