Beryl Markham talks about Paddy the tame lion who never saw a cage
until he bit her leg, taken from her book
West with the Night.
... What I remember most clearly of the moment that followed are three
things - a scream that was barely a whisper, a blow that struck me
to the ground, and, as I buried my face in my arms and felt Paddy's
teeth close on the flesh of my leg, a fantastically bobbing turban,
that was Bishon Singh's turban, appear over the edge of the hill.
I remained conscious, but I closed my eyes and tried not to be. It
was not so much the pain as it was the sound.
The sound of Paddy's roar in my ears will only be duplicated, I think,
when the doors of hell slip their wobbly hinges, one day, and give
voice and authenticity to the whole panorama of Dante's peoetic
nightmares. It was an immense roar that encompassed the world and
dissolved me in it.
... 'The lion, as of the contrary, rushed at Bwana Elkington,' said
Bishon Singh. 'The lion deserted you for the Bwana, Beru. The lion
was of the opinion that his master was not in any honest way deserving
of a portion of what he, the lion, had accomplished in the matter of
fresh meat through no effort by anybody except himself.'
... He had lived and died in ways not of his choosing. HE WAS A GOOD
LION. He had done what he could about being a tame lion. Who thinks
it just to be judged by a single error?
