第12章 A Station to Sir John’s Taste

So the Russian calculator had at last been found.When he was askedhow he had lived during the last four days,he could not say.Had he realised the dangers that beset him?It was hardly likely.When he was told how nearly the crocodiles had devoured him,he would not believe it,but thought his friends were joking.Had he never felt hungry?Never.He had fed on figures,and fed so well that he had detected the error in the table of logarithms.

Before his colleagues,Matthew Strux,for national pride,would not rebuke him;but in private,it is believed,and with reason,that the Russian astronomer was taken severely to task by his chief,and requested not to allow the study of logarithms to beguile him away from the camp.

So the work could continue,and several new triangles were added to the network.On 28th June the astronomers had geodesically obtained the base of their fifteenth triangle.By their calculations,this ought to include that part of the meridian which lies between the second and third degree;and then there remained the two angles to be measured to a station situated at its apex.

There a physical difficulty appeared.The country was covered with copses and underwood as far as the eye could see,and did not favour the erection of signal pylons.Its general slope,which was considerable from south to north,rendered it difficult,not to erect these constructions but to see them.

There was one point which could serve to carry a signal light,but it was some way off.It was the summit of a mountain twelve or thirteen hundred feet high,which rose at a distance of thirty miles towards the northwest,and in these circumstances the sides of this fifteenth triangle would exceed twenty thousand fathoms.Sides more than four times as long have been used in various trigonometrical surveys,but the members of the Anglo-Russian Commission had not yet used such a length.

After much discussion the astronomers decided to place an electric light on this hill,and to halt where they were until it was erected.Colonel Everest,William Emery,and Michel Zorn,accompanied by three sailors and two boschjesmen,and led by the vorloper,were instructed to take charge of the new station and to erect the beacon.The distance was too great to carry out operations by day with any degree of certainty.

The little troop,provided with instruments and materials on the mules’back,and well supplied with provisions,set off on the morning of 28th June.Colonel Everest calculated on arriving next day at the base of the mountain,so that should the ascent present any difficulty the lantern could not be erected before the night of the 29th.So for thirty-six hours the observers at the base need not expect to see the illuminated apex of their fifteenth triangle.

During Colonel Everest’s absence Matthew Strux and Nicolas Palander carried on as usual.Sir John Murray and the bushmen beat the covers near the camp,and killed severale,antelopes.

Sir John had also the good fortune to‘bag’a giraffe;this was rarely seen so far north,though it was common in the southern plains.Giraffe hunting is considered‘good sport’by all connoisseurs.Sir John and the bushman fell in with a herd of twenty of the animals,but these were so shy that they could not get nearer than five hundred yards.

But,a female giraffe having left the herd,the hunters decided to try to ride it down.The animal at first trotted away;but when the horses had gained upon it,it whisked its tail and set off at a very fast gallop.

They followed it for more than two miles,and at last a ball behind the shoulder from Sir John’s rifle brought it down.It was a very fine specimen of the species‘with the neck of a horse,the legs and feet of an ox,and the head of a camel,’as the Romans described it,with reddish hair spotted with white.It was not less than eleven feet high from its forefoot to the end of its tiny horns,covered with skin and fur.

During the night the Russian astronomers took several sidereal observations,to determine the latitude of the camp.

The 29th passed without any incident.The following night was anxiously awaited to fix the apex of the fifteenth triangle.Night camewith neither moon nor stars visible,but dry and free from mist,and so very favourable for making out a distant night signal.

All the preliminary arrangements had been made,and the telescope,adjusted during the day to command the summit of the mountain,ought to show the electric lantern in an instant,if distance rendered it invisible to the naked eye.

During all the night of the 29th Matthew Strux,Nicolas Palander and Sir John Murray relieved one another at the telescope;but the mountain’s top remained invisible,and no light shone out on its summit.The observers inferred that the climb had offered some serious obstacle,and that Colonel Everest had been unable to reach the top before the close of day.They adjourned their observations to the following night,never doubting that the lighting apparatus would be set up during the day.

