We mounted with
great thankfulness. It was now eleven o'clock, and we considered
our day as finished.
The best way for a distance seemed to follow the course of the
tributary stream to its point of junction with our river. We rode
along, rather relaxed in the suffocating heat. F. was nearest the
stream. At one point it freed itself of trees and brush and ran
clear, save for low papyrus, ten feet down below a steep eroded
bank. F. looked over and uttered a startled exclamation. I
spurred my horse forward to see.
Below us, about fifteen yards away, was the carcass of a
waterbuck half hidden in the foot-high grass. A lion and two
lionesses stood upon it, staring up at us with great yellow eyes.
That picture is a very vivid one in my memory, for those were the
first wild lions I had ever seen. My most lively impression was
of their unexpected size. They seemed to bulk fully a third
larger than my expectation.
The magnificent beasts stood only long enough to see clearly what
had disturbed them, then turned, and in two bounds had gained the
shelter of the thicket.
Now the habit in Africa is to let your gunbearers carry all your
guns. You yourself stride along hand free. It is an English idea,
and is pretty generally adopted out there by every one, of
whatever nationality. They will explain it to you by saying that
in such a climate a man should do only necessary physical work,
and that a good gunbearer will get a weapon into your hand so
quickly and in so convenient a position that you will lose no
time. I acknowledge the gunbearers are sometimes very skilful at
this, but I do deny that there is no loss of time. The instant of
distracted attention while receiving a weapon, the necessity of
recollecting the nervous correlations after the transfer, very
often mark just the difference between a sure instinctive
snapshot and a lost opportunity. It reasons that the man with the
rifle in his hand reacts instinctively, in one motion, to get his
weapon into play. If the gunbearer has the gun, HE must first
react to pass it up, the master must receive it properly, and
THEN, and not until then, may go on from where the other man
began. As for physical labour in the tropics: if a grown man
cannot without discomfort or evil effects carry an eight-pound
rifle, he is too feeble to go out at all. In a long Western
experience I have learned never to be separated from my weapon;
and I believe the continuance of this habit in Africa saved me a
good number of chances.
At any rate, we all flung ourselves off our horses. I, having my
rifle in my hand, managed to throw a shot after the biggest lion
as he vanished. It was a snap at nothing, and missed. Then in an
opening on the edge a hundred yards away appeared one of the
lionesses. She was trotting slowly, and on her I had time to draw
a hasty aim. At the shot she bounded high in the air, fell,
rolled over, and was up and into the thicket before I had much
more than time to pump up another shell from the magazine. Memba
Sasa in his eagerness got in the way-the first and last time he
ever made a mistake in the field.
By this time the others had got hold of their weapons. We fronted
the blank face of the thicket.
The wounded animal would stand a little waiting. We made a wide
circle to the other side of the stream. There we quickly picked
up the trail of the two uninjured beasts. They had headed
directly over the hill, where we speedily lost all trace of them
on the flint-like surface of the ground. We saw a big pack of
baboons in the only likely direction for a lion to go. Being thus
thrown back on a choice of a hundred other unlikely directions,
we gave up that slim chance and returned to the thicket.
This proved to be a very dense piece of cover. Above the height
of the waist the interlocking branches would absolutely prevent
any progress, but by stooping low we could see dimly among the
simpler main stems to a distance of perhaps fifteen or twenty
feet. This combination at once afforded the wounded lioness
plenty of cover in which to hide, plenty of room in which to
charge home, and placed us under the disadvantage of a crouched
or crawling attitude with limited vision. We talked the matter
over very thoroughly. There was only one way to get that lioness
out; and that was to go after her. The job of going after her
needed some planning. The lion is cunning and exceeding fierce. A
flank attack, once we were in the thicket, was as much to be
expected as a frontal charge.
We advanced to the thicket's edge with many precautions. To our
relief we found she had left us a definite trail. B. and I
kneeling took up positions on either side, our rifles ready. F.
and Simba crawled by inches eight or ten feet inside the thicket.
Then, having executed this manoeuvre safely, B. moved up to
protect our rear while I, with Memba Sasa, slid down to join F.
>From this point we moved forward alternately. I would crouch, all
alert, my rifle ready, while F. slipped by me and a few feet
ahead.
