Our preparations were quite complete by night-
fall, and we all took up our appointed positions.
Nothing happened until about nine o'clock, when to
my great satisfaction the intense stillness was
suddenly broken by the noise of the door of the
trap clattering down. "At last," I thought, "one
at least of the brutes is done for." But the sequel
was an ignominious one.
The bait-sepoys had a lamp burning inside their
part of the cage, and were each armed with a
Martini rifle, with plenty of ammunition. They had
also been given strict orders to shoot at once if a
lion should enter the trap. Instead of doing so,
however, they were so terrified when he rushed in 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 andI
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.

Chapter 7