304 WATCH FOR THE MAN-EATER. 



wrong for watching from that quarter. About seventy yards away in the 

 plain was one solitary bush, not sufficiently large to hide a man ; there 

 was neither tree nor other cover within a couple of hundred yards. The 

 situation certainly presented difficulties, and it was not easy to decide 

 what to do. At last I hit upon a plan, and sent the men to bring leafy 

 branches and creepers ; when these came we walked past the bush in a 

 body, and the branches were thrown on to make it larger ; at the same time 

 Bommay Gouda and I hid behind it, the others going on in full view from 

 the hill. By this manoeuvre, should the tigress be watching, she would not 

 perceive that we had concealed ourselves. 



We sat till evening. The sinking sun threw a strong light from behind 

 us upon the granite hill, whilst in the distance the Billiga-runguns were 

 bathed in purple light, deepening to blue in the gorges. The smoke of 

 evening fires began to ascend from the small hamlet of Hebsoor away to 

 our left, and a thick white cloud of dust moving slowly along the river- 

 bank towards the village marked the return homewards of the village herds. 

 There would only be sufficient light to shoot at so long a range as seventy 

 yards for half an hour or more, and I was beginning to fear the tigress 

 might not return during daylight. The afternoon had been hot, and I had 

 drunk all the water in the bottle, whilst patient Bommay Gouda, who being 

 of good caste could not drink from my bottle, had sat with his bare back 

 exposed to the grilling sun, watching without a movement. At this time 

 of the year — January — the change in temperature in Mysore, and, in fact, 

 the whole of India, between day and night, is very considerable, sometimes 

 upwards of thirty degrees, and as the sun neared the horizon the evening 

 quickly became chilly ; but this disturbed Bommay Gouda no more than the 

 heat in his imperturbable watch. A couple of hares appeared from some- 

 where and gambolled in the space between us and the hill ; and a peacock 

 perched himself upon a rock, and with his spreading fan of purple and gold 

 opened to the full, turned slowly round and round, courting the admiration 

 of a group of hens who pecked about, more intent upon their evening meal 

 than the admiration of their vain swain. Satisfaction with himself, however, 

 rendered him oblivious to the want of homage in his harem. 



We had been whispering quietly, as we were out of earshot of the cover, 

 and Bommay Gouda had just said, after a glance at the sinking sun, that it 

 was the time, par excellence, for a tiger's return to its prey, when a peahen 

 which had been hidden amongst boulders on the hillside to our right, rose 

 with a startling clamour. This signal, as well known as unmistakable, 

 made us glance through the leafy screen, and there we saw the man-eater, a 

 handsome but small tigress, her colour doubly rich in the light of the sink- 



