their mother who returned, began to whine and purr for food. Guided by
the light of their yellow eyes, he crept over the bones, of which there
were many in the cave, and came to where they lay. Then he put out his
hands and seized one of the cubs, killing the other with his assegai,
because he could not carry both of them. Now he made haste thence before
the lions returned, and came back to the thorn fence where we lay just
as dawn as breaking.

I awoke at the coming of the dawn, and, standing up, I looked out. Lo!
there, on the farther side of the thorn fence, looking large in the
grey mist, stood the lad Umslopogaas, laughing. In his teeth he held the
assegai, yet dripping with blood, and in his hands the lion cub that,
despite its whines and struggles, he grasped by the skin of the neck and
the hind legs.

"Awake, my sister!" he cried; "here is the dog you seek. Ah! he bites
now, but he will soon grow tame."

Nada awoke, and rising, cried out with joy at the sight of the cub, but
for a moment I stood astonished.

"Fool!" I cried at last, "let the cub go before the lions come to rend
us!"

"I will not let it go, my father," he answered sullenly. "Are there not
five of us with spears, and can we not fight two cats? I was not afraid
to go alone into their den. Are you all afraid to meet them in the
open?"

"You are mad," I said; "let the cub go!" And I ran towards Umslopogaas
to take it from him. But he sprang aside and avoided me.

"I will never let that go of which I have got hold," he said, "at least
not living!" And suddenly he seized the head of the cub and twisted its
neck; then threw it on to the ground, and added, "See, now I have done
your bidding, my father!"

As he spoke we heard a great sound of roaring from the cave in the
cliff. The lions had returned and found one cub dead and the other gone.

"Into the fence!--back into the fence!" I cried, and we sprang over
the thorn-bushes where those with us were making ready their spears,
trembling as they handled them with fear and the cold of the morning. We
looked up. There, down the side of the cliff, came the lions, bounding
on the scent of him who had robbed them of their young. The lion ran
first, and as he came he roared; then followed the lioness, but she did
not roar, for in her mouth was the cub that Umslopogaas had assegaied in
the cave. Now they drew near, mad with fury, their manes bristling, and
lashing their flanks with their long tails.