The Hunters | Page 7

I remember. Can you do any scenes that she does?"
* * * * *
The silence was getting to be embarrassing. And Carol said he didn't
amount to anything, he never did anything useful. Why, if thanks to his
being here this afternoon, those kids lost the ambition to go on the stage,
the whole human race would have cause to be grateful to him. To him,
and to Miss Burton. She'd kill ambition in anybody.
Miss Burton had an idea. "I know what to do, children. If you can act
animals--Mr. George has shown you what the hunter does; you show
him what the lions do. Yes, Carolyn and Doris, you're going to be lions.
You are waiting in your lairs, ready to pounce on the unwary hunter.
Crouch now, behind that chair. Closer and closer he comes--you act it
out, Mr. George, please, that's the way--ever closer, and now your
muscles tighten for the spring, and you open your great, wide, red
mouths in a great, great big roar--"
A deep and tremendous roar, as of thunder, crashed through the
auditorium. A roar--and then, from the audience, an outburst of terrified
screaming such as he had never heard. The bristles rose at the back of
his neck, and his heart froze.
Facing him across the platform were two lions, tensed as if to leap.
Where they had come from he didn't know, but there they were, eyes

glaring, manes ruffled, more terrifying than any he had seen in Africa.
There they were, with the threat of death and destruction in their fierce
eyes, and here he was, terror and helplessness on his handsome, manly,
and bloodless face, heart unfrozen now and pounding fiercely, knees
melting, hands--
Hands clutching an elephant gun. The thought was like a director's
command. With calm efficiency, with all the precision of an actor
playing a scene rehearsed a thousand times, the gun leaped to his
shoulder, and now its own roar thundered out a challenge to the roaring
of the wild beasts, shouted at them in its own accents of barking
thunder.
The shrill screaming continued long after the echoes of the gun's
speech had died away. Across the platform from him were two great
bodies, the bodies of lions, and yet curiously unlike the beasts in some
ways, now that they were dead and dissolving as if corroded by some
invisible acid.
Carol's hand was on his arm, Carol's thin and breathless voice shook as
she said, "A drink--all the drinks you want."
"One will do. And you."
"And me. I guess you're kind of--kind of useful after all."
[Transcriber's Note:
This e-text was produced from Space Science Fiction February 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.]

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