As I half arose the lion suddenly halted. He lifted his proud head higher still in the air, and to my consternation half turned about and looked straight in my direction. Then a sidewise and circuitous step or two with his long reach of hinder leg, his wide and deep and flexible flank; slow and kingly; splendid to see!
I sank down again, quite willing to let him interview the land of Arabs in the black chasm below. They had spears and guns and everything down there, everything but courage to face a lion with; and I was not going to interfere with a fight which at the first had promised to be entirely their own.
But this new movement of mine only accentuated his graceful motion. The head now turned in the air, like the head of a man. I had time to note, and I record it with certainty, that the massive head and the tumbled mane towered straight above the shoulder. In fact, the lower parts of the long mane looked most like the long shaggy beard of a man falling down upon his broad breast. This I noted as he still kept on in his sidewise circuit above us and around us on the yellow sand and under the yellow moon. At times he was almost indistinct. But the carriage of that head! There was a fine fascination in the lift and the movement and the turn of that stately head that must ever be remembered, but can never be described.
As he came nearer – for his sidewise walk was mainly in our direction – I saw that he, too, was yellow, as if born of this yellow world in this yellow night; but his was a more ponderous yellow; the yellow of red and rusty old gold. At times he seemed almost black; and all the time terrible.
In half a minute more he would be too close for comfort, and I decided to arouse my companion. She wakened fully awake, if I may be allowed to express a fact so awkwardly. You may know that there are people like that.
"What is it?"
"A lion."
"Are you sure?"
"Certain."
"Where?"
"Right before your eyes."
"Why, I see nothing."
She had looked and was still looking far out against the yellow horizon where her eyes had rested when she fell asleep. And as she looked, or rather before I ventured to point her to the spot almost under the tomb where the lion strode, he passed on and was by this time perhaps almost quite under the great slab of granite where we rested.
I was about to whisper the fact in her ear when I fancied I felt the whole tomb tremble! Then it seemed to shake, or rather rumble again. Then again it rumbled. Then again! Then there was a roar that literally shook the sand. I heard the sand sift and rattle down like drops of rain from where it lay in the crevices as I listened to find whether or not he was moving forward toward the place by which we had ascended. He was surely moving forward. I felt rather than heard him move. I assert – and I must content myself for the present with merely asserting – that you can feel the movements of an animal under such circumstances. And I assert further that an animal, especially a wild beast, can feel your movements under almost any circumstances. The undeveloped senses deserve a book by themselves. But just now, with the largest lion I ever saw coming straight upon me, is hardly the time or place to write such a treatise.
Pistol in hand I sprang to the steep and rugged passage. And not a second too soon. His mighty head was almost on a level with the granite slab. And he was half crouching for a bound and a spring upward, which would perhaps land him in our faces. I could see – or did I feel – that his huge hinder feet were spread wide out and sunken in the sand with preparation to bend all their force toward bearing him upward in one mighty bound.
I fired! fired right into his big red mouth, between two hideous pickets of ugly yellow teeth. He fell back, and then, gathering his ferocious strength, he bounded up and forward again; this time striking his left shoulder heavily against a projecting corner of the granite slab. Fortunately the ascent was slightly curving, so that the distance could not be made at a single bound without collision, else had we both surely been destroyed.
Again the supple and comely beast, disdaining to creep or crawl, made a mighty leap upward. But only to strike the rounding corner of the great granite slab and fall back as before.
But I knew he would reach us in time! And if ever man did wish for fitting arms to fight with and defend woman it was I at that time. True, I had five shots left; but what were they in the face of this furious king of beasts? I began to fear that they would only serve to enrage him.
Still, he should have all I had to give. Death is, has been, and will be. The best we can make of it all is to try and see that we shall not die ingloriously.
The woman had been by my side all this time. And now, as the lion paused as if to gather up the broken thunderbolts of his strength, she laid a hand on my arm, never so gently, and said: "Let me go down and meet him face to face. I think he will not harm me."
"Madam," I exclaimed impetuously, "you will meet him up here, and face to face, soon enough, I think."
"No, that will not do. You must trust the lion; as Daniel did."
I pushed her back, as she tried to pass down, almost violently.
"There!" I cried as I wheeled about and forced her before me for an instant, "if you have real courage leap to the head of yonder column, then on to the next! Quick! be brave enough to save yourself and – "
"No! I will not run away and leave you to die."
"For God's sake you will run away and save me."
"Why? How?"
"I will join you there, go! Quick, or it will be too late!"
Another leap of the lion! Bang! Bang!
This time he did not fall back, but held on by sheer force of his powerful arms; his terrible claws tearing at the granite slab as they hung and hooked over its outer edge.
Bang! Bang! Bang! The last shot. I hurled my revolver in his face, for he had not flinched or given back a single grain. His breath and my breath were mingled there in the smoke of my pistol. I heard – or did I feel – his great hinder feet fastening in the steep earth under him for his final struggle to the top?
I turned, saw that she had reached the farther column; and with three leaps and a bound I had crossed the granite slabs and stood erect on the nearer one! Not a moment had I left. The lion, with great noise of claws on the granite, came tearing to the surface. I crouched down out of breath on the outer edge of my column, so as to be surely out of reach of his ponderous paws. I expected him to decide the matter at once, to reach us or give it up instantly. But he seemed in no haste now. He scarcely advanced at all, for what seemed to me to be a long time. Finally, jerking his tail like the swift movement of a serpent, he strode along the farthest edge of the granite slab and seemed to take no notice of us whatever. Blood was dripping from his mouth, but he did not seem to heed it.
Once more he strode with his old majesty, and seemed ashamed that he should have descended to the indignity of a struggle to gain the place where he now stood sullen and triumphant. Enraged? He was choking, dying with rage; and yet this kingly creature would not even condescend to look in our direction.
Why, I could feel his fearful rage as he now walked on and around the edge of that granite slab. At length he came opposite to where I lay crouching on the farther edge of my column. He passed on without so much as turning his eyes in my direction. And yet I felt, I felt and knew, as distinctly as if he could have talked and told me, that he was carefully measuring the distance.
When the lion, in his stately round, came to the narrow pass by which he had ascended he paused an instant, and half lowered his head.
Ah, how devoutly I did pray that he would be generous enough to descend to the sands and gracefully present us with his absence.
But no! Lifting his huge head even higher in the air than before, he now passed on hurriedly, came on around to where in his stately majesty he stood with quivering flank and flashing eye almost within reach of me. Yet he still disdained to even so much as look at me. His head was far above me as I crouched there on the farther edge of my column; his flashing eyes were lifted and looking far above me and beyond me. Maybe he was on the lookout over the desert for the coming of his companion.