This trek fagged us all out; the road was bad and the heat intolerable. The hundred and twenty or thirty Negro bearers I had with me put down their loads and threw themselves on the ground, careless of tsetse fly or mosquito, eager only to sleep and rest, even before eating. It was with difficulty that I got my personal servants to put up even my bell-tent. The big one they professed they could not find; three or four of the bearers, it appeared, had not yet come up. At last the tent was fixed and my mattress put down in it. My little table and stool were brought out and they gave me something to eat, fish and deer's meat, washed down with good whisky and water.
I had had the tent placed, as usual, fifty or sixty yards away from the camp of my carriers. The Negroes had not even cut thorn bushes as a Zareeba or fence to protect themselves. Sleep was the one thing we all wanted.
Though within the tropics, we were some thousands of feet above the sea level, so the air was quite cool at night, though the sun in the daytime was scorching. After my meal, I told the head man he could go and sleep. I went into my tent, put on pyjamas and lay down. The tent was small and the cool air so delicious that I left the flap open. In the evening air it waved a little, the elastic that held the square of it back being a little worn. Lying down on my mattress in front of the opening, I could see the great purple vault of sky, and on the right, the edge of the wood, perhaps a hundred yards away.
In a minute I was asleep, plunged into the dreamless slumber of absolute bodily exhaustion.
Suddenly I was annoyed by a noise. I was pulled out of my dreamless sleep by a repetition of it. Very cross, I tried to blink open my eyes. At first I could hardly see anything.
Again the flip! What was the noise?
At the camp everything was in deepest peace and silence. The mosquito netting was all around my head and my hands were gloved. I could hear the insects humming.
Again the flip! At length I was wide awake, more than awake.
The flap of the tent had closed and then opened again. And again the sound.
The flap of the tent, three-quarters closed for a moment, was then pulled back by the elastic. I could have reached it by stretching out my hand, but I was now too full of anxious curiosity.
What could it be that made the flap of the tent go back and forth so regularly?
Suddenly my curiosity was steeped in fear. I did not know why. Instead of getting up and stepping out to see what caused the flap to act so strangely, I put my head to the ground and peered underneath the tent.
Gradually my eyes became accustomed to the dark and I soon could see outlines a bit more clearly.
There was something there against the sky, and as I looked along it I saw a tail with a tuft on the end of it.
What could it be?
All of a sudden the flap of the tent was driven to again and then pulled back by the elastic. I peered more closely at the object, made out the outline, and realized the whole affair.
It was a full grown lion, lying on the ground playing with the flap of my tent, like a big cat. He had evidently crept up to the tent, probably attracted by my odor, seen the flap moving a little in the wind, and struck it with his paw.
It went and came back again, and after a moment or two he had struck it once more.
A lion playing with the flap of my tent, two feet from me!
Quickly I drew up my Westley Richards rule that was always loaded at my side, and lay down to try to get an exact line on his head and ear.
Then I thought: Why should I kill him? The big cat was really doing no harm.
The something cat-like, childish, in his play made me smile. This feeling of pity and friendliness probably saved my life, for just as I was hesitating-Gr- r-r-m-I heard a long, rumbling sort of moan to the left, and as I looked out through the tent, I saw distinctly the outline against the sky, perhaps four yards away, of another lion, or rather a lioness, as she had no mane.
How many were there?
I had seen a dozen together before then. They might be all around my little tent, for all I knew. One blow of one of their paws would carry the tent away and leave me exposed in the center.
It was perhaps wiser to keep quiet and await developments. The lioness moved a few feet forward and then stretched herself, yawning. I could see her as distinctly as possible, not ten feet away now.
Suddenly my lion at the flap joined her, stood opposite her for a moment, then turned his head slowly towards the flap and my humble person.
Again the rifle went to my shoulder, and I wondered, looking straight at the lion, whether he saw me as plainly as I saw him. Then I reflected that against the black of the tent he could not see me at all. That was my solitary advantage over him. Both beasts were uneasy, curiously watchful, especially the lioness.
Suddenly a sound came from the camp, and her head went round at once, turned towards the sound. The next moment she crouched down close to the ground and moved stealthily out of my limited field of vision.
The sound was repeated. Probably a Negro had got up for something in the camp, for at the second sound the lion turned, and walked slowly out of my vision after his mate.
I found it quite impossible to sleep. I tried to, but the proximity of the big beasts was too disquieting. I found myself listening, on the thin edge of expectancy, with nerves stretched for every sound.
I grew more and more wakeful. Again and again I peered along the ground, but could see nothing.
The lions had either gone to the woods or to the camp. I could not tell which.
No sign of them.
Suddenly, I began to see the trees on the right more distinctly. The night was over. Two minutes afterwards long arrows of light: it was day.
I went outside and clapped my hands. A couple of headmen came to me and I pointed to the ground by the flap. They read the signs quite plainly- "big lion"; and when I pointed a few feet away, they found the spoor of the lioness and followed it down to where the pair had gone into the wood.
The marks of a half-grown cub were with the lioness.
I told them what had happened, that the lion had been playing with the flap, and I still hear their "Woo-oof" of wonderment.
The second day of our trek I fell ill with malaria, which soon developed into blackwater fever. I treated myself with big doses of quinine and arsenic and went on, but the third day I must have been given another drink of ordinary unboiled river water.
I found it almost impossible to get the Negroes to boil the water: they told me lie after lie. That evening my temperature was over 105°. I had learned, with Bilroth in Vienna, that at 105° the fever begins to feed on the heart itself, and one must at all costs diminish the fever, even with icepacks. But I had no ice, and that day and the next, in spite of large doses of quinine and arsenic, my temperature continued very high. For two or three days I was out of my mind and raved in delirium. My head man, a big Negro, told me with tears that the men said the spirits who spoke through me were determined to take me; and one morning I found that no one answered my call. Fortunately, the evening before I wanted some tins of soup, and my Negro kept bringing me tins of sardines, which I tossed in the corner of the tent; in the morning, when I awoke and rang my bell, no one answered; and when I crawled on hands and knees outside the tent, I found the camp deserted and my medicine chest broken in pieces and strewn all over the ground. I was deserted by the carriers who had smashed up my medicine chest before going, believing that all my power was to be found in the medicines.
There was further evidence that kindness was not understood by the ordinary Negro. I had made it a rule from the beginning to keep my tent fifty yards from their encampment, and I soon found it necessary to make a further order: that they should go about their private business one hundred yards from the ordinary encampment; now, when they thought I was about to die and they were resolved to steal all my belongings and bolt, they had been dirty first all over the place as a sign of contempt, I suppose.