Few mightier monarchs than Menelek II of Abyssinia ever swayed the destinies of a people. Throughout the vast territory of the Abyssinian highlands his individual will is law to some millions of subjects; law also to hordes of savage Mohammedan and pagan tribesmen without the confines of his kingdom. His court includes no councillors. Alone throughout the long years of his reign Menelek has dealt with all domestic and foreign affairs of state.
But now this last splendid survival of the feudal absolutism exercised and enjoyed by mediaeval rulers is about to disappear beneath encroaching waves of civilization, that do not long spare the picturesque. Cables from far-off Adis Ababa, Menelek's capital, bring news that he has formed a cabinet and published the appointment of Ministers of War, Finance, Justice, Foreign Affairs, and Commerce. And this change has come, not from the pressure of any party or faction within his kingdom, for such do not exist, but out of the fount of his own wisdom. So sound is this wisdom as to prove him a most worthy descendant of the sage Hebrew King whom Menelek claims as ancestor—if, indeed, more proofs were necessary than the statesmanlike way in which he has dealt with jealous diplomats, and the martial skill with which, at Adowa in 1896, he defeated the flower of the Italian army and won from Italy an honorable truce.
No existing royal house owns lineage so ancient as that claimed byMenelek II, Negus Negusti, "King of the Kings of Ethiopia, andConquering Lion of Judah."
Old Abyssinian tradition has it that in the tenth century, B.C., early in her reign, Makeda, Queen of Sheba, paid a ceremonial visit to the Court of King Solomon, coming with her entire court and a magnificent retinue bearing royal gifts of frankincense and balm, gold and ivory and precious stones. Her gorgeous caravan was bright with the many-colored plumes and silks of litters, blazing with the golden ornaments of elephant and camel caparisons, glittering with the glint of spears and bucklers.
That the two greatest souls of their time, so met, should fuse and blend is little to be wondered at. She of Sheba bore Solomon a son and called him Menelek, so the legend runs. Later the boy was twitted by playmates for that he had no father. In this annoyance the Queen sent an embassy to Solomon asking some act that should establish their son's royal paternity. Promptly Solomon returned the embassy bearing to Sheba's court in far southwest Arabia a royal decree declaring Menelek his son, and accompanied it by a son of each of the leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel, enjoined to serve as a sort of juvenile royal court to Menelek.
Whether or not the claim of Menelek II be true, that he himself is lineally descended from the son of Solomon and Sheba's Queen, certain it is that in race type Abyssinians are plainly come of sons of Israel, crossed and modified with Coptic, Hamite, and Ethiopian blood. To this day they cling closely as the most orthodox Hebrew, to some of the dearest Israelitish tenets, notably abstention from pork and from meat not killed by bleeding, observance of the Sabbath, and the rite of circumcision. Notwithstanding this the Abyssinians have been Christians since the fourth century of this era, when, only eight years after the great Constantine decreed the recognition of Christianity by the State, a proselytising monk came among them with a faith so strong, a heart so pure, and an eloquence so irresistible, that, singlehanded, he accomplished the conversion of the Abyssinian race.
Throughout the centuries the Abyssinians have held fast to their faith as first it was taught them. The great wave of Mohammedanism that swept up the Nile and across the Indian Ocean broke and parted the moment it struck the Abyssinian plateau. It completely surrounded, but never could mount the tableland.
Thus cut off for centuries from all other Christian Churches, the Abyssinian religion remains to-day but little changed. Could Paul or John return to earth, of all the Christian sects throughout the world, the forms and tenets of the Abyssinian Church would be the only ones they would find nearly all their own; for the ritual is older than that of either Rome or Moscow.
And remembering the Abyssinian folklore tale of the twelve sons of the chiefs of the twelve tribes of Israel sent by Solomon to Makeda as attendants on Menelek I, it is most curious and interesting to know that the heads of certain twelve Abyssinian families (none of whom are longer notables, some even the rudest ignorant herdsmen), and their forebears from time immemorial, have had and still possess inalienable right of audience with their monarch at any time they may ask it, even taking precedence over royalty itself. Indeed Mr. George Clerk, for the last five years assistant to Sir John Harrington, British Minister to the Court of Menelek, recently told me that he and other diplomats accredited to Adis Ababa, were not infrequently subjected to the annoyance of having an audience interrupted or delayed by the unannounced coming for a hearing of one of these favored twelve.
