この "the" lion は "a" lion の間違いではないでしょうか？
次の一節は、高校用の英語検定教科書にある話の冒頭で、ケニヤ出身のJosephが自分の少年時代を思い出して語っている部分です。
I’m going to tell you a lion story.
In northern Kenya, the lion is a symbol of bravery and pride. If you kill a lion, you are respected by everyone. It is every warrior’s dream to kill a lion. But at the time of this story, when I was about 14, I’d never come face to face with a lion.
I was at a cattle camp. That evening, after the cows got back from grazing, we sat together around the fire, sang songs, and told stories.
In the middle of the night, I woke to this very big sound－like rain, but the sound was not rain but all of the cows starting to pee. All of them, in every direction. And that is the sign of a lion. They don’t act that way around any other animal. Only the lion. Right then, a cow made a terrible sound, and we knew that the lion had it by the throat.
＜疑問＞
最終文の後半（we knew that the lion had it by the throat.）にあるthe lionはこのままで理解可能なのでしょうか？ a lionではなく、the lionとするのはなぜなのでしょうか？私はもしかするとthe lionではなく、a lionとすべきだったのではないかとも思うんですがいかがでしょうか。
