At this moment Huebner was suddenly
awakened by a loud cry, and on looking down
from his berth was horrified to see an enormous
lion standing with his hind feet on Parenti's body,
while his forepaws rested on poor Ryall. Small
wonder that he was panic-stricken at the sight.
There was only one possible way of escape, and
that was through the second sliding door
communicating with the servants' quarters, which
was opposite to that by which the lion had
entered. But in order to reach this door Huebner
had literally to jump on to the man-eater's back,
for its great bulk filled up all the space beneath
his berth. It sounds scarcely credible, but it
appears that in the excitement and horror of the
moment he actually did this, and fortunately
the lion was too busily engaged with his victim
to pay any attention to him. So he managed
to reach the door in safety; but there, to his
dismay, he found that it was held fast on the
other side by the terrified coolies, who had been
aroused by the disturbance caused by the lion's
entrance. In utter desperation he made frantic
efforts to open it, and exerting all his strength
at last managed to pull it back sufficiently far to
allow him to squeeze through, when the trembling
coolies instantly tied it up again with their
turbans. A moment afterwards a great crash was
heard, and the whole carriage lurched violently to
one side; the lion had broken through one of the
windows, carrying off poor Ryall with him. Being
now released, Parenti lost no time in jumping
through the window on the opposite side of the
carriage, and fled for refuge to one of the station
buildings; his escape was little short of miraculous,
as the lion had been actually standing on him as
he lay on the floor. The carriage itself was badly
shattered, and the wood-work of the window had
been broken to pieces by the passage of the lion
as he sprang through with his victim in his
mouth.
All that can be hoped is that poor Ryall's death
was instantaneous. His remains were found next
morning about a quarter of a mile away in the
bush, and were taken to Nairobi for burial. I
am glad to be able to add that very shortly
afterwards the terrible brute who was responsible
for this awful tragedy was caught in an ingenious
trap constructed by one of the railway staff. He
was kept on view for several days, and then
shot.
CHAPTER XXVI
WORK AT NAIROBI
Although the lion which caused poor Bhoota's
death was the last I managed to shoot in East
Africa, I saw several others afterwards while
travelling up and down the line at different times
on construction work. In particular, I remember
one very curious incident which happened early
on the morning of June 2, when I was travelling
towards Nairobi, accompanied by Dr. McCulloch.
The Doctor was going home on leave in the
course of a few days, and was bemoaning to me
his bad luck in never having shot or even seen a
lion all the time he had been in the country. We
were standing on the engine at the time, facing
each other, he with his back to the north.
"My dear Mac," I said, "it is because you
don't look out for them."
"Rubbish," he retorted; "I do nothing else
when I am out hunting."
"Well," I replied, "are you really very anxious
to shoot one before you go home?"
"I would rather get a lion than anything else
in the world," was the emphatic reply.
"Very good, then. Sultan," I called to the
driver, "stop the engine."
"Now, Mac," I continued, as the train was
quickly brought to a standstill, "here's a chance
for you. Just jump off and bag those two over
there."
He turned round in blank astonishment and
could hardly believe his eyes when he saw two
fine lions only about two hundred yards off, busily
engaged in devouring a wildebeeste which they
had evidently just killed. I had spotted them
almost as soon as Mac had begun to talk of his
bad luck, and had only waited to tell him until we
got nearer, so as to give him a greater surprise.
He was off the engine in a second and made
directly for the two beasts. Just as he was about
to fire one of them bolted, so I called out to him
to shoot the other quickly before he too made
good his escape. This one was looking at us
over his shoulder with one paw on the dead
wildebeeste, and while he stood in this attitude
Mac dropped him with a bullet through the
heart. Needless to say he was tremendously
delighted with his success, and after the dead
lion had been carried to the train and propped
up against a carriage, I took a photograph of him
standing beside his fine trophy.
Three days after this incident railhead reached
Nairobi, and I was given charge of the new
division of the line. Nairobi was to be the
headquarters of the Railway Administration, so there
was an immense amount of work to be done in
converting an absolutely bare plain, three hundred
and twenty-seven miles from the nearest place
where even a nail could be purchased, into a
busy railway centre. Roads and bridges had to
be constructed, houses and work-shops built,
turntables and station quarters erected, a water supply
laid on, and a hundred and one other things done
which go to the making of a railway township.
Wonderfully soon, however, the nucleus of the
present town began to take shape, and a thriving
"bazaar" sprang into existence with a mushroom-like
growth.
