the hunters who had inflicted this terrible aching agony 'and the anger
flared higher.
Then suddenly there was another of the hated two-legged figures,
more noise and movement, all of this enough to counter the stiffness
and paralysing lethargy. The lion rose slightly out of his crouch and
he growled.
Jake ran four paces to meet Vicky and she tried to throw her arms about
his neck for protection, but he avoided the embrace and grasped her
upper arm with his left hand, his fingers digging so deeply into her
flesh that the pain steadied her. Using the impetus of her run, he
swung her on towards the path that climbed the slope.
'Run,' he shouted. 'Keep running.' And he turned back to face the
crippled animal as it launched itself from the ledge into the bed of
the river.
It was only then that Jake realized that he still carried a full bottle
of Scrubbs Ammonia in his hand. The lion came bounding swiftly through
the shallow stagnant pool towards him. Despite the wounds, it followed
with lithe and sinuous menace. it was so close that he could see each
stiff white whisker in the curled upper lip and hear the rattle of air
in its throat. He let it come on, for to turn and run was suicide.
At the last moment he reared back like a baseball pitcher and hurled
the bottle. It was an instinctive action, using the only weapon
however puny that was at hand.
The bottle flew straight at the lion's head, catching it in the direct
centre of its broad forehead as it lunged smoothly upwards towards the
ledge where Jake stood.
The bottle exploded in a burst of sparkling glass splinters and a
creamy gush of the pungent liquid. It filled both the lion's eyes,
blinding it instantly, and the stench of concenits open mouth and
flaring nostrils killed trated ammonia in its sense of smell and
shocked its whole system so violently that it missed its footing and
fell, roaring with the agony of scalded eyeballs and burning throat,
into the shallow water where it rolled helplessly on its back.
Jake ran forward, seizing the few seconds of advantage he had gained.
He stooped to pick up a water-worn ironstone boulder the shape and size
of a football, and swung it up above his head with both hands.
As he poised himself on the ledge above the pool, the lion recovered
its balance and came up at him blindly. Jake swung the boulder down
from on high and, like a cannon ball, it smashed into the back of the
animal's neck, where the sodden mane covered the juncture of skull and
vertebrae, crushing both so that the dreadfully mutilated beast
collapsed and rolled on to its side, half in the water and half on the
black rock ledge.
For long seconds Jake stood over it, panting with exertion and
reaction, then he leaned forward and touched with his fingertip the
long pale lashes that fringed the lion's open staring golden eye.
Already the sheen of the eyeball was clouded by the corrosive liquid.
At Jake's touch there was no blinking reflex, and he knew that the
animal was dead.
He turned to find that Vicky had not obeyed his instruction to run. She
