such case Gebhr with the greatestcertainty would stab them both in turn.
So pulling the sleeve with redoubled strength he shouted:
"Give me the short rifle! I will kill the lion!"
These words astonished the Bedouins, but Chamis, who had witnessedStas' shooting in Port Said, began at once to cry:
"Give him the rifle! He will kill the lion."
Gebhr recollected at once the shots on Lake Karun and in view of thehorrible danger, assented. With great haste he gave the boy the shortrifle and Chamis, as quick as a thought, opened the cartridge box, fromwhich Stas took a large fistful of cartridges, after which he leapedoff his horse, inserted the cartridges in the barrels, and movedforward.
For the first few steps he was as though stupefied and saw only himselfand Nell with throats cut by Gebhr's knife. But soon the nearer andmore horrible danger commanded him to forget about everything else. Hehad a lion before him! At the sight of the animal his eyes grew dim. Hefelt a chill on his cheeks and nose, he felt that he had feet as ifmade of lead and he could scarcely breathe. Plainly he feared. In PortSaid he had read during the recitation time of lion-hunts, but it wasone thing to examine pictures in books and another to stand eye to eyewith the monster, who now gazed at him as if with amazement, wrinklinghis broad forehead which resembled a shield.
The Arabs held the breath in their breasts, for never in their liveshad they seen anything like this. On the one side was a small boy, whoamid the steep rocks appeared yet smaller, on the other a powerfulbeast, golden in the sun's rays, magnificent, formidable--"The lordwith the great head," as the Sudanese say.
Stas overcame with the whole force of his will the inertness of hislimbs and advanced farther. For a while yet it seemed to him that hisheart had leaped up into his throat, and this feeling continued untilhe raised the rifle to his face. Then it was necessary to think ofsomething else. Whether to approach nearer or to fire at once; where toaim. The smaller the distance the surer the shot--therefore nearer andnearer!--forty paces, too many yet;--thirty!--twenty! Already thebreeze carried the pungent animal odor.
The boy stood.
"A bullet between the eyes, or it will be all over with me," hethought. "In the name of the Father and of the Son--!"
And the lion rose, stretched his body, and lowered his head. His lipsbegan to open, his brows to contract over his eyes. This mite of beinghad dared to approach too closely--so he prepared for a leap, sittingwith haunches quivering on his hind legs.
But Stas, during the twinkling of an eye, perceived that the bead ofthe rifle was in a direct line with the forehead of the animal--andpulled the trigger.
The shot pealed. The lion reared so that for a while he straightenedout to his full height; after which he toppled over on his back withhis four paws up.
And in the final convulsions he rolled off the rock onto the ground.
Stas for several minutes covered him with his rifle, but seeing thatthe quivering ceased and that the tawny body was stretched out inertly,he opened the rifle and inserted another cartridge.
The stony walls reverberated yet with the thunderous echo. Gebhr,Chamis, and the Bedouins could not at once descry what had happened, ason the previous night rain had fallen, and owing to the dampness of theweather the smoke veiled everything in the narrow ravine. Only when thesmoke abated, did they shout with joy, and wanted to rush towards theboy, but in vain, as no power could force the horses to move ahead.
And Stas turned around, took in the four Arabs with his gaze and fixedhis eyes on Gebhr.
"Ah! There has been enough of this!" he said through his set teeth."You have exceeded the measure. You shall not torment Nell or any oneelse any more."
And suddenly he felt that his nose and cheeks turned pale, but this wasa different chill, caused not by fright, but by a terrible andinflexible resolution from which the heart in the bosom becomes, forthe time being, iron.
"Yes! It is imperative! These are mere villains, executioners,murderers, and Nell is in their hands!"
"You shall not murder her!" he repeated.
He approached them--again stood, and suddenly with the rapidity oflightning raised the rifle to his face.
Two shots, one after the other, jarred the ravine with an echo. Gebhrtumbled upon the ground, and Chamis swayed in the saddle and struck hishorse's neck with his bleeding forehead.
