68 THE MAN-EATERS OF TSAVO CHAP. 
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, track- 
ing 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 
came to Tsavo from the coast and sat up 
military 
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 
ban! hed 
