im on his feet again. If you do, your fame will spread far and wide
through the country, and do us a lot of good. But, I say, it was a
jolly lucky thing for you that the poor chap dropped off into that sound
sleep just when he did, eh? Because it enabled you to do several things
that, it seems to me, you couldn't possibly have done had he remained
awake. What puzzles me is that he continued to sleep all through it.
And I noticed that you didn't seem to worry in the least about whether
you awoke him or not. I suppose it was sleep, was it not?"

"Oh yes!" answered Dick airily; "it was sleep, right enough; nothing in
the nature of swoon about it, if that is what you mean. But now, what
about those lions? My patient will sleep for several hours to come, and
I can quite well leave him. It is now,"--consulting his watch--"only a
few minutes past eleven o'clock, and we ought to be able to organise the
hunt and bag the beasts comfortably before tiffin. Are you game?"

"You bet I am, rather!" responded Grosvenor. "It is just what I was
itching to suggest, but I thought it would seem callous to propose that
you should leave your patient, and it would not have been sporting to
have proposed to go off alone, leaving you behind."

"Oh, that is all right!" returned Dick confidently; "my patient will not
need me for hours yet, so let us see about it at once. Where is
Jantje?"

Jantje was close at their elbows, and already "putting on side" among
the villagers upon the strength of being in the service of an _'mkulu
'mtagati_. He stepped forward at the question and answered, with an air
of proud humility:

"I'se here, sar. What you please to want?"

"Mr Grosvenor and I are going to have a try for those lions, Jantje, if
they are still lurking in the neighbourhood," observed Dick. "I believe
you said that these people report the beasts to be somewhere in yonder
clump of bush? Very well. Now, I want a party to enter the bush on the
windward side and carefully beat down-wind in order to drive the brutes
into the open. Mr Grosvenor and I will place ourselves on the down-
wind side of the bush, and if the lions can be induced to break cover we
will do our best to bowl them over. We shall also require two steady,
reliable men to come with us to carry our spare rifles; but, understand
this, they must be men of courage, who will not be scared out of their
seven senses and bolt, carrying our rifles off with them, if the li