One or two balls now hit him, upon which, magnificent in his audacity, he stalks forth and stands in front of the bush which sheltered him. Not a word is spoken. The lion roars, rolls his glaring eyes, draws back, crouches down, again rises up, and by the movements of his tail and body snaps off all the branches that surround him. The front rank discharge their pieces, whereupon the monster bounds forward, and generally falls dead beneath the fire of the second rank, who step forward and fill up the intervals left in the first. This is the critical moment, for the lion resigns the contest only when a ball has struck him in the head, or in the heart. It is no rare thing to see him continue the fight with ten or a dozen balls through his body. In other words, he is seldom overpowered until he has killed or wounded some of his foot assailants. The horsemen who accompany the expedition have nothing to do, so long as their foe does not quit the broken ground. Their part commences when, as occasionally happens, the men on foot have succeeded in driving out the lion upon a plateau, or into the plain. The combat then assumes a new aspect, full of interest and originality. Each horseman, according to his hardihood and agility, spurs on his horse at full speed, fires at the lion as at an ordinary mark, at a short distance, and, wheeling his horse round the moment he has fired, gallops off to reload his piece before making a second assault. The lion, attacked on all sides and wounded at every moment, faces about in every direction, rushes forward, flees, returns, and falls, but only after a glorious struggle. His defeat, indeed, must inevitably terminate in his death, for against horsemen mounted on Arab horses success is impossible. He makes but three terrific bounds, after which his pace is by no means swift, and an ordinary horse will distance him without trouble. To form a just idea of such a combat, it is absolutely necessary to have witnessed one. Every horseman hurls an imprecation; there is a wild confusion of sounds, the burnouses fly out, the powder thunders, the hunters crowd together or scatter widely apart. The lion roars, the balls whistle, and the whole forms a scene of movement and animation. But notwithstanding all this tumult, accidents are very unusual. The hunters have little to fear, unless a fall from their horse throws them under the paw of their enemy, or—which is more frequent misadventure—they are hit by a friendly but ill-directed ball.