Another day, with P.O.M. along, we had hunted all through the timbered flat and come out to the edge of the plain where there were only clumps of bush and san-seviera when we heard a deep, throaty, cough. I looked at M’Cola.
‘Simba,’ he said, and did not look pleased.
‘Wapi?’ I whispered. ‘Where?’
He pointed.
I whispered to P.O.M., ‘It’s a lion. Probably the one we heard early this morning. You go back to those trees.’
We had heard a lion roaring just before daylight when we were getting up.
‘I’d rather stay with you.’
‘It wouldn’t be fair to Pop,’ I said. ‘You wait back there.’
‘All right. But you {will} be careful.’
‘I won’t take anything but a standing shot and I won’t shoot unless I’m sure of him.’
‘All right.’
‘Come on,’ I said to M’Cola.
He looked very grave and did not like it at all.
‘Wapi Simba?’ I whispered.
‘Here,’ he said dismally and pointed at the broken islands of thick, green spiky cover. I motioned to one of the guides to go back with P.O.M. and we watched them go back a couple of hundred yards to the edge of the forest.
‘Come on,’ I said. M’Cola shook his head without smiling but followed. We went forward very slowly, looking into and trying to see through the senseviera. We could see nothing. Then we heard the cough again, a little ahead and to the right.
‘{No}!’ M’Cola whispered. {‘Hapana}, B’wana!’
‘Come on,’ I said. I pointed my forefinger into my neck and wriggled the thumb down. ‘Kufa,’ I whispered, meaning that I would shoot the lion in the neck and kill him dead. M’Cola shook his head, his face grave and sweating. ‘Hapana!’ he whispered.
There was an ant-hill ahead and we climbed the furrowed clay and from the top looked all around. We could not make out anything in the green cactus-like cover. I had believed we might see him from the anthill and after we came down we went on for about two hundred yards into the broken cactus. Once again we heard him cough ahead of us and once, a little farther on, we heard a growl. It was very deep and very impressive. Since the ant heap my heart had not been in it. Until that had failed I had believed I might have a close and good shot and I knew that if I could kill one alone, without Pop along, I would feel good about it for a long time. I had made up my mind absolutely not to shoot unless I knew I could kill him, I had killed three and knew what it consisted in, but I was getting more excitement from this one than the whole trip. I felt it was perfectly fair to Pop to take it on as long as I had a chance to call the shot but what we were getting into now was bad. He kept moving away as we came on, but slowly. Evidently he did not want to move, having fed, probably, when we had heard him roaring in the early morning, and he wanted to settle down now. M’Cola hated it. How much of it was the responsibility he felt for me to Pop and how much was his own acute feeling of misery about the dangerous game I did not know. But he felt very miserable. Finally he put his hand on my shoulder, put his face almost into mine and shook his head violently three times.
‘Hapana! Hapana! Hapana! B’wana!’ he protested, sorrowed, and pleaded.
After all, I had no business taking him where I could not call the shot and it was a profound personal relief to turn back.
‘All right,’ I said. We turned around and came back out the same way we had gone in, then crossed the open prairie to the trees where P.O.M. was waiting.
‘Did you see him?’
‘No,’ I told her. ‘We heard him three or four times.’
‘Weren’t you frightened?’
‘Pea-less,’ I said, ‘at the last. But I’d rather have shot him in there than any damned thing in the world.’
‘My, I’m glad you’re back,’ she said. I got the dictionary out of my pocket and made a sentence in pigeon Swahili. ‘Like’ was the word I wanted.