Many of Menelek's judgments are masterpieces. Recently two brothers came before him, the younger with the plaint that the elder sought the larger and better part of certain property they had to divide. Promptly Menelek ordered the elder to describe fully the entire property and state what part he wanted for himself. It was done.
"And this," questioned Menelek, "you consider a just division of the property into two parts of equal value?"
"Yes, Negus," answered the elder.
"Then," decreed Menelek, "give your brother first choice!"
Over wide territory beyond the Abyssinian border, Menelek's power is as much feared and his will as much respected as among his own subjects. Of this there occurred recently a most dramatic proof.
Bordering Abyssinia on the east is the Danakil country. It adjoins the Province of Shoa, of which Menelek was Ras, or feudal King, before his accession to the Abyssinian throne. The Danakils are a savage pagan people of mixed Hamite (early Egyptian) and Ethiopian ancestry. They are perhaps the most tirelessly warlike race in all Africa. Often severely beaten by their Italian and Somali neighbors, they have never been subdued. Indeed slaughter may, in a way, be said to be a part of their religion, for it is the fetich every young warrior must provide for the worship of the woman of his choice before he may hope to win and have her. It is necessary that he should have killed royal game—lion, rhinoceros, or elephant—but not enough. Singlehanded he must kill a man and bring the maid a trophy of the slaughter before she will even consider him, and Danakil maids of spirit often demand some plurality of trophies. Thus the license for each Danakil mating is written in the life blood of some neighboring tribesman; thus are the few poltroons in Danakil-land condemned to stay celibate.
Only Menelek's word do they heed; his might they dread.
Through the Danakil country, between Errer Gotto and Oder, not long ago travelled the caravan of William Northrup McMillan, conveying the sections of several steel boats with which he purposed navigating and exploring the Blue Nile from its source to Khartoom, a region that had never been traversed by white men. In the party was M. Dubois-Desaulle, a gay and reckless ex-officer of the French Foreign Legion who had long served in Algiers against raiding Arab sheiks. He harbored no fear of the unorganized wild tribesmen through whose country they were travelling. McMillan knew them better, however; he held his command under strict military discipline, marched in close order with scouts out, forbade straying from the column, andzareba-ed his night camps. For the march was a severe one and he had neither the time nor sufficient force to search for or to succor missing stragglers.
Urged with the rest never to go unarmed and to stay close with the caravan, Dubois-Desaulle's only reply was a laughing, "Jamais! Jamais. Je ne porte pas des armes pour ces babouins! Je les ferai s'enfuir avec des batons! N'inquiètez pas de moi."
Interested in botany and entomology, holding the natives in utter contempt, repeatedly he strayed from the column for hours without even so much as a pistol by way of arms, until finally McMillan told him that if he again so strayed he would be placed under guard for the balance of march. But the very next day, riding a mule with the advance guard led by H. Morgan Brown, Dubois-Desaulle slipped unobserved into the bush, probably in pursuit of some winged wonder that had crossed his path.
Camp was made early in the afternoon on the banks of the Doha River, and a strong party, with shikari trackers, led by Brown, was sent out in search of the straggler. Night came on before they could pick up his trail, and nothing further could be done except to build signal fires on adjacent hills; but all without result. Anxiety for his safety crystallized into chill fear for his life, when the dull glow of the signal fires was suddenly extinguished by the next morning's sun; for the desert knows neither twilight nor dawn—the sun bursts up blood-red out of shrouding darkness like a rocket from its case, and at once it is day.
An hour later Brown's shikaris found the place where Dubois-Desaulle had strayed from the column, followed his trail through the bush hither and thither for two miles, to a point where he had found a native warrior seated beneath a tree. They read, with their unerring skill at "sign" lore, that there he had stood and talked for some time with the native, and then pressed on, rider and footman travelling side by side, till, within the shelter of especially dense surrounding bush, the footman had dropped behind the rider—for what dastardly assassin's purpose the next twenty steps revealed. There stark lay the body of gay Dubois-Desaulle, dropped from his mule without a struggle by a mortal spear-thrust in his back, the manner of his mutilation a Danakil's sign manual!
