40 THE MAN-EATERS OF TSAVO CH. Ill 
should fire and it turn out to be nothing after all. 
After this there was intense silence again for a 
second or two, then with a sudden bound a huge 
body sprang at us. ‘‘ The lion!” I shouted, and we 
both fired almost simultaneously—not a moment too 
soon, for in another second the brute: would assuredly 
have landed inside the wagon. As it was, he 
must have swerved off in his spring, probably 
blinded by the flash and frightened by the noise of 
the double report which was increased a hundred- 
fold by the reverberation of the hollow iron roof of 
the truck. Had we not been very much on the 
alert, he would undoubtedly have got one of us, and 
we realised that we had had a very lucky and very 
narrow escape. The next morning we found Brock’s 
bullet embedded in the sand close to a footprint ; it 
could not have missed the lion by more than an 
inch or two. Mine was nowhere to be found. 
Thus ended my first direct encounter with one of 
the man-eaters. 
