vi 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 bomas 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, bhaieon, shaitan ata " (" Beware, 

 brothers, the devil is coming"), but the warning 



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