We Pretended Not To Have Seen
Him, However, And Advanced To Within Two Hundred
Yards Or So, When, As He Seemed To Be Getting
Uneasy, I Thought It Best To Risk A Shot Even At
This Range.
I put up the 200-yards sight and the
bullet fell short; but the lion never moved.
Raising the sight another fifty yards, I rested
the rifle on Mahina's back for the next shot, and
again missed; fortunately, however, the lion still
remained quiet.
I then decided to put into
practice the scheme I had thought out the day I
sat astride the lion I had killed on the Kapiti
Plain: so I told all my followers to move off to the
right, taking the mule with them, and to make a
half-circle round the animal, while I lay motionless
in the grass and waited. The ruse succeeded
admirably, for as the men moved round so did
the lion, offering me at last a splendid shoulder
shot. I took very careful, steady aim and fired,
with the result that he rolled over and over,
and then made one or two attempts to get up but
failed. I then ran up to within a few yards of him,
and - helpless as he was with a bullet through
both shoulders - he was still game, and twist
round so as to face me, giving vent all the
time to savage growls. A final shot laid him
out, however, and we at once proceeded to skin
him.
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