176 DIARY OF A SPORTSMAN NATURALIST 



portion of a woman's body, poor Kali's body. Without 

 thought of the consequences to myself or my companions, I 

 started forward with a shout of frenzy and rage, and sprang 

 for the cave opening. I jumped, half crouching, on to the 

 sandy entrance, and as I got there, a dark yellow shape 

 came from the interior of the cave. With a shiver of joy I 

 found myself gazing into the dark green, fiery eyes, the snarl- 

 ing mouth, with its poisonous breath and enormous yellow 

 fangs, of the tiger. What my face was like I know not. 

 Surely it must have been as a devil's, for, sahib, the tiger 

 quailed for a second before my glance. They say I shouted 

 again. I may have done so, for I read in those devilish, 

 cruel eyes that my days were numbered, and at the same 

 moment I fired off my matchlock point-blank at the snarling 

 jaws. I had not brought the weapon to the shoulder, I 

 fired it as I carried it, with part of the stock beneath my 

 right armpit. I remember a snarling roar, a deafening 

 report, and a dull thud on the head. 



" Some time afterwards I came to myself, to find old 

 Sher Bahadur leaning over me with an anxious look in his 

 eyes. He told me afterwards that he thought I had gone 

 mad, and that the tiger's spirit had entered into me, as I had 

 been raving ever since I fired the shot. And I raved then, 

 for my eyes fell on the form of the tiger. My bullets had 

 brained it and the recoil had shot me into the torrent bed 

 with the tiger on top of me, for he must have sprung as I 

 fired. 



" Jumping to my feet, I fell on my foe and with my kukri 

 slashed the body to pieces in a wild frenzy. After my 

 first mad transports I proceeded more methodically, and 

 ripping the breast up I tore out the heart, as I had vowed 

 to do. 



" Then rage left me and I went to the remains of her whom 

 I loved so dearly. Collecting them together, I took off my 

 coat, bound them carefully up in it, and then dropped to the 

 ground. 



" It was weeks before I was about again, sahib. I got the 

 brain fever very badly and all thought that the tigers' 

 spirit had got hold of me, that I was bewitched and that I 

 should die. 



" I did not die. Gradually I got well and strong again. 

 But with my strength a feeling of restlessness entered into 

 me — I could not stop in the village. So I arranged for my 



