The old lion was in luck. The tribe had a certain pride in their
ruler, but that was all the satisfaction the got out of it. He came
the very night that Ugh-lomi killed Uya the Cunning, and so it was
they named him Uya. It was the old woman, the fire-minder, who first
named him Uya. A shower had lowered the fires to a glow, and made the
night dark. And as they conversed together, and peered at one another
in the darkness, and wondered fearfully what Uya would do to them in
their dreams now that he was dead, they heard the mounting
reverberations of the lion's roar close at hand. Then everything was
still.
They held their breath, so that almost the only sounds were the patter
of the rain and the hiss of the raindrops in the ashes. And then,
after an interminable time, a crash, and a shriek of fear, and a
growling. They sprang to their feet, shouting, screaming, running this
way and that, but brands would not burn, and in a minute the victim
was being dragged away through the ferns. It was Irk, the brother of
Wau. So the lion came.