But what was their surprise when,on 30th June,about two in the afternoon,Colonel Everest and his companions,with nothing to foreshadow this,made their appearance in camp.Sir John hurried out to meet his friends.

‘You here again,Colonel?’

‘Ourselves,Sir John.’

‘Then is the mountain inaccessible,Colonel?’

‘Quite accessible,on the contrary,’replied Colonel Everest;‘but quite well guarded too.So we’ve come back for reinforcements.’

‘What!Natives?’

‘Yes,natives on four legs,with black manes,who’ve eaten one of our horses.’

In a few words the Colonel told his colleagues that he had reached the base of the mountain successfully.He soon found that it was accessible only by a spur on the southwest and that,in the only valley which opened on to this spur a pride of lions had set up a kraal,as the vorloper put it.Colonel Everest had vainly tried to dislodge these formidable beasts;being insufficiently armed,he had been obliged to retreat,after losing a horse,whose back a lion had broken by one blow of its paw.

This account fired the imagination of the bushman and Sir John alike.This‘Lion’s Mount’was a station worth conquering besides being absolutely necessary for the continuation of their operations;and the chance of measuring their strength against the most dangerous members of the feline race was too attractive to be lost:so an expedition was at once organized.

All the European savants,without excepting even the pacific Palander,wanted to take part in it;but it was indispensable that Colonel Everest should stay in camp with the two Russian astronomers.On the other hand,there was nothing to keep Sir John Murray.So the detatchment intended to force the position on the mountain consisted of Sir John,William Emery,and Michel Zorn,whose leaders had been obliged to give way to their earnest entreaties;of the bushman,who would have given up his place to nobody;and of three natives on whose courage and coolness Mokoum had implicit reliance.

After shaking hands with their colleagues,the three Europeans left the camp about four that afternoon and made their way through the copses towards the mountain;they pushed along as fast as they could,and by nine in the evening they had covered the distance of thirty miles.

When they came within two miles of the mountain they dismounted and arranged their camp for the night.They lit no fire,for Mokoum did not wish to attract the lions’attention,as he meant to attack them by day in preference to fighting them in the dark.

All night they heard incessant roaring;it is then that these terrible brutes leave their dens and wander about in search of food.Not one of the hunters slept,not even for an hour,and the bushman took the opportunity of giving them some advice warranted by his own experience.

‘Gentlemen,’said he,very calmly,‘if Colonel Everest is not mistaken,we have to deal with a troop of black-maned lions,the most dangerous and most ferocious sort.We must be well on our guard.I advise you to look out for their first leap,for these animals can cover from eighteen to twenty yards at a bound;if they miss their first leap.They rarely repeat it—I can speak from experience.

‘As they return to their den at dawn,it is there we shall attack them;but they will defend themselves,and bravely too.In my opinion,I should say that in the morning,when the lion has fed well,he is less fierce,and perhaps less brave;it is a mere question of stomach.Position has also something to do with it,for they are more timid in places where man is continually hunting them;but here,in the wild desert,they must be as fierce as an undisturbed savage life can make them.

‘Gentlemen,I should also advise you to judge your distance before you fire.Let the beast come tolerably near;do not fire before you are sure of your aim,and then at the shoulder.I should add that we must leave our horses in the rear;they are terribly frightened at the presence of a lion,and risk the safety of their rider.We must fight on foot,and I trust your coolness will not forsake you.’

The bushman’s companions listened to his advice in silence.Mokoum was again the patient hunter;he knew that this was a serious business.Though a lion does not generally spring upon a passing man without being provoked,he is the more ferocious the moment he is attacked.For this reason the bushman had so earnestly requested the Europeans to keep cool-especially Sir John,who was inclined to be rash.

‘Shoot at a lion,’he told him,‘as if he were a partridge,and with no more excitement;that’s the whole secret.’

Very true;but who can answer for himself,without constant practice,that he can keep his coolness in the presence of a lion?

At four in the morning,the hunters,having secured their horses in a dense thicket,left their halting-place.It was not yet light;a red tint was just discernible through the vapours of the eastern sky,but it was still dark.

