VI THE REIGN OF TERROR 63 
following manner. A heavy chain was secured 
along the top part of the lion’s doorway, the ends 
hanging down to the ground on either side of the 
opening; and to these were fastened, strongly 
secured by stout wire, short lengths of rails placed 
about six inches apart. This made a sort of flexible 
door which could be packed into a small space when 
not in use, and which abutted against the top of the 
doorway when lifted up. The door was held in this 
position by a lever made of a piece of rail, which in 
turn was kept in its place by a wire fastened to one 
end and passing down to a spring concealed in the 
ground inside the cage. As soon as the lion entered 
sufficiently far into the trap, he would be bound to 
tread on the spring; his weight on this would 
release the wire, and in an instant down would come 
the door behind him; and he could not push it out 
in any way, as it fell into a groove between two 
rails firmly embedded in the ground. 
In making this trap, which cost us a lot of work, 
we were rather at a loss for want of tools to bore 
holes in the rails for the doorway, so as to enable 
them to be fastened by the wire to the chain. It 
occurred to me, however, that a hard-nosed bullet 
from my °303 would penetrate the iron, and on 
making the experiment I was glad to find that a 
hole was made as cleanly as if it had been punched 
out. 
