This intelligence was a regular damper to the
spirits of some of the party. Mahomet quietly retired and sat
down by Barrake, the ex-slave woman, having expressed a
resolution to keep awake every hour that he should be compelled
to remain in that horrible country. The lions roared louder and
louder, but no one appeared to notice such small thunder; all
thoughts were fixed upon the Base, so thoroughly had the
aggageers succeeded in frightening not only Mahomet, but also our
Tokrooris.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE LIONS FIND THE BUFFALO.
EARLY on the following morning the lions were still roaring,
apparently within a hundred yards of the camp. I accordingly took
a Reilly No. 10 double rifle and accompanied by my wife, who was
anxious to see these glorious animals, and who carried my little
Fletcher No. 24, I skirted the outside of the jungle on the high
bank, on the narrow arm of the river. We were not long in finding
traces of the lions. A broad track in the sandy bed of the dried
stream showed where the buffalo had been dragged across to the
thick and impervious green bushes, exactly beneath us on the
margin of the river. A hind quarter of the buffalo, much gnawed,
lay within seven or eight paces of us, among the bushes that had
been trampled down, and the dung of numerous lions lay upon the
open ground near the place of their concealment.
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