Immediately messengers were sent to the caravan bearing the news and asking reinforcements. At this time the indomitable chief, McMillan, was laid up with veldt sores on the legs, unable to walk or even to ride except in a litter. Promptly, however, he despatched Lieutenant Fairfax and William Marlow, with about thirty more men, to Brown's support, with orders never to quit till he got the murderer. By a forced march, Fairfax reached Brown at four in the afternoon.
When journeying in desert places and amid deadly perils, it is always an unusually terrible shock to lose one from among so few, and to be forced to lay him in unconsecrated ground remote from home and friends. So it was a sobbing, saddened trio that stood by while a grave was dug to receive all that was mortal of their gallant comrade. And within it they laid him, wrapped in the ample folds of an Abyssiniantope; stones were heaped above the grave—at least the four-footed beasts should not have a chance to rend him!—and three volleys were fired as a last honor to Dubois-Desaulle, ex-legionary of the Army of Algiers.
Tears dried, eyes hardened, jaws tightened, and away on the plain trail of the murderer marched the little column. Turning at the edge of the thick jungle for a last look back, the three noted an extraordinary circumstance that touched them deeply and made them feel that even the savage desert sympathized. A miniature whirlwind of the sort frequent in the desert was slowly circling the grave; and even as they looked it swung immediately over it and there stood for some moments, its tall dust column rising up into the zenith like the smoke of a funeral pyre! Then on they marched and there they left him, sure that by night lions would be roaring him a requiem not unfitting his wild spirit.
Just at dusk the party reached a large Danakil town into which the murderer's trail led, and camped before it.
Told that one of his men had killed their comrade and that they wanted him, Ali Gorah, the chief, was surly and insolent. He refused to give him up, said that he wished no war with them, but that if they wanted any of his people they must fight for them. Then guards were set about the camp and the little command lay down to sleep within a spear's throw of thousands of Ali Gorah's wild Danakils. The night passed without alarms, and then conference was resumed. Fairfax cajoled and threatened, threatened summoning an army that would wipe Danakil's land off the map; but all to no purpose. The chief remained obdurate.
Early in the day a courier was sent to McMillan with the story of their plight and a request for supplies and more men. These were instantly sent, leaving McMillan himself well nigh helpless, fuming at his own enforced inaction, alone with the Marlow, his personal attendant, a handful of men, and a total of only two rifles, as the sole guard of the caravan for ten more anxious days.
Daily councils were held, always ending in mutual threats. Fairfax could make no progress, but he would not leave.
One day Ali Gorah lined up two thousand warriors in battle array before Fairfax's small command and ordered him to move off, under pain of instant attack. But there Fairfax stubbornly stayed, in the very face of the certainty that his command could not last ten minutes if the chief should actually order a charge. His dauntless courage won, and the war party was withdrawn.
In the meantime some of his Somalis had learned from the Danakils that the murderer's name was Mirach, and that he was the greatest warrior of the tribe, a man with trophies of all sorts of royal game and of no less than forty men to his matrimonial credit. By the eleventh day mutual irritation had nigh reached the fusing point. Fairfax had carefully trained a gun crew to handle a Colt machine-gun that McMillan was bringing as a present to Ras Makonnen, the victor of the field of Adowa, and debated with his mates the question of risking an attack.
Luckily, however, the previous day McMillan had bethought him of a letter of Menelek's he carried, a letter ordering all his subjects to lend the bearer any aid or succor he might need. This letter he sent by his Abyssinian headman to Mantoock, the nearest Abyssinian Ras and a sort of overlord of the Danakils, with request for his advice and aid. Promptly came Mantoock, with only one attendant, heard the story, begged McMillan to have no further care, and raced away for Ali Gorah's village, where happily he arrived in mid afternoon of the eleventh day, just as Fairfax was making dispositions for opening a finish fight.
