So intent was he upon this personal appraisement of his
features that he did not hear the parting of the tall grass
behind him as a great body pushed itself stealthily through
the jungle; nor did his companion, the ape, hear either, for
he was drinking and the noise of his sucking lips and gurgles
of satisfaction drowned the quiet approach of the intruder.
Not thirty paces behind the two she crouched--Sabor, the
huge lioness--lashing her tail. Cautiously she moved a great
padded paw forward, noiselessly placing it before she lifted
the next. Thus she advanced; her belly low, almost touching
the surface of the ground--a great cat preparing to spring
upon its prey.
Now she was within ten feet of the two unsuspecting little
playfellows--carefully she drew her hind feet well up beneath
her body, the great muscles rolling under the beautiful skin.
So low she was crouching now that she seemed flattened to
the earth except for the upward bend of the glossy back as it
gathered for the spring.
No longer the tail lashed--quiet and straight behind her it lay.
An instant she paused thus, as though turned to stone, and
then, with an awful scream, she sprang.
Sabor, the lioness, was a wise hunter. To one less wise the
wild alarm of her fierce cry as she sprang would have seemed
a foolish thing, for could she not more surely have fallen upon
her victims had she but quietly leaped without that loud shriek?
But Sabor knew well the wondrous quickness of the jungle
folk and their almost unbelievable powers of hearing.
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