ix DEATH OF THE SECOND MAN-EATER 101 



he was up once more and coming for me as fast as 

 lie could in his crippled condition. A third shot 

 had no apparent effect, so I put out my hand for the 

 Martini, hoping to stop him with it. To my dismay, 

 however, it was not there. The terror of the sud- 

 den charge had proved too much for Mahina, and 

 both he and the carbine were by this time well on their 

 way up a tree. In the circumstances there was 

 nothing to do but follow suit, which I did without 

 loss of time : and but for the fact that one of my shots 

 had broken a hind leg, the brute would most certainly 

 have had me. Even as it was, I had barely time to 

 swing myself up out of his reach before he arrived at 

 the foot of the tree. 



When the lion found he was too late, he started to 

 limp back to the thicket ; but by this time I had 

 seized the carbine from Mahina, and the first shot I 

 fired from it seemed to give him his quietus, for he 

 fell over and lay motionless. Rather foolishly, I at 

 once scrambled down from the tree and walked up to- 

 wards him. To my surprise and no little alarm 

 he jumped up and attempted another charge. This 

 time, however, a Martini bullet in the chest and 

 another in the head finished him for good and all ; 

 he dropped in his tracks not five yards away from 

 me, and died gamely, biting savagely at a branch 

 which had fallen to the ground. 



By this time all the workmen in camp, attracted 