Mantoock's first act was to advise Fairfax to withdraw his command and rejoin the caravan; and, assured that Mirach would be brought away a prisoner, Fairfax assented and withdrew. Then Mantoock entered alone the village of Ali Gorah and there spent the night. What passed that night between the Christian and the pagan chiefs we do not know. Probably little was said; nothing more was needed, indeed, than the interpretation of the letter of the Negus and the exhibition of the royal seal it bore. Full well Ali Gorah knew the heavy penalty of disobedience.
So it happened that near noon of the twelfth day Mantoock brought Mirach into McMillan's camp, accompanied by thirty of his family and the headmen of the tribe, Mirach marching in fully armed with spears and shield, insolent and fearless.
Asked why he had done the deed, Mirach replied:
"I was resting in the shade. The Feringee approached and asked me to guide him to the river. I told him to pass on and not to disturb me. Then he stayed and talked and talked till I got tired and told him not to tempt me further; for I had never yet had such a chance to kill a white man. Still he annoyed me with his foolish talk until, weary of it, I led him away into the thickets to his death and won trophies dear to Danakil's maidens."
Three camels, worth twenty dollars each, or a total of sixty dollars, is usual blood-money in Abyssinia. When that is paid and received, feuds among the tribesmen end, and murders are soon forgotten. But Mirach was so highly valued as a warrior by his people that they offered McMillan no less than three hundred camels for his life. They were dumbfounded when their offer was refused.
Disarmed and shackled, Mirach remained a sullen but defiant prisoner with the caravan for the next two weeks' march, when the crossing of the Hawash River brought them well into Abyssinian territory and made it safe to rush him forward, in the charge of a small escort, to Adis Ababa.
There he was tried beneath the sombre shade of the famous Judgment Tree, condemned, and two months later hanged in the market place: and there for days his grinning face and shrivelling carcass swung, a menacing proof to the wildest visiting tribesmen of them all of the vast power of the Negus Negusti.
"Throughout Somaliland, among a race famous for their fearlessness, the name of Djama Aout is held a synonym for reckless courage. He did the bravest deed I ever saw, a deed heroic in its purpose, ferociously sage in its execution; the deed of a man bred of a race that knew no longer-range weapon than an assegai, trained from youth to fight and kill at arm's length or in hand grapple; a deed that, incidentally, saved my life."
The speaker was C. W. L. Bulpett, himself well qualified by personal experience to sit in judgment, as Court of Last Resort, on any act of courage; a man who, at forty, without training and on a heavy wager that he could not walk a mile, run a mile, and ride a mile, all in sixteen and a half minutes, finished the three miles in sixteen minutes and seven seconds; a man who, midway of a dinner at Greenwich, bet that he could swim the half-mile across the Thames and back in his evening clothes before the coffee was served, and did it; and who has crossed Africa from Khartoom to the Red Sea.
If more were needed to prove Mr. Bulpett's past-mastership in hardihood, it is perhaps sufficient to mention that he voluntarily got himself in the fix that needed Djama Aout's aid, although in telling the story he did not convey the impression that his own part in it was more than secondary and inconsequential.
"We were big-game hunting, lion and rhino preferred, along the border of Somaliland," he continued. "Besides the pony and camel men, we had four Somalishikaris, trained trackers, who knew the habits of beasts and read their tracks and signs like a book; men of a breed whose women will not give themselves as wives except to men who have scored kills of both royal game and men.
"SahibMcMillan's personalshikariwas DJama Aout; mine, Abdi Dereh. At the time of this incident theSahibhad several lions to his credit, while I yet had none. So theSahibkindly declared that, however and by whomsoever jumped, the try at the next lion should be mine. The section we were in was the usual 'lion country' of East Africa, wide stretches of dry, level plain with occasional low rolling hills, thinly timbered everywhere with the thorny mimosa, most of it low bush, some grown to small trees twenty or thirty feet in height.
