FullReads

I fired! fired right into his big red mouth, between two hideous pickets of ugly yellow teeth. He fell back, and then, gathering his ferocious strength, he bounded up and forward again; this time striking his left shoulder heavily against a projecting corner of the granite slab. Fortunately the ascent was slightly curving, so that the distance could not be made at a single bound without collision, else had we both surely been destroyed.

Again the supple and comely beast, disdaining to creep or crawl, made a mighty leap upward. But only to strike the rounding corner of the great granite slab and fall back as before.

But I knew he would reach us in time! And if ever man did wish for fitting arms to fight with and defend woman it was I at that time. True, I had five shots left; but what were they in the face of this furious king of beasts? I began to fear that they would only serve to enrage him.

Still, he should have all I had to give. Death is, has been, and will be. The best we can make of it all is to try and see that we shall not die ingloriously.

The woman had been by my side all this time. And now, as the lion paused as if to gather up the broken thunderbolts of his strength, she laid a hand on my arm, never so gently, and said: “Let me go down and meet him face to face. I think he will not harm me.”

“Madam,” I exclaimed impetuously, “you will meet him up here, and face to face, soon enough, I think.”

“No, that will not do. You must trust the lion; as Daniel did.”

I pushed her back, as she tried to pass down, almost violently.

“There!” I cried as I wheeled about and forced her before me for an instant, “if you have real courage leap to the head of yonder column, then on to the next! Quick! be brave enough to save yourself and—-“

“No! I will not run away and leave you to die.”

“For God’s sake you will run away and save me.”

“Why? How?”

“I will join you there, go! Quick, or it will be too late!”

Another leap of the lion! Bang! Bang!

This time he did not fall back, but held on by sheer force of his powerful arms; his terrible claws tearing at the granite slab as they hung and hooked over its outer edge.

Bang! Bang! Bang! The last shot. I hurled my revolver in his face, for he had not flinched or given back a single grain. His breath and my breath were mingled there in the smoke of my pistol. I heard–or did I feel–his great hinder feet fastening in the steep earth under him for his final struggle to the top?

I turned, saw that she had reached the farther column; and with three leaps and a bound I had crossed the granite slabs and stood erect on the nearer one! Not a moment had I left. The lion, with great noise of claws on the granite, came tearing to the surface. I crouched down out of breath on the outer edge of my column, so as to be surely out of reach of his ponderous paws. I expected him to decide the matter at once, to reach us or give it up instantly. But he seemed in no haste now. He scarcely advanced at all, for what seemed to me to be a long time. Finally, jerking his tail like the swift movement of a serpent, he strode along the farthest edge of the granite slab and seemed to take no notice of us whatever. Blood was dripping from his mouth, but he did not seem to heed it.

Once more he strode with his old majesty, and seemed ashamed that he should have descended to the indignity of a struggle to gain the place where he now stood sullen and triumphant. Enraged? He was choking, dying with rage; and yet this kingly creature would not even condescend to look in our direction.