82 THE MAN-EATERS OF TSAVO CHAP. 



and began to lash himself madly against the bars of 

 the cage, that they completely lost their heads and 

 were actually too unnerved to fire. Not for some 

 minutes not, indeed, until Mr. Farquhar, whose 

 post was close by, shouted at them and cheered 

 them on did they at all recover themselves. Then 

 when at last they did begin to fire, they fired with a 

 vengeance anywhere, anyhow. Whitehead and I 

 were at right angles to the direction in which they 

 should have shot, and yet their bullets came whizzing 

 all round us. Altogether they fired over a score of 

 shots, and in the end succeeded only in blowing 

 away one of the bars of the door, thus allowing our 

 prize to make good his escape. How they failed to 

 kill him several times over is, and always will be, a 

 complete mystery to me, as they could have put the 

 muzzles of their rifles absolutely touching his body. 

 There was, indeed, some blood scattered about the 

 trap, but it was small consolation to know that the 

 brute, whose capture and death seemed so certain, 

 had only been slightly wounded. 



Still we were not unduly dejected, and when 

 morning came, a hunt was at once arranged. 

 Accordingly we spent the greater part of the day on 

 our hands and knees following the lions through 

 the dense thickets of thorny jungle, but though we 

 heard their growls from time to time, we never 

 succeeded in actually coming up with them. Of the 



