tening its aggression at a time when life was so sweet, and every
moment was greedily grasped before the end. He was horribly frightened,
but this did not trouble him so much, for he felt stunned, and a great
deal of what passed was dreamy, and seen as if through a mist. But one
thing he knew, and that was that he would have some little warning of
the attack, for the lion would crouch and gather its hind-legs well
under it before it made its spring.

Then a wave of energy ran through Dyke, who, though still motionless,
felt his heart throb with greater vigour as he began to think of
self-defence. There was his gun close at hand, so near that he could
have reached it; but it was useless. He might make one bold stroke with
it; but the stock would only snap. Any blow he could deliver would only
irritate the beast. And now a dawning feeling of admiration began to
broaden as he gazed at the great, massive head and the huge paws,
recalling the while what he had seen since he had been in South Africa--
a horse's back broken by one blow, the heads of oxen dragged down and
the necks broken by another jerk; and he felt that he would be perfectly
helpless when the brute made its first spring.

And still the lion stood, with the tail swinging in that pendulum-like
motion; the great eyes gazing heavily at him; while during those painful
minutes Dyke's brain grew more and more active. He thought of mice in
the power of cats, and felt something of the inert helplessness of the
lesser animal, crouching, as if fascinated by the cruel, claw-armed
tyrant, waiting to make its spring. And he knew that at any moment this
beast might come at him as if discharged from a catapult. But all the
same the brain grew more and more acute in its endeavours to find him a
way of escape. If he had only had a short bayonet fixed at the end of
his gun, that he might hold it ready with the butt upon the ground, and
the point at an angle of forty-five degrees, so that the lion might at
its first bound alight upon it, and impale itself, just as it had been
known to do upon the long, sharp, slightly curved prongs of the black
antelope, piercing itself through and through, and meeting the fate
intended for its prey.

But then he had no bayonet at the end of his gun, and no weapon
whatever, but his strong sheath-knife. He could hold that out before
him; but he knew well enough that he could not hold it rigid enough to
turn it to advantage against hi