The two Bedouins uttered a horrified cry of consternation and,springing from the horses, dashed at Stas. A bend was not far behindthem, and if they had run in the other direction, which Stas in hissoul desired, they could have saved their lives. But blinded by terrorand fury they thought that they would reach the boy before he would beable to change the cartridges, and cut him to pieces with their knives.Fools! They ran barely a dozen paces when again the ill-omened riflecracked; the ravine resounded with the echo of new shots and both fellwith faces on the ground, flouncing about like fishes taken out ofwater. One of them, who in the haste was hurt the least, raised himselfand propped himself on his hands, but at that moment Saba sunk hisfangs in his throat.
And mortal silence ensued.
It was broken only by the moans of Kali, who threw himself on his kneesand, stretching out his hands, exclaimed in the broken Kiswahili tongue:
"Bwana kubwa! (Great master!) Kill the lion! Kill bad people, but donot kill Kali!"
Stas, however, paid no heed to his cries. For some time he stood as ifdazed; after which, observing Nell's pallid face and half-consciouseyes, opened widely from terror, he ran towards her.
"Nell, do not fear!--Nell, we are free!"
In fact they actually were free, but astray in a wild, uninhabitedregion, in the heart of the land of the Blacks.
PART SECOND
I
Before Stas and the young negro dragged the slain Arabs and the lion'sheavy body to the side of the ravine the sun had descended still moreand night was soon to fall. But it was impossible to sleep in thevicinity of the corpses; so, though Kali stroked his stomach andrepeated, smacking with his tongue, "Msuri niama" (good meat), Stas didnot permit him to busy himself with the "niama," and instead orderedhim to catch the horses, which ran away after the shooting. The blackboy did this with extraordinary skill. Instead of running after them inthe ravine, in which case they would have sped away farther andfarther, he climbed to the top and, shortening his way by avoiding thebends, he intercepted the startled steeds from the front. In thismanner he easily caught two; and two more he drove towards Stas. OnlyGebhr's and Chamis' horses could not be found, but at any rate fourremained, not counting the lap-eared creature, loaded with the tent andthings, who, in view of the tragic occurrences, displayed a truephilosophical calm. They found him beyond a bend, cropping closely andwithout any haste the grass growing on the bottom of the ravine.
The medium-sized Sudanese horses are accustomed generally to the sightof wild animals, but they fear lions, so it was with considerabledifficulty that they were led past the rock which was blackened with apuddle of blood. The horses snorted, dilating their nostrils andstretching their necks towards the blood-stained stones; nevertheless,when the donkey, only pricking his ears a little, passed by calmly,they also passed on. Night had already fallen; they nevertheless rodeover half a mile, and halted only in a place where the ravine widenedagain into a small amphitheatrical vale, overgrown with dense thornsand prickly mimosa trees.
"Master," said the young negro, "Kali will make a fire--a big fire."
And taking the broad Sudanese sword, which he had removed from Gebhr'scorpse, he began to cut with it thorns and even little trees. Afterbuilding the fire, he continued to cut until he secured a supply whichwould suffice for the whole night, after which with Stas he pitched thetent for Nell, under a steep perpendicular wall of the ravine, andlater they surrounded it with a semi-circular, broad and prickly fence,or a so-called zareba.
Stas knew from descriptions of African travels that travelers in thismanner safeguarded themselves against the attacks of wild animals. Thehorses could not be place
d within the fence; so the boy, unsaddlingthem and removing the tin utensils and bags, only hobbled them so thatthey should not stray too far in seeking grass or water. Mea finallyfound water near-by in a stony cavity, forming as it were a littlebasin under the opposite rocks. There was so copious a supply that itsufficed for the horses and the cooking of the guinea-fowls which wereshot that morning by Chamis. In the pack-saddles, which the donkeybore, they also found about three pots of durra, a few fistfuls ofsalt, and a bunch of dried manioc roots.
This sufficed for a bounteous supper. Kali and Mea mainly tookadvantage of it. The young negro whom Gebhr had starved in a cruelmanner ate such an amount of food as would have sated two men. But forthis he was grateful with his whole heart to his new master andmistress, and immediately after supper he fell on his face before Stasand Nell in token that he desired to remain their slave to the end ofhis life, and afterwards he also