But again, on the seventeenth day, the lion appeared and remained from sunset to sunrise.
He kept on roaming about in the neighbourhood like a general reconnoitring the enemy's position.
On the following day the Sahib sent for the people and warned them all to be careful of their lives;
"Do not go out from the afternoon even until the following morning," he said.
Now this was the night of Shab-i-Kadr, a Muslim festival:
And at night when all had retired to rest, the lion came in a rage,
And Patterson Sahib went forth into the field to meet him.
And when he saw the beast, he fired quickly, bullet after bullet.
The lion made a great uproar, and fled for his life, but the bullets nevertheless found a resting-place in his heart.
And everyone began to shriek and groan in their uneasy sleep, jumping up in fear, when unexpectedly the roaring of the lion was heard.