The bushman advised his companions to look to their arms.Sir John Murray and he,both carrying a breechloading rifle,had only to see that the bolt worked freely.Michel Zorn and William Emery,armed with ordinary muzzle-loading rifles,changed the caps,which might have been affected by the dampness of the night.The three natives were provided with bows of aloe wood,in handling which they showed great skill:more than one lion had fallen beneath their arrows.

The six hunters,in a compact group,moved forward towards the defile;its approaches had been reconnoitred by the young observers the evening before.Not a word was spoken,and they glided between the trunks of the tall trees like the redskins of the American forests.

Soon they reached the narrow gorge forming the entrance to the defile.Here the hollow began,sunk between to granite walls,one leading up to the first slope of the spur about half-way up this hollow;here,where part of its sides had fallen in,was the den occupied by the lions.

The bushman decided how to post his force;Sir John Murray,one of the natives,and he,were to creep along the top of the defile,hoping to reach a point close to the den,and,after dislodging its inhabitants,to drive them down to its lower end.There the two astronomers and the two natives would be on the alert to receive them with their rifles and bows.

The situation lent itself excellently to this manoeuvre.At this point rose an enormous sycamore,which commanded the whole of the surrounding trees and in which numerous forked branches offered a position which the lions could not reach.As is well known,these animals,unlike the others of the feline tribe,cannot climb trees.Hunters perched high enough in the trees are safe from their leap,and can shoot them under favourable circumstances.The more dangerous task was to be done by Sir John,Mokoum,and one of the natives.

William Emery made some comments on this arrangement,but the hunter declined making any change in his plan,and the younger men gave way.

Day began to break—the summit of the mountain began to grow red,like a torch,from the rays of the sun.The bushman,after seeing his four companions safely ensconced among the sycamore’s branches,gave the signal to move on.Sir John,the other native,and he were soon crawling along the top of the winding wall,on the right side of the defile.

These three daring hunters had advanced like this for fifty yards,occasionally stopping to watch the narrow part of the hollow below them.The bushman never doubted that the lions,after their nocturnal prowl,had returned to their lair,either to devour their prey or to rest.Perhaps they might come upon them sleeping,and make a quick end of them.

A quarter of an hour after entering the defile,Mokoum and his friends reached the den,which Michel Zorn had described.There they crouched on the ground to examine the position.

It was a tolerably large cavern,whose depth they could not judge.Remains of animals and heaps of bones marked its entrance.There could be no mistake—it was the lair of the lions described by Colonel Everest.But,contrary to the hunter’s previous opinion,the cavern was empty.Mokoum,with rifle cocked,slipped down to the ground,and,crawling on his hands and knees,reached the entrance to the den;one single glance told him the lions were still outside.

This was a circumstance on which he had not reckoned,and it needed some modification of his first arrangements.At his call his two companions soon rejoined him.

‘Sir John,’he told them,‘our game hasn’t yet returned to its quarters,but it’ll be here soon.I think we can’t do better than to inastal ourselves in its place.It would be better for us to be the besieged than the besiegers with such fellows as these,especially when we have an army outside to relieve us—what do you think?’

‘I’m quite of your opinion,bushman,’replied sir John;‘I’m under your command and I’ll obey.’

Mokoum,Sir John,and the native then crept in the den,a deep cavern strewn with bones and the remains of flesh.After assuring themselves that it was completely empty,they hastily barricaded the entrance with large stones,rolling them along with some trouble,and then heaping them up together.The spaces between the stones were filled with branches and dry twigs,of which the ravine was full.This took only a few minutes,for the entrance to the cavern was comparatively narrow;then the hunters posted themselves behind their loopholed barricade and waited.

They had not long to wait.About a quarter past five a lion and two lionesses showed themselves about a hundred yards from the den.They were very large animals;the lion,shaking its black mane,and sweeping the ground with its tail,carried a whole antelope between his teeth,and shook it as a cat would a mouse.This heavy burden seemed to weigh nothing in its mighty jaws,and it moved his head about with the greatest ease.The two lionesses frolicked about as they followed him.

