v1 THE REIGN OF TERROR 67 
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 domas 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 con- 
tinually 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 any- 
thing 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, bhateon, shaitan ata” (‘ Beware, 
brothers, the devil is coming’), but the warning 
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