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Updated: May 20, 2025
There was no mistaking their origin; only a lion could make such a noise as that. We all jumped up and looked towards the water, in the direction of which we saw a confused mass, yellow and black in colour, staggering and struggling towards us. We seized our rifles, and slipping on our veldtschoons, that is shoes made of untanned hide, ran out of the scherm.
There came a lull for a short time after this, and we were congratulating ourselves that morning would soon be dawning, when the lions would slink away, or when the light would enable us to finish them when without the least warning a huge form leapt clean over the hedge and landed in the centre of the scherm, scattering the few remaining embers in all directions.
Then the lion, unable to free himself, had torn and bitten at the back and neck of the bull, which, maddened with fear and pain, had rushed on until it dropped dead. As soon as we had examined the beasts sufficiently we called the Kafirs, and between us managed to drag their carcases up to the scherm. After that we went in and lay down, to wake no more till dawn.
Then I came back to the scherm, my mad fit of rage over, and nothing but grief, and a sorrow too deep for words to express, left in my heart. The huge lion lay right across the poor boy's body, still gripping his crushed shoulder in its mighty jaws; but now I saw that in spite of his terrible injuries Inyati was not dead, though he was dying even as I came back to him.
Then the space enclosed is smoothed, and dry tambouki grass, if obtainable, is made into a bed in the centre, and a fire or fires lighted. By the time the "scherm" was finished the moon peeped up, and our dinners of giraffe steaks and roasted marrow-bones were ready. How we enjoyed those marrow-bones, though it was rather a job to crack them!
The answer was not long in coming; for, as I sat there intently scanning the scene through my telescope, I saw the head and about six feet of the body of an enormous python upreared from inside the scherm, its appearance being greeted by a yell of delight from the monkeys that caused Prince to snort and stamp with excitement.
As night fell, however, their roars became louder and nearer, and by mid-night there were at least a dozen of them pacing round our scherm, and barely kept at a distance by the frequent fire- brands we threw over the fragile protection.
I saw the huge reptile up-rear itself still further and attempt to get out of the scherm; but it could not do so without crawling over the hedge of thorns, and the moment that its body touched these it recoiled, its immense jaws gaped open, its tongue flickered in and out, and I could in imagination hear its angry hisses as plainly as I could hear the howls of derision and defiance with which the monkeys greeted its appearance.
Also his father was wicked before him, and he had Kaffir blood in his veins. Ah! for how much must our blood be called upon to answer, and how good is that man who can conquer the natural promptings of his blood! Jan and I were following Ralph when he entered the river scherm, and reached it just in time to see pursued and pursuer vanishing up the narrow cleft.
Some ten or twelve minutes after I had come to a halt the scherm was finished, and then came an end to the silence which the monkeys had been at such pains to observe during the progress of the work; for, with its completion, the creatures set up a sudden chattering and howling and shrieking which distinctly reached me even at the distance of a good half-mile.
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