the East African tribes.

CHAPTER XXII

HOW ROSHAN KHAN SAVED MY LIFE

On May 12 railhead reached the Athi River, where, as there was a great
deal of miscellaneous work to be done, our headquarters remained
established for some little time. One day not long after we had settled
down in our new camp, I was joined quite unexpectedly by my friend Dr.
Brock, who had shared the exciting adventure with me at Tsavo the night
we were attacked in the goods-wagon by one of the man-eaters. Now Brock
had so far not been fortunate enough to bag a lion, and was
consequently most anxious to do so. Shortly after his arrival,
accordingly, he suggested that we should go for a shooting expedition
on the morrow, and that I should trot out for his benefit one of the
local lions. Of course I said I should be delighted--I was always ready
for a hunt when it was possible for me to get away, and as just at the
time we were "held up" by the Athi River, I could manage a day off
quite easily. So we made the usual preparations for a day's absence
from camp--filled our water-bottles with tea, put a loaf of bread and a
tin of sardines in our haversacks, looked carefully to our rifles and
ammunition; and warned the "boys" who were to accompany us as beaters
to be ready before dawn. I decided to make a very early start, as I
knew that the most likely place for lions lay some distance away, and I
wanted to get there if possible by daybreak. We should thus have a
better chance of catching one of the lords of the plain as he returned
from his nightly depredations to the kindly shelter of the tall grass
and rushes which fringed the banks of the river. We therefore retired
to rest early, and just as I was dozing off to sleep, one of my Indian
servants, Roshan Khan, put his head through the slit at my tent door
and asked leave to accompany the "Sahibs" in the morning so that he
might see what shikar (hunting) was like. This request I sleepily
granted, thinking that it could make little difference whether he came
with us or stayed behind in camp. As things turned out, however, it
made all the difference in the world, for if he had not accompanied us,
my shikar would in all probability have ended disastrously next day. He
was a very dusky-coloured young Pathan about twenty years of age, lithe
and active, and honest and pleasant-looking, as Pathans go. He had been
my "boy" for some time and was much attached to me, besides having a
touching faith in