“That is an excellent outcome,” said Mma Makutsi. “There are very few cases when you can say at the end that everybody is happy.”

“And we are happy too,” said Mma Ramotswe. “This has been a successful business trip, and a very comfortable safari that we have had.”

“I am not sure that I like safaris,” said Mma Makutsi. “Maybe I’m a town girl at heart.”

Mma Ramotswe said nothing to this. It was getting late, and she was tired. So she went to the lamp and turned down the wick until there was just a tiny flickering of the flame, and then no light at all. She lay in the darkness, mulling over what had happened that day. Mma Makutsi muttered something that she did not quite catch, but was probably Goodnight. She said Goodnight, softly, in case Mma Makutsi was already asleep, or drifting off.

Later that night, much later, Mma Ramotswe awoke. At first she had no idea why—perhaps it was a bad dream—but she suddenly found herself wide awake. The curtain across the window made the room pitch dark, and it was silent too, with only the faint sound of Mma Makutsi’s breathing on the other side. Then she heard the sound. It must have penetrated the veils of sleep and prodded her into consciousness. There it was—a curious sniffing sound.

Her thoughts went immediately to snakes. There was a particular sort of snake, the puff adder, that made a sound like that when it was agitated. Those snakes were always finding their way inside and causing terrible trouble. Perhaps there was one in the room already, sliding its way across the floor to where she lay. She sat bolt upright. The sound came again, and this time she was able to locate it as being outside the room. It was definitely outside, and she had decided now that this was no snake.

She rose to her feet and crept silently across the room to the low window. Very slowly, she drew the curtain and peered outside. The moon was a sliver away from fullness, bathing the staff quarters and the surrounding bush in silver light. Her eyes took a moment to adjust, and then everything was clear, sharply delineated enough to throw ghostly moon shadows on the ground.

She looked, and saw, barely an arm’s length away from the gauze window, looking directly in at her, a fully grown lion. He looked straight at her, surprised, and she saw for a moment the moon in his eyes. Then, with a sudden tensing of muscle and a whipping movement of his tail, he turned and shot back into the bush. It happened so quickly that she wondered for a moment whether she had imagined it, but there was a rustle of leaves in the bush where he had run, and that was proof that this was no dream, no illusion.