Then the golden arrows of the day
followed fast. The silver and blue sky grew roseate with that wide
wild blush which testifies to the modest delight of nature,
satisfied and grateful for her silent existence and her amorous
repose. I breakfasted, went down into the donga with a black boy,
poor Jim-jim, who was afterwards, as I said, to perish by an awful
fate, otherwise he would testify to the truth of my plain story. I
began poking among the rocks in the dry basin of the donga, {23}
and had just picked up a pebble--I knew it by the soapy feel for a
diamond. Uncut it was about three times the size of the koh-i-
noor, say 1,000 carats, and I was rejoicing in my luck when I heard
the scream of a human being in the last agony of terror. Looking
up, I saw that on either side of the donga, which was about twenty
feet wide, a great black lion and lioness were standing with open
jaws, while some fifty yards in front of me an alligator, in a deep
pool of the flooded donga, was stretching his open snout and
gleaming teeth greedily upwards. Over head flew an eagle, and IN
MID-AIR BETWEEN, as I am a living and honourable man, a human being
was leaping the chasm. He had been pursued by the lion on my left,
and had been driven to attempt the terrible leap; but if he crossed
he was certain to fall into the jaws of the lion on my right, while
if he fell short in his jump, do you see, the alligator was ready
for him below, and the great golden eagle watched the business from
above, in case he attempted to escape THAT way.
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