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Light-hearted and unsuspecting, the girl rode across the clearing toward the bush
while directly before her two yellow-green eyes glared round and terrible, a tawny
tail twitched nervously and great, padded paws gathered beneath a sleek barrel
for a mighty spring. The horse was almost at the edge of the bush when Numa,
the lion, launched himself through the air. He struck the animal's right shoulder
at the instant that it reared, terrified, to wheel in flight. The force of the impact
hurled the horse backward to the ground and so quickly that the girl had no
opportunity to extricate herself; but fell to the earth with her mount, her left leg
pinned beneath its body.
Horror-stricken, she saw the king of beasts open his mighty jaws and seize the
screaming creature by the back of its neck. The great jaws closed, there was an
instant's struggle as Numa shook his prey. She could hear the vertebrae crack as
the mighty fangs crunched through them, and then the muscles of her faithful
friend relaxed in death.
Numa crouched upon his kill. His terrifying eyes riveted themselves upon the
girl's face--she could feel his hot breath upon her cheek and the odor of the fetid
vapor nauseated her. For what seemed an eternity to the girl the two lay staring
at each other and then the lion uttered a menacing growl.
Never before had Bertha Kircher been so terrified--never before had she had such
cause for terror. At her hip was a pistol--a formidable weapon with which to face
a man; but a puny thing indeed with which to menace the great beast before her.
She knew that at best it could but enrage him and yet she meant to sell her life
dearly, for she felt that she must die. No human succor could have availed her
even had it been there to offer itself. For a moment she tore her gaze from the
hypnotic fascination of that awful face and breathed a last prayer to her God. She
did not ask for aid, for she felt that she was beyond even divine succor--she only
asked that the end might come quickly and with as little pain as possible.
No one can prophesy what a lion will do in any given emergency. This one glared
and growled at the girl for a moment and then fell to feeding upon the dead horse.
Fraulein Kircher wondered for an instant and then attempted to draw her leg
cautiously from beneath the body of her mount; but she could not budge it. She
increased the force of her efforts and Numa looked up from his feeding to growl
again. The girl desisted. She hoped that he might satisfy his hunger and then
depart to lie up, but she could not believe that he would leave her there alive.
Doubtless he would drag the remains of his kill into the bush for hiding and, as
there could be no doubt that he considered her part of his prey, he would
certainly come back for her, or possibly drag her in first and kill her.
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