"To cover a wider range of shooting, we one day decided to divide the camp, and I moved off about four miles and pitched my tent on a low hill, which left the old camp in clear view across the plain. Early the next morning I went out after eland and had an excellent morning's sport. Returned to camp shortly after noon, tired and dusty, I took a bath, got into pajamas and slippers, had my luncheon, and was sitting comfortably smoking within my tent, when one of my men hurried in to say a messenger was coming on a pony at top speed. Presently he arrived, with word from theSahibthat he had a big male lion at bay in a thicket bordering the river and urging me to hurry to him.
"This my first chance at lion, I seized my rifle, mounted a pony, without stopping to dress, and, followed by Abdi Dereh and anothershikari, dashed away behind the messenger at my pony's best pace. Arrived, I found theSahiband about a dozen men,shikarisand pony men, surrounding a dense mimosa thicket no more than thirty or forty yards in diameter. Nigh two-thirds of its circumference was bounded by a bend of a deep stream the lion was not likely to try to cross, which left a comparatively narrow front to guard against a charge.
"'Here you are, Don Carlos!' called theSahib, as I jumped off my pony. 'Here's your lion in the bush. Up to you to get him out. Djama Aout and the rest will stay to help you while I go back and move the caravan to a new camp-site. No suggestion to make, except I scarcely think I'd go in the bush after him; too thick to see ten feet ahead of you,' and away he rode toward his camp.
"The situation was simple, even to a novice at the game of lion-shooting. With my line of shouting men forced to range themselves across the narrow land front of the thicket and no chance of his exit on the river front, only two lines of strategy remained: it was either fire the bush and drive him out upon us or enter the bush on hands and knees and creep about till I sighted him. The latter was well-nigh suicidal, for it was absolutely sure he would scent, hear, and locate me before I could see him, and thus would be almost complete master of the situation. Naturally, therefore, I first had the bush fired, as near to windward as the bend of the river permitted, and took a stand covering his probable line of exit from the thicket. But it was a failure—not enough dead wood to carry the fire through the bush and it soon flickered and died out. Thus nothing remained but the last alternative, and I took it.
"Dropping on hands and knees, I began to creep into the thicket. Soon my hands were bleeding from the dry mimosa thorns littering the ground, my back from the thorny boughs arching low above me. For some distance I could see no more than the length of my rifle before me or to right or left. Presently, when near the centre of the brush patch, Abdi Dereh next behind me, a secondshikaribehind him, and Djama Aout bringing up the rear, I caught a glimpse of the lion's hind quarters and tail, scarcely six feet ahead of me.
"I fired at once, most imprudently, for the exposure could not possibly afford a fatal shot. Instantly after the shot, the lion circled the dense clump immediately in front of me and charged me through a narrow opening. As he came, I gave him my second barrel from the hip—no time to aim—and in trying to spring aside out of his path, slipped in my loose slippers and fell flat on my back.
"Later we learned that my first shot had torn through his loins and my second had struck between neck and shoulder and ranged the entire length of his body. But even the terrible shock of two great .450 cordite-driven balls did not serve to stop him, and the very moment I hit the ground he lit diagonally across my body, his belly pressing mine, his hot breath burning my cheek, his fierce eyes glaring into mine.
"Though it seemed an age, the rest was a matter of seconds. Abdi Dereh, my rifle-bearer, was in the act of shoving the gun muzzle against the lion's ribs for a shot through the heart, when a shot from without the bush—we never learned by whom fired, probably by one of the pony men—broke his arm and knocked him flat. Then the secondshikarisprang forward and bent to pick up the gun, when one stroke of the lion's great fore paw tore away most of the flesh from one side of his head and face, and laid him senseless.
"Freed for an instant from the attacks of my men, the lion turned to the prey held helpless beneath him, and with a fierce roar, was in the very act of advancing his cavernous mouth and gleaming fangs to seize me by the head, when in jumped Djama Aout to my succor. His only weapon was theSahib's.38 Smith & Wesson self-cocking six-shooter. His was the quickest piece of sound thinking, shrewd acting, and desperate valor conceivable. I was staring death in the face—he knew it at a glance. Just within those enormous jaws, and all would be over with me. The light charge of the pistol, however placed, would be little more than a flea-bite on a monster already ripped laterally and longitudinally through and through by two great .450 cordite shells. Indeed the lion was not even gasping from his wounds; his great heart was beating strong and steady against mine. Of what avail a little pistol-ball, or six of them?
