s, and turned
and vanished.

She had seen. She knew. Like a spring loosed from its containing box
one of the lions freed himself in mid-air and hurtled clear, landing on
all-fours and hurrying away after the lioness with a bad limp. The
other lion fell on his side and lay groaning, then roared
half-heartedly and dragged himself away.

The second lion had hardly gone when Coutlass descended gingerly from
the rock, peering about him, and listening. He evidently had no
suspicion of our presence, for he never once looked in our direction.
It was Schillingschen, not lions, he feared; and Schillingschen,
clambering over the top of another rock, watched him as a night-beast
eyes its prey. Another one-act drama was staged, and it was not time
for us to come down from the tree yet.

Satisfied he was not followed and that Schillingschen was elsewhere,
Coutlass crept from rock to rock toward the little cluster of small
ones where, by his own confession, he had seen Fred bury the box.
Schillingschen stalked him through the shadows as actively as a great
ape, making no sound, as clearly visible to us as he was invisible to
Coutlass.

There was not a trace of mist--nothing to obscure the dim pale light,
and as the moon swung higher into space we could see both men's every
movement, like the play of marionettes.

Down on his knees at last among the small loose rocks, Coutlass began
digging with his fingers--grew weary of that very soon, and drew out
the long knife from his boot--dug with that like a frenzied man until
from our tree we heard the hard point strike on metal. Then
Schillingschen began to close in, and it was time for us to drop down
from the tree.

We made an abominable lot of noise about it, for the tree creaked, and
our clothing tore on the thorny projections of limbs that seemed to
have grown there since we climbed. To make matters worse, I stepped
off the lowest branch, imagining there was another branch beneath it,
and fell headlong, rifle and all, with a clatter and thump that should
have alarmed the village half a mile away. And Will, not knowing what
I had done but alarmed by the noise I made, jumped down on top of me.

We picked ourselves up and listened. We could hear the short quick
stabs of the knife as Coutlass loosed and scooped the earth out. Among
the myriad noises of the African night our own, that seemed appalling
to us, had passed unnoticed--or perhaps Schillingschen heard, and
thoug