IN THE BERARS— MY FIRST TIGER 73 



companion, resulting in a frantic and almost too energetic 

 tightening of the clasp round my legs, I leant out of the 

 machan and, waiting till a movement showed me the left 

 ear and almost half the portion of the head nearest to it, 

 I took as long a breath as my extremely irksome position 

 permitted, wondered where I should be in a second or two, 

 and fired. The shot was followed by a clutch that pulled 

 me backwards into the middle of the machan, and I found 

 myself reposing on the head and shoulders of my com- 

 panion, but luckily still semi-erect and with my rifle, of 

 which the left barrel was still ready for further operations, 

 in safety. I gathered that the clutch was only the result 

 of the great tension to which the man's nerves were strung. 

 The report loosened them, and luckily for me in a backward 

 direction. Had it been forward I should have had a poor 

 time of it, the conditions below being an unknown quantity. 

 I confess I was jumpy myself, but I had listened as care- 

 fully as the circumstances would permit after the shot, and 

 save for one sound, as of something falling in the grass, I 

 had heard nothing. No growl ! No crash ! Had I killed 

 the beast outright ? It seemed almost impossible that such 

 a piece of luck should be mine after the half-hour or more 

 of anxiety I had gone through. Or, dreadful thought, was 

 it a clean miss ? I turned to the orderly and enquired 

 what he thought. His answer sent my hopes to zero. He 

 thought he had heard the beast spring away. As I was 

 sitting on his head at the moment, and he himself was in 

 as big a fright as was possible, I might have spared myself 

 the pang which this reply gave me. I was too excited, 

 however, to think rationally just then. I told him to get 

 half down the tree and see if he could see anything. He 

 did so, and presently came back and reported that he 

 thought he saw the jungle waving about near the buffalo. 

 As a wind was blowing and every tree was dripping, the 

 jungle most certainly was on the move ; but from other 

 causes than the death-throes of a wounded tiger. Never- 

 theless, his words were golden to me at the time. I then 

 bethought me of standing up in the machan and endeavour- 

 ing to get a little higher than the position I had fired from. 

 It was just possible to raise myself a little and yet see 

 through the branches the place which had been occupied 

 by the tiger's head, and there^surely a sight for the gods ! 

 — was a little patch of pure white with two or three black 



