The Alarm Was At Once Given,
And Sticks, Stones And Firebrands Were Hurled In
The Direction Of The Intruder.
All was of no
avail, however, for the lion burst into the midst
of the terrified group, seized an unfortunate
wretch amid the cries and shrieks of his companions,
and dragged him off through the thick
thorn fence.
He was joined outside by the
second lion, and so daring had the two brutes
become that they did not trouble to carry their
victim any further away, but devoured him
within thirty yards of the tent where he had
been seized. Although several shots were fired
in their direction by the jemadar of the gang
to which the coolie belonged, they took no
notice of these and did not attempt to move
until their horrible meal was finished. The few
scattered fragments that remained of the body
I would not allow to be buried at once, hoping
that the lions would return to the spot the
following night; and on the chance of this I took
up my station at nightfall in a convenient tree.
Nothing occurred to break the monotony of
my watch, however, except that I had a visit
from a hyena, and the next morning I learned
that the lions had attacked another camp about
two miles from Tsavo - for by this time the
camps were again scattered, as I had works
in progress all up and down the line. There
the man-eaters had been successful in obtaining
a victim, whom, as in the previous instance,
they devoured quite close to the camp. How
they forced their way through the bomas without
making a noise was, and still is, a mystery to me;
I should have thought that it was next to impossible
for an animal to get through at all. Yet
they continually did so, and without a sound
being heard.
After this occurrence, I sat up every night
for over a week near likely camps, but all in
vain. Either the lions saw me and then went
elsewhere, or else I was unlucky, for they took
man after man from different places without ever
once giving me a chance of a shot at them.
This constant night watching was most dreary
and fatiguing work, but I felt that it was a duty
that had to be undertaken, as the men naturally
looked to me for protection. In the whole of
my life I have never experienced anything more
nerve-shaking than to hear the deep roars of
these dreadful monsters growing gradually nearer
and nearer, and to know that some one or
other of us was doomed to be their victim before
morning dawned. Once they reached the vicinity
of the camps, the roars completely ceased, and
we knew that they were stalking for their prey.
Shouts would then pass from camp to camp,
"Khabar dar, bhaieon, shaitan ata" (" Beware,
brothers, the devil is coming "), but the warning
cries would prove of no avail, and sooner or later
agonising shrieks would break the silence, and
another man would be missing from roll-call next
morning.
I was naturally very disheartened at being
foiled in this way night after night, and was
soon at my wits' end to know what to do; it
seemed as if the lions were really "devils" after
all and bore a charmed life. As I have said
before, tracking them through the jungle was a
hopeless task; but as something had to be done
to keep up the men's spirits, I spent many a
weary day crawling on my hands and knees
through the dense undergrowth of the exasperating
wilderness around us. As a matter of
fact, if I had come up with the lions on any
of these expeditions, it was much more likely
that they would have added me to their list of
victims than that I should have succeeded in
killing either of them, as everything would have
been in their favour. About this time, too, I
had many helpers, and several officers - civil,
naval and military - came to Tsavo from the
coast and sat up night after night in order to get
a shot at our daring foes. All of us, however,
met with the same lack of success, and the lions
always seemed capable of avoiding the watchers,
while succeeding, at the same time in obtaining a
victim.
I have a very vivid recollection of one
particular night when the brutes seized a man from
the railway station and brought him close to
my camp to devour. I could plainly hear them
crunching the bones, and the sound of their
dreadful purring filled the air and rang in my
ears for days afterwards. The terrible thing
was to feel so helpless; it was useless to
attempt to go out, as of course the poor fellow
was dead, and in addition it was so pitch dark
as to make it impossible to see anything.
Some half a dozen workmen, who lived in a
small enclosure close to mine, became so terrified
on hearing the lions at their meal that they
shouted and implored me to allow them to come
inside my boma. This I willingly did, but soon
afterwards I remembered that one man had been
lying ill in their camp, and on making enquiry I
found that they had callously left him behind
alone. I immediately took some men with me to
bring him to my boma, but on entering his tent I
saw by the light of the lantern that the poor
fellow was beyond need of safety. He had died
of shock at being deserted by his companions.
From this time matters gradually became
worse and worse. Hitherto, as a rule, only
one of the man-eaters had made the attack and
had done the foraging, while the other waited
outside in the bush; but now they began to
change their tactics, entering the bomas together
and each seizing a victim. In this way two
Swahili porters were killed during the last week
of November, one being immediately carried off
and devoured.
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