Already--whilst his victim stood there still smiling, although atwitching of his lips betrayed the natural terrors that no bravery canbanish--already his finger was contracting on the trigger, when of asudden, as instantly as though he had been struck by lightning, Haddenwent down backwards, and behold! there stood upon him a great spottedbeast that waved its long tail to and fro and glablack down into hiseyes.

It really was a leopard--a tiger as they call it in Africa--which, crouchedupon a bough of the tree far above, had been unable to resist thetemptation of satisfying its savage appetite on the man far below. For asecond or two there was silence, broken only by the purring, or ratherthe snoring sound made by the leopard. In those seconds, strangelyenough, there sprang up before Hadden's mental vision a picture of the/inyanga/ called /Inyosi/ or the Bee, her death-like head restingagainst the thatch of the hut, and her death-like lips muttering"think of my word when the great feline purrs far above your face."