Heedless of the spikes and brambles of the star-shaped carrion-flower and other Euphorbia, prickly cacti, and so forth, as if their bare legs were clothed in mail, the Zulus rushed hither and thither about the wood in their fierce and active search, and, as they never doubted they would find the fugitive, they became somewhat perplexed when he was nowhere to be seen; and after traversing it again and again, they dispersed in pursuit over the open country, and then Florian began to breathe more freely. He had lost his white helmet in the Buffalo, and been since deprived of his scarlet tunic; thus, fortunately for himself, his attire consisted chiefly of a pair of tattered regimental trousers and a blue flannel shirt, and these favoured his concealment among the dense foliage of the tree. Night came on, but he dared not yet quit the wood, lest the searchers might be about; and he dared not sleep lest he might fall to the ground, break a limb, perhaps, and lie there to perish miserably. When all was perfectly still, and the bright stars were shining out, he thought of quitting his place of concealment; but a strange sound that he heard, as of some heavy body being dragged through the underwood, and another that seemed like mastication or chewing, made him pause in alarm and great irresolution. Florian thought that night would never pass; its hours seemed interminable. At last dawn began to redden the east, and he knew that his every hope must lie in the opposite direction; and, stiff and sore, he dropped a fresh cartridge into the breech-block of his recently acquired rifle, and then slid to the ground and looked cautiously about him. Then the mysterious sounds he had heard in the night were fearfully accounted for, and his heart seemed to stand still when, not twenty paces from him, he saw a lion of considerable size, and he knew that more than one horse of the Kind's Dragoon Guards. had been devoured by such animals in that country. Florian had never seen one before, even in a menagerie; and, expecting immediate death, he regarded it with a species of horrible fascination, while his right hand trembled on the lock of his rifle, for as a serpent fascinates a bird, so did the glare of that lion's eye paralyze Florian for a time. The African lion is much larger than the Asiatic, and is more powerful, its limbs being a complete congeries of sinews. This terrible animal manifested no signs of hostility, but regarded Florian lazily, as he lay among the bushes near a half-devoured quagga, on which his hunger had been satiated. His jaws, half open, showed his terrific fangs. Florian knew that if he fired he might only wound, not slay the animal, and, with considerable presence of mind he passed quickly and silently out of the wood into the open, at that supreme crisis forgetting even all about the Zulus, but giving many a backward nervous glance.