Part 68 (2/2)
”Help!” yelled Coutlass ”Help! Oh-ah! Ah!”
We raced forward then, I leading with my rifle thrust forward A second later I fired; and that was the only time in my life I ever touched a lion's face with a rifle er!
The brute fell all in a heap, with Coutlass underneath hi knife stuck in his shoulder to the hilt The lion must have died within the minute without my shot to finish him
Coutlass lay dead under the defeated beast that had crawled away to hide and lick his wounds We dragged his body out froschen, the co between us The flash of iven hiainst the moon We ducked, and lay still, but no ot four left,” Will whispered ”Maybe he'll husband those!”
”Maybe he knows by now that box is empty!” said I ”He'll stalk us on the way back!”
”Us for the tree, then, until !” said Will
”Sure!” I answered ”And be shot out of it like crows out of a nest!”
But Will had the right idea for all that He wasent to ith fevered fingers, stripping off the bloody bandages we had tied on the Greek's ribs--stripping offthe knife that had really ended his career, tearing the hide into strips and knotting them each to each In twenty minutes we had a slippery, sed the Greek's dead body underneath the tree
Then I went back to the vantage point a the rocks and waited until Will had thrown the rope with a stone tied to its end over an upper branch Presently I saw Coutlass' dead body go cla so ht at first Will led the rope in the crotch of the tree and be claes Coutlass served us dead as well as living
Out of the darkness to my left there came a flash and a report I did not look to see whether the corpse in the tree jerked as the bullet struck Before the flash had died--almost before the crack of the report bad reached my ear-drums I answered with three shots in quick succession
”Did you get him?” called Will
”I don't know,” I answered ”If I didn't, he's only got three cartridges left!”
We left the Greek's body in the tree for Schillingschen to shoot at further if he saw fit; it was safer there froround, and as for the rites of the dead, it was a toss-up which was better, kites and vultures, or jackals and the ants We saw no sense that night in laboring with a knife and our hands to bury a body that the brutes would dig up again within five schen has three cartridges,”' sad Will ”One each for you, me and Fred Oakes! I'll stay and trick hiets me I'd hate to face Fred withoutfor hih my carelessness”
It was my first experience of Will with hysteria, for it airls of it one should rap out so sharply, with a cane if need be Yet Will was not like a school-girl, and his hysteria took the pseudo-manly form of refusal to retreat I yearned for Fred's cah, hot supper, or breakfast, or whatever the meal would be, and blankets
Will, with a ruthlesshim in the dark, yearned only for self-content to do, and thrust my rifle in his hands
”Take it,” I said ”Hunt Schillingschen all night if you want to I' back to tell Fred I've lost h at ot to take it!”
I let the rifle fall at his feet, and he was forced to pick it up By that time I was on my way, and he had to hurry if he hoped to catchout to wait And so, hours later, we arrived in sight of Fred's fires and answered his cheery challenge:
”Halt there, or I'll shoot your bally head off!”
Lions had kept hi the boys pile thornwood on the fires
He had shot two--one inside the enclosure, where the brute had jumped in a vain effort to reach the frantic donkeys We stumbled over the carcass of the other as we nominiously by the tail (not such an easy task as the uninitiated ine)
Once within the enclosure I left Will to tell Fred his story as best suited hihter as he watched Will's rueful face, yet turning suddenly on Brown to curse hi, too!
”Go and fetch that Mauser of yours, Brown, and give it to Mr Yerkes in place of what he's lost! Hurry, please!”
It was touch and go whether Broould obey But he happened to be sober, and realized that he had coh at Will all he chose; so h Fred out of countenance; or they ht howl derisively at me