ht it was the injured lion dragging himself away. (Nobody needed
worry about the chance of attack from that particular lion for many a
night to come; he would ask nothing better than to be left to eat mice
and carrion until his awful wounds were healed.)

Reassured by the sound of digging we crept forward, knowing pretty well
the best path to take from having seen Schillingschen stalking. But it
was more by dint of their obsession than by any skill of ours that we
crept up near without giving them alarm. Coutlass was still on his
knees, throwing out the last few handfuls of loose dirt.
Schillingschen stood almost over him, so close that the thrown dirt
struck against his legs.

We took up positions in the shadow, one to either side, almost afraid
to breathe, I cursing because the rifle quivered in my two hands like
the proverbial aspen leaf. The prospect of shooting a white man--even
such a thorough-paced blackguard white as Schillingschen--made me as
nervous as a school-girl at a grown-up party.

At last Coutlass groped down shoulder-deep and drew the box out.

"Give that to me!" Schillingschen shouted like a thunder-clap, making
me jump as if I were the one intended.

The moonlight gleamed on the tin box. Coutlass did not drop it but
turned his head to look behind him. Schillingschen swung for his face
with a clenched fist and the whole weight and strength of his ungainly
body. He would have broken the jaw he aimed at had the blow landed;
but the Greek's wit was too swift.

He kicked like a mule, hard and suddenly, ducking his head, and then
diving backward between the German's legs that were outspread to give
him balance and leverage for the fist-blow. Schillingschen pitched
over him head-forward, landing on both hands with one shoulder in the
hole out of which the box had come. With the other arm he reached for
the knife that Coutlass had laid on the loose earth. Coutlass reached
for it, too, too late, and there followed a fight not at all inferior
in fury to the battle of the lions. Humans are only feebler than the
beasts, not less malicious.

Will reached for the tin box, opened it, took out the diary, closed it
again, put the diary in his own inner pocket, and returned the box;
but they never saw or heard him. The German, with an arm as strong as
an ape's, thrust again and again at Coutlass, missing his skin by a
bait's breadth as the Greek held off the blows with the utmost strength
of both