256 THE MAN-EATERS OF TSAVO CHAP. 



thorn, and waved gracefully in the breeze ; a fancy 

 waistcoat adorned another spiky branch, and his 

 long white cotton gown was torn to ribbons in his 

 mad endeavour to put as great a distance as possible 

 between himself and the dead lion. As soon as I 

 could stop laughing, I called out to him to come 

 down, but quite in vain. There was no stopping 

 him, indeed, until he had reached the very top of 

 the tree ; and even then he could scarcely be in- 

 duced to come down again. Poor fellow, he had 

 been thoroughly terrified, and little wonder. 



My followers now began to emerge from the 

 shelter of the various trees and bushes where 

 they had concealed themselves after their wild 

 flight from the resuscitated lion, and crowded round 

 his dead body in the highest spirits. The Masai, 

 especially, seemed delighted at the way in which he 

 had been defeated, and to my surprise and amuse- 

 ment proved themselves excellent mimics, some 

 three or four of them beginning at once to act the 

 whole adventure. One played the part of the lion 

 and jumped growling at a comrade, who immediately 

 ran backwards just as I had done, shouting " Ta, 

 Ta, Ta " and cracking his fingers to represent the 

 rifle-shots. Finally the whole audience roared with 

 delight when another bolted as fast as he could to 

 Roshan Khan's tree with the pseudo lion roaring 

 after him. At the end of these proceedings up came 



