Many times he had been in fearful situations in the face of
charging lions and elephants, and once he had been bowled over and
carried some distance by a lion, but on none of these occasions had
fear demoralized him. There was no question of his general pluck.
But on one occasion he was lost in rocky waterless country in
Somaliland. He strayed out in the early morning while his camels
were being loaded, followed some antelope too far, and lost his
bearings. He looked up expecting to see the sun on his right hand
and found it on his left. He became bewildered. He wandered some
time and then fired three signal shots and got no reply. Then
losing his head he began shouting. He had only four or five more
cartridges and no water-bottle. His men were accustomed to his
going on alone, and might not begin to remark upon his absence until
sundown. . . . It chanced, however, that one of the shikari noted
the water-bottle he had left behind and organized a hunt for him.
Long before they found him he had passed to an extremity of terror.
The world had become hideous and threatening, the sun was a pitiless
glare, each rocky ridge he clambered became more dreadful than the
last, each new valley into which he looked more hateful and
desolate, the cramped thorn bushes threatened him gauntly, the rocks
had a sinister lustre, and in every blue shadow about him the night
and death lurked and waited.
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