“I once joined in a lion hunt in upper Nubia. A great male lion, many times wounded, was surrounded in a copse of mimosa brush. With twenty guns leveled, we stood waiting while the beaters hurled fragments of stone into the cover. Instantly the branches parted and, with bristling mane and grand uplifted head, the desert king came forth. For a moment he stood in his defiant attitude, gazing at the threatening guns, then the royal mane fell, the great eyes blenched, the huge head sank, and the fierce beast turned and slunk into the copse. “I recalled this Nubian episode as I now stood looking upon this hunted thing. But this was not a lion—it did not blench! “There was a fearful silence. No one seemed to know what to do or say. At last Cady’s voice broke the silence, the low, measured tones vibrating with feeling. “‘Tigre, God knows I should like to save you. If the Lady Isola—’ “His words were abruptly broken off by Kenneth. The big Scotchman roughly pushed him aside, fiercely crying: “‘Save that bloody brute? Hold up your hands, you cowardly murderer!’ “What we then saw was a most wonderful thing. The outlaw’s face glowed with such radiancy as comes to men only in moments of ineffable joy. With electrical swiftness the heavy rifle was whisked backward, whirled with a swish over his right shoulder, and hurled forward with the resistless force of a cannon-shot. I heard the flutter as the weapon spun in the air like a revolving wheel, the crunch of the splintered ribs, and the sickening smash as the body of Kenneth was slammed back against the canyon wall, as a wind-gust slams a door. Then came a spurt of smoke from a dozen rifles, and the jar of the volley. “The combined blow of the bullets shook the outlaw’s breast as though he had been struck with a heavy club, and a great red splotch flared out upon his bosom. The light slowly faded from his dauntless eyes, and, feebly turning, like one who walks in his sleep, he passed within the copse. An instant later we heard the fall of a heavy body, and then out rang a cry, a shriek of frenzied agony, a woman’s wail, carrying in its tones such horror and despair as to chill the blood within my heart. I turned to Cady, and the expression upon his white and drawn face appalled me. His hands shook as they slowly relaxed, dropping his rifle upon the ground. In a low voice, trembling with emotion, he cried: “‘Great God, I knew it! We shot her at the river, and he swam with her through that water-hell! For two days he carried her mangled body before our horses! I knew why his footprints were so deep! I knew for whom that couch of grass was made! At last he knew she was dying, and he came out to be killed! God of heaven! what manner of man was this!’