Sir John—he has since acknowledged it—felt his heart beat violently:his eyes opened wide,his brow wrinkled up,and he felt a mingled sensation of fear,agony,and astonishment.It lasted but for a moment,and then he was again master of himself;his two companions were as calm as ever.

But the lion and the two lionesses had scented danger.When they saw their den barricaded they stopped,less than sixty paces distant.The lion gave a hoarse roar,and flung himself into the thicket on the right,a little below the place where the hunters had first stopped.They could distinctly see these terrible brutes through the branches—their yellow sides,their ears pricked up,and their fiery eyes.

‘The birds are there,’whispered Sir John in the bushman’s ear;‘let each of us take one.’

‘No,’returned Mokoum;‘they’re not all here,and the firing will frighten the others away.Boschjesman,are you sure of your arrow at this distance?’

‘Yes,Mokoum,’said the native.

‘Then drive your arrow through the lion’s left side,into his heart.’

The native bent his bow and took careful aim through the bushes.The arrow flew,whistling—they heard a roar—the lion made one spring and fell at thirty yards’distance from the cavern.There it stayed motionless,and they could see the sharp fangs in its bloody jaws.

‘Well done,boschjesman,’said Mokoum.

At this moment the lionesses left the thicket and sprang towards the body of the dead lion.At their formidable roar two more lions,one old male with yellow claws,followed by a third lioness,appeared at the turn of the defile.In their fury,their black manes,held erect,made them seem gigantic,double their usual bulk.They bounded forward,uttering the most fearful roars.

‘Take your rifle,’cried the bushman;‘we must shoot them running,as they won’t wait for us.’

Two reports rang out simultaneously,and one lion,struck in the loins by the explosive bullet,fell at once.The other lion,which Sir John had fired at,had its leg broken,and made for the barricade,followed by the two furious lionesses.These terrible brutes tried to force their way into the cavern,and could not have failed to do so if they had not been stopped by a bullet.

The bushman,Sir John,and the native had retired to the end of the cave,and had quickly reloaded their rifles.One or two fortunate shots,and the brutes would have probably fallen when an unexpected incident rendered the hunters’position frightful.

All at once the cavern was thickly filled with smoke.Falling among the dry twigs,one of the burning cartridge-cases had set them on fire.Soon a sheet of flames,fanned by the wind,spread between the men and the beasts.The lions retreated.The hunters could not stay in their position without risking immediate suffocation.

It was a fearful position,but there was no time for hesitation.

‘Out!Out!’cried the bushman,who was already half-choked.

They beat back the bushes with the butts of their rifles,and forced back the stones of the barricade;and then the three hunters,half-smothered,rushed outside in a whirlwind of smoke.

The native and Sir John had hardly time to recover themselves before they were flung to the ground,the African by a blow from the head and the Englishman by one from the tail of the two living lionesses.The native,struck on the breast,lay motionless on the ground.Sir John thought his leg was broken,and fell on his knees,but just as the beast was about to charge him a ball from the bushman stopped it short,and,meeting a bone,exploded in its body.

At that moment Michel Zorn,William Emery and the two boschjesmen appeared on the scene,just in time to take part in the battle.Two lions and a lioness had been killed on the spot.But the survivors,two lionesses and the lion whose leg had been broken by Sir John’s ball,were still to be dreaded.However,a well-directed shot from one rifle brought down a second lioness.The wounded lion and the third lioness,making a prodigious bound,sprang over the heads of the two young men and disappeared down the defile,saluted as they went by two balls and as many arrows.

A cheer of triumph arose from Sir John.The lions were beaten—four carcases lay on the ground.

The hunters surrounded Sir John Murray and assisted by his friends he was able to stand;fortunately his leg was not broken.And the native who had been struck down by the head of the lioness soon came to himself,having only been stunned by the violence of the blow.An hour later the little troop had regained their horses without having again seen the two lions which had got away.

‘Well,’said Mokoum to Sir John,‘what does your honour think of our African partridges?’

‘Fine birds,very fine birds,my worthy bushman,’replied Sir John,rubbing his bruised leg;‘but what tails they have,my friend,what tails!’