"Curse you for a fool, son of Mopo," said one of the men with me to
Umslopogaas; "presently I will beat you till the blood comes for this
trick."

"First beat the lions, then beat me if you can," answered the lad, "and
wait to curse till you have done both."

Now the lions were close to us; they came to the body of the second cub,
that lay outside the fence of thorns. The lion stopped and sniffed it.
Then he roared--ah! he roared till the earth shook. As for the lioness,
she dropped the dead cub which she was carrying, and took the other into
her mouth, for she could not carry both.

"Get behind me, Nada," cried Umslopogaas, brandishing his spear, "the
lion is about to spring."

As the words left his mouth the great brute crouched to the ground. Then
suddenly he sprang from it like a bird, and like a bird he travelled
through the air towards us.

"Catch him on the spears!" cried Umslopogaas, and by nature, as it were,
we did the boy's bidding; for huddling ourselves together, we held out
the assegais so that the lion fell upon them as he sprang, and their
blades sank far into him. But the weight of his charge carried us to
the ground, and he fell on to us, striking at us and at the spears, and
roaring with pain and fury as he struck. Presently he was on his legs
biting at the spears in his breast. Then Umslopogaas, who alone did not
wait his onslaught, but had stepped aside for his own ends, uttered a
loud cry and drove his assegai into the lion behind the shoulder, so
that with a groan the brute rolled over dead.

Meanwhile, the lioness stood without the fence, the second dead cub in
her mouth, for she could not bring herself to leave either of them. But
when she heard her mate's last groan she dropped the cub and gathered
herself together to spring. Umslopogaas alone stood up to face her,
for he only had withdrawn his assegai from the carcass of the lion. She
swept on towards the lad, who stood like a stone to meet her. Now she
met his spear, it sunk in, it snapped, and down fell Umslopogaas dead
or senseless beneath the mass of the lioness. She sprang up, the broken
spear standing in her breast, sniffed at Umslopogaas, then, as though
she knew that it was he who had robbed her, she seized him by the loins
and moocha, and sprang with him over the fence.

"Oh, save him!" cried the girl Nada in bitter woe. And we rushed after
the lioness shouting.

For a moment she stood over her dead cubs, Umslopogaas hangin