"All this must have raced through Djama Aout's brain in a second, in the very secondShikariNumber Two was falling under the lion's blow. In another second he conceived a plan, absolutely the only one that possibly could have saved me.
"Just at the instant the lion turned and opened his jaws to seize and crush my head, forward sprang Djama Aout; within the lion's jaws and into his great yawning mouth Djama Aout thrust pistol, hand, and forearm, and, though the hard-driven teeth crunched cruelly through sinews and into bone, steadily pulled the trigger till the pistol's six loads were discharged down the lion's very throat!
"Shrinking from the shock of the shots, the lion released Djama Aout's mangled arm and freed me of his weight. Unhurt, even unscratched by the lion, I quickly swung myself up into the biggest mimosa near, a poor four feet from the ground, within easy reach of our enemy if he had not been too sick of his wounds to leap at me.
"Having fallen from the pain and shock of his wounded arm, Djama Aout rose, backed off a little distance, and stood at bay, the pistol clubbed in his left hand.
"While apparently sick unto death, the lion might muster strength for a last attack, so I called to Marlow, who, under orders, had waited without the thicket, bearing an elephant gun. Ignorant of whether or not the lion was even wounded, in the brave boy came, crept in range and fired a great eight-bore ball fair through the lion's heart.
"It was only a few hours until, working with knife and tweezers, theSahibhad all the mimosa thorns dug out of my back and legs, but it was many months before Djama Aout recovered partial use of his good right arm, and it may very well be generations before the story of his heroic deed ceases to be sung in Somali villages."
To seek to come to death grips with the King of Beasts, a man must himself be nothing short of lion-hearted. Such men there are, a few, men with an inborn lust of battle, a love of staking their own lives against the heaviest odds; men who, lacking a Crusader's cult or a country's need to cut and thrust for, go out among the savage denizens of the desert seeking opportunity to fight for their faith in their own strong arms and steady nerves; men who shrink from a laurel but treasure a trophy. William Northrup McMillan, a native of St. Louis, who has spent the last eight years in exploration of the Blue Nile and in travel through Abyssinia and British East Africa, is such a man.
A friend of Mr. McMillan has told me the following story of one of his hunting experiences. While I can only tell it in simple prose, the deed described deserves perpetuity in the stately metre of a saga.
The Jig-Jigga country, a province of Abyssinia lying near the border of British Somaliland and governed by Abdullah Dowa, an Arab sheik owing allegiance to King Menelek, is the best lion country in all Africa. Jig-Jigga is an arid plateau averaging 5,000 feet above sea level, poorly watered but generously grassed, sparsely timbered with the thorny mimosa (full brother to the Texasmesquite), and swarming everywhere with innumerable varieties of the wild game on which the lion preys and fattens—eland, oryx, hartebeest, gazelle, and zebra.
There are two ways of hunting lion. First, from the perfectly safe shelter of a zareba, a tightly enclosed hut built of thorny mimosa bows, with no opening but a narrow porthole for rifle fire. Within thezarebathe hunter is shut in at nightfall by hisshikaris, usually having oneshikariwith him, sometimes with a goat as a third companion and a lure for lion. An occasional bite of the goat's ear by sharpshikariteeth inspires shrill bleats sure to bring any lion lurking near in range of the hunter's rifle. At other times goat ears are spared, and the loudest-braying donkey of the caravan is picketed immediately in front of thezareba'sporthole, his normal vocal activities stimulated by the occasional prod of a stick. Sometimes several weary sleepless nights are spent without result, but sooner or later, without the slightest sound hinting his approach, suddenly a great yellow body flashes out of the darkness and upon the cringing lure. For an instant there are the sinister sounds of savage snarls, rending flesh, cracking bones and screams of pain and fear, and then a dull red flash heralds the rifle's roar, and the tawny terror falls gasping his life out across his prey.
