VI THE REIGN OF TERROR 69 
night when the brutes seized a man from the railway 
station and brought him close to my camp _ to 
devour. I could plainly hear them crunching the 
bones, and the sound of their dreadful purring filled 
the air and rang in my ears for days afterwards. 
The terrible thing was to feel so helpless ; it was 
useless to attempt to go out, as of course the poor 
fellow was dead, and in addition it was so pitch 
dark as to make it impossible to see anything. 
Some half a dozen workmen, who lived in a small 
enclosure close to mine, became so terrified on hear- 
ing the lions at their meal that they shouted and 
implored me to allow them to come inside my doma. 
This I willingly did, but soon afterwards I remem- 
bered that one man had been lying ill in their camp, 
and on making enquiry I found that they had 
callously left him behind alone. I immediately took 
some men with me to bring him to my éoma, but on 
entering his tent I saw by the light of the lantern 
that the poor fellow was beyond need of safety. 
He had died of shock at being deserted by his 
companions. 
From this time matters gradually became worse 
and worse. Hitherto, as a rule, only one of the 
man-eaters had made the attack and had done the 
foraging, while the other waited outside in the bush ; 
but now they began to change their tactics, entering 
the domas together and each seizing a victim. In 
