"Well, I think they were lions too," went on Blachland, "because the one I shot this morning might easily have been coming from this direction." "What?" cried Spence. "D'you mean to say you shot a lion this morning?" "Yes. Just about daylight. And a fine big chap too." "And you never told us anything about it all this time!" Blachland smiled. "Well, you see, Spence, it isn't my first, not by several. Or possibly I might have ridden up at a hard gallop, flourishing my hat and hooraying," he said good-naturedly. But there was a grimness about the very good nature, decided Spence. Here was a man who had just shot a lion, and seem to think no more of the feat than if he had merely shot a partridge. He was conscious that he himself, under the same circumstances would have acted somewhat after the manner the other had described. "But how did you come upon him?" asked Hermia, eagerly. "Just after daylight. Started to ride on ahead of the waggon. Came to a dry drift; horse stuck short, refused to go down. Snake, I thought at first; but no. On the opposite side a big lion staring straight at us, not seventy yards away. Slipped from the gee, drew a careful bead, and let go. Laid him out without a kick, bang through the skull. Quite close to the waggon it was too. I left them taking off the skin. There! that's the waggon"--as the distant crack of a whip came through the clear morning air. "We'll go and look at it directly." "Oh, well done!" cried Hermia; and the wholly approving glance she turned upon the lion-slayer sent a pang of soreness and jealousy through Justin Spence. He began to hate Blachland. That infernal assumption of indifference was really affectation--in short, the most objectionable form of "side." Soon, the rumble of heavy wheels drew nearer, and, to the accompaniment of much whip-cracking, and unearthly and discordant yells, without which it seems impossible to drive a span of oxen, the waggon rolled up. It was drawn within the enclosure to be out-spanned. "You have got a small load this time," said Hermia, surveying the great, cumbrous, weather-worn vehicle, with its carefully packed cargo, and hung about with pots and kettles and game horns, and every sort of miscellaneous article which it was not convenient to stow within. "Ah, there's the skin. Why, yes, Hilary, it is a fine one!" The native servants gathered to admire the great mane and mighty paws there spread out, and many were the excited ejaculations and comments they fired off. The skin, being fresh, was unpleasantly gory--notably the hole made by the bullet where it had penetrated the skull.