As the white man's footprints had advanced, the game had retreated to the deeper solitudes of the wilderness. Herds of gnoos and bucks occasionally swept across the plains, and May pointed out a drift where lions sometimes came down to drink; but there were no companies of these kings of the desert--no sentinel giraffes--no midnight echoes from the trumpet-signal of wandering elephants. It was a grand panorama, and as, while May off-saddled, our sportsmen cast themselves on the grass of a natural platform overhanging the scene, a fine buck started out of a bush, and passed them by with head erect, eyeballs strained, and limbs quivering with terror and dismay. The rifles of both sportsmen were brought to the shoulder at one instant, and in another, the beautiful animal was stretched upon the turf, dying the plants, which enamelled it, in blood. The horses secured, away went May--greedy fellow--to kindle a fire; Frankfort and Ormsby took out their _couteaux de chasse_, and the former, ere he drew his blade across the neck of the creature, paused with some compunction at having killed his game with so little credit to himself as a sportsman, two rifle-balls having lodged in the head of the buck when only a few feet from his destroyers. He paused, I say, and, casting his eyes upon the valley, drew Ormsby's attention to various species of smaller game, which, roused from their coverts by the crack of the rifles, were speeding in hot haste across the plain; gnoos, zebras, and bucks of manifold kind, all at once gave life to the green valley far below the travellers' reach; and Frankfort had scarcely had time to point them out, when a noble lion, with eyeballs of flame and mane erect, sprung at a single bound from his covert in the cliff above, and, in silent majesty, placed his huge paw upon the neck of the slaughtered deer, his gleaming orbs fixed in steady gaze on the astonished countenance of Frankfort. He uttered no sound--the lashing of his tail against his sides was the only proof this magnificent lord of the manor gave of his displeasure at the intrusion of poachers on his territory. His frown was terrific, and said plainly, "This is my property by royal right, and here I stand to defend it." How long this scene lasted was never computed by the sportsmen-- Frankfort always admitted that they left the lion master of the field, and declared that Ormsby was as ready as he to dive into a bush and climb a path they would not have attempted "under ordinary circumstances." Not long after this adventure their plans and prospects assumed a totally different aspect to what they had anticipated; a simple incident proved the straw that turned the balance, and caused them to turn their backs upon an expedition to which one, at least, had looked forward with the prospect of a year's sport and travel.