The leg
got rapidly worse, and mortification setting in,
it had to be amputated half way up the thigh.
Dr. Winston Waters performed the operation
most skilfully, and curiously enough the operating
table was canopied with the skin of the lion which
had been responsible for the injury. Bhoota made
a good recovery from the operation, but seemed
to lose heart when he found that he had only one
leg left, as according to his ideas he had now but
a poor chance of being allowed to enter Heaven.
We did all that was possible for him, and Spooner
especially could not have looked after a brother
more tenderly; but to our great sorrow he sank
gradually, and died on July 19.
The hunt which had such a disastrous sequel
proved to be the last occasion on which I met a
lion in the open, as we got out of the hunting
country shortly afterwards and for the rest of
my stay in East Africa I had too much work
to do to be able to go any distance in search of
big game.
CHAPTER XXV
A MAN-EATER IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE
Towards the end of my stay in British East
Africa, I dined one evening with Mr. Ryall,
the Superintendent of the Police, in his inspection
carriage on the railway. Poor Ryall! I little
thought then what a terrible fate was to overtake
him only a few months later in that very carriage
in which we dined.
A man-eating lion had taken up his quarters at
a little roadside station called Kimaa, and had
developed an extraordinary taste for the members
of the railway staff. He was a most daring brute,
quite indifferent as to whether he carried off the
station-master, the signalman, or the pointsman;
and one night, in his efforts to obtain a meal,
he actually climbed up on to the roof of the
station buildings and tried to tear off the
corrugated-iron sheets. At this the terrified baboo in
charge of the telegraph instrument below sent the
following laconic message to the Traffic Manager:
"Lion fighting with station. Send urgent succour."
Fortunately he was not victorious in his "fight
with the station"; but he tried so hard to get in
that he cut his feet badly on the iron sheeting,
leaving large blood-stains on the roof. Another
night, however, he succeeded in carrying off the
native driver of the pumping-engine, and soon
afterwards added several other victims to his list.
On one occasion an engine-driver arranged to sit
up all night in a large iron water-tank in the hope
of getting a shot at him, and had a loop-hole cut in
the side of the tank from which to fire. But as
so often happens, the hunter became the hunted;
the lion turned up in the middle of the night,
overthrew the tank and actually tried to drag
the driver out through the narrow circular hole
in the top through which he had squeezed in.
Fortunately the tank was just too deep for the
brute to be able to reach the man at the bottom;
but the latter was naturally half paralysed with
fear and had to crouch so low down as to be
unable to take anything like proper aim. He
fired, however, and succeeded in frightening the
lion away for the time being.
It was in a vain attempt to destroy this pest
that poor Ryall met his tragic and untimely end.
On June 6, 1900, he was travelling up in his
inspection carriage from Makindu to Nairobi,
accompanied by two friends, Mr. Huebner and
Mr. Parenti. When they reached Kimaa, which
is about two hundred and fifty miles from Mombasa,
they were told that the man-eater had been seen
close to the station only a short time before
their train arrived, so they at once made up
their minds to remain there for the night and
endeavour to shoot him. Ryall's carriage was
accordingly detached from the train and shunted
into a siding close to the station, where, owing
to the unfinished state of the line, it did not
stand perfectly level, but had a pronounced list
to one side. In the afternoon the three friends
went out to look for the lion, but, finding no
traces of him whatever, they returned to the
carriage for dinner. Afterwards they all sat
up on guard for some time; but the only
noticeable thing they saw was what they took to
be two very bright and steady glow-worms.
After-events proved that these could have been nothing
else than the eyes of the man-eater steadily
watching them all the time and studying their every
movement. The hour now growing late, and there
being apparently no sign of the lion, Ryall
persuaded his two friends to lie down, while he
kept the first watch. Huebner occupied the high
berth over the table on the one side of the
carriage, the only other berth being on the opposite
side of the compartment and lower down. This
Ryall offered to Parenti, who declined it, saying
that he would be quite comfortable on the floor
and he accordingly lay down to sleep, with his
feet towards the sliding door which gave admission
the carriage.
It is supposed that Ryall, after watching for
some considerable time, must have come to the
conclusion that the lion was not going to make
its appearance that night, for he lay down on the
lower berth and dozed off. No sooner had he
done so, doubtless, than the cunning man-eater
began cautiously to stalk the three sleepers. In
order to reach the little platform at the end of the
carriage, he had to mount two very high steps
from the railway line, but these he managed
to negotiate successfully and in silence. The
door from this platform into the carriage was
a sliding one on wheels, which ran very easily
on a brass runner; and as it was probably not
quite shut, or at any rate not secured in any
way, it was an easy matter for the lion to thrust
in a paw and shove it open.
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