The second, and the only sportsmanlike way of lion-hunting, is by tracking him in the open. The pony men circle till they find a trail, follow it till close enough to the game to race ahead and bring it to bay, circle about it while a messenger brings up theSahib, who dismounts and advances afoot to a combat wherein the echo of a misplaced shot may sound his own death-knell.
One morning while camped in the Jig-Jigga country, William Marlow, ourSahib'svalet, was out with the pony men trailing a wounded oryx, while theSahibhimself was three miles away shooting eland. In mid forenoon Marlow's men struck the fresh track of two great male lions, plainly out on a hunting party of their own.
Instantly Marlow rushed a messenger away to fetch theSahib, and he and the pony men then took the trail at a run. Within two hours the pony men succeeded in circling the quarry and stopping it in a mimosa thicket. Shortly thereafter, while they were circling and shouting about the thicket to prevent a charge before theSahib'sarrival, an incident occurred which proves alike the utter fearlessness and the marvellous knowledge of the game of the Somali. Suddenly out of the shadows of the thicket sprang one of the lions and launched himself like a thunderbolt upon one of the pony men, bearing horse and rider to the ground. Losing his spear in the fall and held fast by one leg beneath his horse, the rider was defenceless. However, he seized a thorny stick and began beating the lion across the face, while the lion tore at the pony's flank and quarters. Then down from his horse sprang another pony man, and knowing he could not kill the lion with his spear quickly enough to save his companion, approached and crouched directly in front of the lion till his own face was scarcely two feet from the lion's, and there made such frightful grimaces and let off such shrill shrieks, that, frightened from his prey, the lion slunk snarling to the edge of the thicket.
Just at this moment theSahibraced upon the scene, accompanied by his Secretary, H. Morgan Brown. In the run he had far outdistanced his gun-bearers. Marlow was unarmed and Brown carried nothing but a camera. Thus theSahib'ssingle-shot .577 rifle was the only effective weapon in the party, and for it he did not even have a single spare cartridge. The one little cylinder of brass within the chamber of his rifle, with the few grains of powder and nickeled lead it held, was the only certain safeguard of the group against death or mangling.
All this must have flashed across theSahib'smind as he leaped from his pony and took stand in the open, sixty steps from where the lion stood roaring and savagely lashing his tail. A little back of theSahiband to his left stood Brown with his camera, beside him Marlow.
Instantly, firm planted on his feet, theSahibthrew the rifle to his face for a steady standing shot. But quicker even than this act, instinctively, the furious King of Beasts had marked the giant bulk of theSahibas the one foeman of the half-score round him worthy of his gleaming ivory weapons, and at him straight he charged the very instant the gun was levelled, coming in great bounds that tossed clouds of dust behind him, coming with hoarse roars at every bound, roars to shake nerves not made of steel and still the beating of the stoutest heart. On came the lion, and there stood theSahib—on and yet on—till it must have seemed to his companions that theSahibwas frozen in his tracks.
But all the time a firm hand and a true eye held the bead of the rifle sight to close pursuit of the lion's every move, so held it till only a narrow sixteen yards separated man and beast. Then theSahib'srifle cracked; and, with marvellous nerve, Brown snapped his camera a second later and caught the picture of the kill. Hitting the beast squarely in the forehead just at the take-on of a bound, the heavy .577 bullet cleaned out the lion's brain pan and killed him instantly, his body turning in mid-air and hitting the ground inert. A better rifle-shot would be impossible, and as good a camera snapshot has certainly never been made in the very face of instant, impending, deadly peril.
A half-hour later Lion Number Two, slower of resolution than his mate, fell to theSahib'sfirst shot, with a broken neck, while lashing himself into fit fury for a charge. This was more even than a royal kill; each of the lions was, in size, a record among Jig-Jigga hunters, the first measuring eleven feet one inch from tip of nose to tip of tail, the second eleven feet.
And then the party marched back to camp with the trophies, Djama Aout, the headshikari, chanting paeans to his Sahib's prowess, while his mates roared a hoarse Somali chorus, and all night long, by ancient law ofshikari, the camp feasted, chanted, and danced, one sable saga-maker after another chanting his pride to serve so valiant aSahib.