Part 3 (2/2)
”'Yes, Inkoos,' he answered, 'she has certainly gone away.'
”Hardly were the words out of his mouth, when I heard a roar, and starting round saw the lioness emerge from the very centre of a bush, in which she had been curled up, just behind Pharaoh. Up she went on to her hind-legs, and as she did so I noticed that one of her fore-paws was broken near the shoulder, for it hung limply down. Up she went, towering right over Pharaoh's head, as she did so lifting her uninjured paw to strike him to the earth. And then, before I could get my rifle round or do anything to avert the oncoming catastrophe, the Zulu did a very brave and clever thing. Realizing his own imminent danger, he bounded to one side, and swinging the heavy axe round his head, brought it down right on to the back of the lioness, severing the vertebrae and killing her instantaneously. It was wonderful to see her collapse all in a heap like an empty sack.
”'My word, Pharaoh!' I said, 'that was well done, and none too soon.'
”'Yes,' he answered, with a little laugh, 'it was a good stroke, Inkoos.
Jim-Jim will sleep better now.'
”Then, calling Harry to us, we examined the lioness. She was old, if one might judge from her worn teeth, and not very large, but thickly made, and must have possessed extraordinary vitality to have lived so long, shot as she was; for, in addition to her broken shoulder, my express bullet had blown a great hole in her middle that one might have put a fist into.
”Well, that is the story of the death of poor Jim-Jim and how we avenged it. It is rather interesting in its way, because of the fight between the two lions, of which I never saw the like in all my experience, and I know something of lions and their manners.”
”And how did you get back to Pilgrim's Rest?” I asked Hunter Quatermain when he had finished his yarn.
”Ah, we had a nice job with that,” he answered. ”The second sick ox died, and so did another, and we had to get on as best we could with three harnessed unicorn fas.h.i.+on, while we pushed behind. We did about four miles a day, and it took us nearly a month, during the last week of which we pretty well starved.”
”I notice,” I said, ”that most of your trips ended in disaster of some sort or another, and yet you went on making them, which strikes one as a little strange.”
”Yes, I dare say: but then, remember I got my living for many years out of hunting. Besides, half the charm of the thing lay in the dangers and disasters, though they were terrible enough at the time. Another thing is, my trips were not all disastrous. Some time, if you like, I will tell you a story of one which was very much the reverse, for I made several thousand pounds out of it, and saw one of the most extraordinary sights a hunter ever came across. It was on this trip that I met the bravest native woman I ever knew; her name was Maiwa. But it is too late now, and besides, I am tired of talking about myself. Pa.s.s the water, will you!”
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