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Boys followed me a great way off, like a timid sort of lion-hunters; and people turned round to have a second look, or came out of their houses, as I went by. My passage was the first event, you would have fancied, since the Camisards.
For my own part, I would rather give up the honour and the elegance, and go to the antipodes at once, and live with their antagonists, the lion-hunters yea, the lion-loving bores. Their antipodes, did I say? that was going too far: even the most exaggerated ultra-anti-blues, upon occasion, forget themselves strangely, and have been seen to join the common herd in running after lions.
Looking back, I think that Mrs. Strickland was the most harmless of all the lion-hunters that pursue their quarry from the rarefied heights of Hampstead to the nethermost studios of Cheyne Walk. She had led a very quiet youth in the country, and the books that came down from Mudie's Library brought with them not only their own romance, but the romance of London.
With slow steps he went into the cage, gave one roar, and began to eat. The door was snapped shut and Prince was caught. "Good work!" exclaimed the ring-master in relieved tones. "Now we can go on with the show." Messengers were sent to recall the other lion-hunters, and great precautions were taken to see that this second cage was secure. Prince seemed to have calmed down after his brief freedom.
After the experience Edison could never again be tempted to quit his laboratory and work for any length of time; but in this instance there were some advantages attached to the sacrifice, for the crowds of lion-hunters and people seeking business arrangements would only have gone out to Menlo Park; while, on the other hand, the great plans for lighting New York demanded very close personal attention on the spot.
Occasionally the keen eyes of a rider spied a buck in the distance, and then several of the lion-hunters sped obliquely off the track and replenished the commando larder with much smaller game than was the object of their expedition.
And my brother-in-law, thinking such a change unjust, would not permit it. There was something in the manner in which he almost perfunctorily, as it seemed, uttered his long monologue, that suggested the idea of the performance of a part got up to order, and repeated without much modification as often as lion-hunters, duly authorised for the sport in those localities, might call upon him for it.
I seemed to expect a joke, and suddenly one of the mules fell on his back. In a moment all our heroes were up and ready to defend themselves against lions or khakies, according to their different dreams. I laughed, and laughed again, so that the hyenas could hear me a mile off, and the startled lion-hunters began to laugh also, so that we woke up the whole camp.
Lorand had often read stories of famous lion-hunters, but had been unable to believe them: unable to imagine how a lonely man in a wild waste, far from every human aid, defended only by a bush, could be courageous enough to cover the oldest male among a group of lions seeking their prey, and at a distance of ten paces fire into his heart. Not to hit his heart meant death to the hunter.
Lions could not be far Off now; and, indeed, in five minutes' time he did see a whole band of lion-hunters coming his way under arms. "Cowards!" thought our hero as he skirted them; "downright cowards, to go at a lion in companies and with dogs!" For it never could occur to him that anything but lions were objects of the chase in Algeria.
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