Nor a raft to retreat to the middle of the lake. “You stood there and watched that beast mistreat me…”
“I was hoping you’d persuade him to leave you alone if you told him you wanted to remain faithful to your friend,” I replied bitingly. “Tonight I’ll sleep here so I’ll be safer,” she also decreed, and began to break branches from the tree that stretched its leaves up to above the pools, trying to make a bed. There was a dry thud, and when we rushed over to see what was going on, he only flailed his legs a few more times, then stiffly remained between the gutters. A kick in the ribs made me suddenly open my eyes to an unbelievable scene: I was lying half on top of the bushy mane of a lion snoring softly, and a little further away a lioness was visible. Good enough for a dog – but not for a lion or the Siberian tiger that was already sniffing along the lakeshore, snorting in displeasure. It looked like a circle, three or four kilometers in diameter, on the surface of which almost every animal on earth had been crammed. It was barely a little light, but I could see the pool of water on which she had slept quite clearly.
