I was on, dead on, and my finger was just beginning to tighten on the
trigger, when suddenly I went blind--a bit of reed-ash had drifted into
my right eye. I danced and rubbed, and succeeded in clearing it more or
less just in time to see the tail of the last lion vanishing round the
bushes up the kloof.
"If ever a man was mad I was that man. It was too bad; and such a shot
in the open, too! However, I was not going to be beaten, so I just
turned and marched for the kloof. Tom, the driver, begged and implored
me not to go; but though as a general rule I never pretend to be very
brave (which I am not), I was determined that I would either kill those
lions or they should kill me. So I told Tom that he need not come unless
he liked, but I was going; and being a plucky fellow, a Swazi by birth,
he shrugged his shoulders, muttered that I was mad or bewitched, and
followed doggedly in my tracks.
"We soon got to the kloof, which was about three hundred yards in length
and but sparsely wooded, and then the real fun began. There might be a
lion behind every bush--there certainly were four lions somewhere; the
delicate question was, where.
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