Now the cubs were almost satiated, only two of the greediest still suckled valiantly, their bellies bulging and the effort of swallowing almost too much.
The indefatigable hunter of tails was now concentrating all his prowess on his mother's long whip-lash with. its fine black tuft of hair which she jerked out from under his nose at the very instant of each attack.
The other three were fighting off sleep, with violent outbursts of undirected energy, succumbing slowly to drooping eyelids and strained bellies, until at last they lay in an untidy heap of fluff and fur.
Mark was one hundred and twenty yards downwind. He lay belly down behind a small ant-heap, and it had taken almost an hour to work in this close. The umbrella thorn was set in an area of short open grassland, and he had been forced to stalk flat, tortoising forward on his elbows with the rifle held across the crook. Can we get closer? Mark asked, his whisper merely a soft breath. The short stiff yellow grass was just high enough to screen the cat when she lay flat on her side. Jamela, I could get close enough to touch her. He put the emphasis on the word I, and left the rest of it unstated.
So they waited in the sun, another twenty minutes until at last the lioness lifted her head.
Perhaps some deep sense of survival had warned her of the presence of the hunters. Her head came up in a flash of yellow movement, the extraordinary swiftness so characteristic of all the big cats, and she stared fixedly downwind, the sector of maximum danger.
For long seconds she watched, and the wide yellow eyes were steady and unblinking. Sensing her concern, two of the cubs sat up sleepily and waited with her.
Mark felt the lioness was looking directly at him, but he obeyed the law of absolute stillness. The first movement of lifting the Marinlicher would send her away in a blur of speed. So Mark waited while the seconds spun out. Then suddenly the lioness dropped her head and stretched out flat once again. She is restless, warned Pungushe. We can get no closer. I cannot shoot from here. We will wait, said Pungushe.
All the cubs slept now, and the lioness dozed, but always all her senses were working, nostrils tasting carefully each breath of the wind for the taint of danger, the big round ears never still, flicking to the slightest sound of wind or branch, bird or animal.
Mark lay in the direct sunlight, and the sweat rose to stain his shirt. A tsetse fly settled behind his ear and bit into the softness of his neck, but he did not make the movement of brushing it away. It was an hour before his chance came.
The lioness rose suddenly to her full height, and swung her tail from side to side. She was too restless to stay here under the thorn tree any longer. The cubs sat up groggily, and looked to her with puzzled furrowed faces.
The lioness was standing broadside to where Mark lay.
She held her head low, and her jaws were a little open as she panted softly in the heat. Mark was close enough to see the dark specks of the tsetse fly sitting on her flanks.
She was still in shadow but now she was backlit by the pale yellow grass beyond her. It was a perfect shot, the point of the elbow the hunter's aiming mark; the span of a hand back from there, and the bullet would rake both lungs, the span of a hand lower would take the heart cleanly.
The lungs were certain, but the heart was swift. Mark chose the heart and lifted the rifle to his shoulder. The safety-catch had long before been set at the firing position.
Mark took up the slack in the trigger and felt the final resistance before the mechanism tripped.
The bullet was 230 grains in weight, and the bronze jacket of the slug was tipped with a grey blob of lead so that it would mushroom on impact and open massive damage through the lioness's chest cavity.
The lioness called her cubs with a soft moaning grunt, and they scrambled obediently to their feet, still a little unsteady from sleep.
She walked out into the sunlight, with that loose feline gait, her head swinging from side to side at each pace, the long back slightly swayed and the heavy droop of her full dugs thickening the graceful line of her body. No, thought Mark. I will take the lungs. He lifted his aim a fraction, holding steady and true four inches behind the point of the elbow, swinging the rifle to follow her as she went into a short restless trot.
The cubs tumbled along behind her in disorder.
Mark held his aim until she reached the edge of the bush, and then she was gone with the insubstantial blurred movement of a wisp of brown smoke on the wind.
When she was gone, he lowered the rifle and stared after her.
Pungushe saw the thing break in him at last. The cold stillness of hatred and guilt and horror broke, and Mark began to cry, hacking tearing sobs that scoured and purged.
It is a difficult thing for a man to watch another weep, especially if that man is your friend.
Pungashe stood up quietly and walked back to where they had tethered the mule. He sat alone in the sun and took a little snuff and waited for Mark.
GOVERNMENT MINISTER SPeAKS ON DUTY To HUMANITY
The newly appointed Deputy Minister of Lands, Mr. Dirk Courtney, expressed concern today at the mauling of a young woman in the proclaimed area of Northern Zululand.
The woman, Mrs. Marion Anders, was the wife of the Government Ranger in the area. She was mauled to death by a lioness last Friday.
This unfortunate incident underlines the grave danger of allowing wild animals to exist in proximity to settled areas of human habitation.
Residents in these areas will be in constant danger of animal attack, of crop depredation and game-borne diseases of domestic. animals as long as this position is allowed to continue.
Mr. Dirk Courtney said that the rinderpest epidemic if at the turn of the century had accounted for a loss of domestic cattle estimated to exceed two million head.
