168 THE MAN-EATERS OF TSAVO CHAP. 
time we could hear him crashing ponderously 
through everything that came in his way, and he 
must have gone a long distance before he recovered 
from his fright and slowed down to his usual pace. 
At any rate we neither heard nor saw anything 
more of him, and spent a wakeful and uncomfort- 
able night for nothing. 
My next attempt to bag a rhino took place some 
months later, on the banks of the Sabaki, and was 
scarcely more successful. I had come down from 
Tsavo in the afternoon, accompanied by Mahina, 
and finding a likely tree, within a few yards of the 
river and with fresh footprints under it, I at once 
decided to take up my position for the night in its 
branches. Mahina preferred to sit where he could 
take a comfortable nap, and wedged himself in a 
fork of the tree some little way below me, but still 
some eight or ten feet from the ground. It was a 
calm and perfect night, such as can be seen only 
in the tropics; everything looked mysteriously 
beautiful in the glorious moonlight, and stood out 
like a picture looked at through a_ stereoscope. 
From my perch among the branches I watched 
first a water-buck come to drink in the river; then 
a bush-buck ; later, a tiny faa emerged from the 
bushes and paused at every step with one graceful 
forefoot poised in the air—thoroughly on the alert 
and looking round carefully and nervously for any 
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