"Often, when we meet them by accident, and we are too few to

slay them, or when one goes too close to their camp. But

seldom do they hunt us, for they find what food they need

among the deer and wild cattle, and, too, we make them

gifts, for are we not intruders in their country? Really we

live upon good terms with them, though I should not care to

meet one were there not many spears in my party."

"I should like to visit this Camp of the Lions," I said.

"Oh, no, you must not!" cried the girl. "That would be

terrible. They would eat you." For a moment, then, she

seemed lost in thought, but presently she turned upon me

with: "You must go now, for any minute Buckingham may come

in search of me. Long since should they have learned that I

am gone from the camp--they watch over me very closely--and

they will set out after me. Go! I shall wait here until

they come in search of me."

"No," I told her. "I'll not leave you alone in a land

infested by lions and other wild beasts. If you won't let

me go as far as your camp with you, then I'll wait here

until they come in search of you."

"Please go!" she begged. "You have saved me, and I would

save you, but nothing will save you if Buckingham gets his

hands on you. He is a bad man. He wishes to have me for

his woman so that he may be king. He would kill anyone who

befriended me, for fear that I might become another's."

"Didn't you say that Buckingham is already the king?" I

asked.

"He is. He took my mother for his woman after he had killed

Wettin. But my mother will die soon--she is very old--and

then the man to whom I belong will become king."

Finally, after much questioning, I got the thing through my

head. It appears that the line of descent is through the

women. A man is merely head of his wife's family--that is

all. If she chances to be the oldest female member of the

"royal" house, he is king. Very naively the girl explained

that there was seldom any doubt as to whom a child's mother

was.