All this takes long to tell, though it was passing in a flash of
time. Dropping the diamond (which must have rolled into a crevice
of the rock, for I never saw it again), I caught up my double-
barrelled rifle (one of Wesson & Smith's), aimed at the lion on the
right hand of the donga with my right barrel, and then hastily
fired my left at the alligator. When the smoke cleared away, the
man had reached the right side of the donga safe and sound. Seeing
that the alligator was dying, I loaded again, bowled over the
lioness on the left, settled the eagle's business (he fell dead
into the jaws of the dying alligator, which closed on him with a
snap). I then climbed the wall of the donga, and there lay,
fainting, the Stranger of last night--the man who feared nothing--
the blood of the dead lion trickling over him. His celebrated
allegorical walking-stick from the African Farm had been broken
into two pieces by the bullet after it (the bullet) had passed
through the head of the lion. And, as the "Ingoldsby Legends" say,
"nobody was one penny the worse," except the wild beasts. The man,
however, had had a parroty time, and it was a good hour before I
could bring him round, during which he finished my brandy. He
still wore gloves. What he was doing in Omuborumbunga's country I
do not know to this day. I never found the diamond again, though I
hunted long.
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