"But how will you like taking your turn of `sentry-go' to-night, Master Tom?" asked Patrick Keown. "Ah, to be sure!" put in the Major. "Two hours at a stretch, you know, Tom; and we shall expect you to be on the `_qui-vive_;' no sleeping on your post, young man!" "No fear of that, father," retorted the boy with a good-humoured laugh. "But I say, do you really think there's any likelihood of our being attacked?" "Well, it is within the bounds of possibility that some wild beast might take a fancy to one of the mules, or a roving Bushman or Hottentot to our rifles," was his father's reply; "so it will be best to keep a night-watch." "I suppose there are no lions in these parts?" inquired George Weston. "I should think not, George," answered Major Flinders. "There is no doubt that they, and many other savage beasts, have retreated before the progress of European colonisation, and are now very rarely to be seen, except further north and east. Still they are not extinct, even in this district." "Plenty lion in Bosjesman's country," observed Black William; "an' dey terrible savage dere too! Eat up poor black mans, like de silver jackal eat missis' chickens; but dey seldom touch de white mans. Tink de black moch nicer." "Find them more _gamey_, I presume," was Mr Weston's sotto voce remark. "I have heard several curious instances of the unwillingness of lions to attack a white man, especially if he shows a bold front," said the Major, refilling his pipe; "and I will relate one that I can vouch for. During the expedition against the Fitcani tribe in '28, I had attached to my troop as volunteers two Cape Dutchmen--Hendrik and Gert Eoos. You'll recollect them, Patrick?" "Shure I do, sorr," replied the ex-rifleman. "Hendrik Eoos saved me loife at Schepers Drift, but I nearly broke me heart thrying to kape him clane! He and his brother were the bravest and dhirtiest men I iver came across!" "Well," continued the Major after one or two draws at his long Dutch pipe, "the brothers Roos were renowned as mighty hunters, and it was said that they had killed upwards of thirty lions in their time, to say nothing of other big game. But you know that `the pitcher that goes too often to the well runs a good chance of getting smashed,' and Master Hendrik Roos on one occasion went very near proving the truth of the old proverb. He was hunting alone in the wilds when suddenly he found himself face to face with an enormous lion, who, so far from retiring before the white man, seemed determined to dispute with him the right of way. Hendrik dismounted, threw his reins over his arm, and, waiting until the lion was within twenty paces and couched and in the act of springing, took careful aim at his forehead, but the moment he pressed the trigger his horse started, the reins broke, and, worse than all, his bullet missed its mark!