PresentlyI fancied I saw something coming very
stealthily towards us. I feared, however, to trust
to my eyes, which by that time were strained by
prolonged staring through the darkness, so under
my breath I asked Brock whether he saw anything,
at the same time covering the dark object as well as
I could with my rifle. Brock did not answer
he
;
told me afterwards that he, too, thought he had seen
something move, but was afraid to say so lest I should fire and it turn out to be nothing after all.
After this there was intense silence again for a
second or two, then with a sudden bound a huge body sprang at us.
“The lion!”
I shouted, and we
both fired almost simultaneously not a moment too
soon, for in another second the brute would assuredly
have landed inside the wagon. As it was, he
must have swerved off in his spring, probably
blinded by the flash and frightened by the noise of
the double report which was increased a hundred-
fold by the reverberation of the hollow iron roof of
the truck. Had we not been very much on the
alert, he would undoubtedly have got one of us, and
we realised that we had had a very lucky and very
narrow escape.

Chapter 4