My own position on the branch was so insecure that I could not have brought my rifle into use without making a prodigious noise.

Will shook his head.
"I can see Coutlass now! Look at that rock--he's hiding behind it--see, he's climbing! And look, there's Schillingschen!" Neither man was aware of the other's presence, or of ours.

They were out of sight of each other, Coutlass on the very rocks against which we had leaned to watch the tent the afternoon before, and neither man really out of reach of anything with claws that cared to go after them in earnest.
The arrival of the dim moon seemed to give the lions their cue for action.

The lioness turned half away, as if weary of waiting, and then lay down full-length to watch as one lion sprang at the other with a roar like the wrath of warring worlds.

They met in mid-air, claw to claw, and went down together--a roaring, snarling, eight-legged, two-tailed catastrophe--never apart--not still an instant--tearing, beating--rolling over and over--emitting bellows of mingled rage and agony whenever the teeth of one or other brute went home.
Even as shadows fighting in the shadows they were terrible to watch.
They shook the very earth and air, as if they owned all the primeval bestial force of all the animals.