FELIs. 81 
cach village its Shikari? men who could boast of many an encounter 
with tiger and bear, and would they shrink from following up a mere 
animal? Certainly not; but they knew the tradition of Chinta Gond, 
and they believed it. What could they do? 
On the morning of the second day, after leaving Amodagurh, the two 
sportsmen neared Sulema, a little village not far from Kahani, out of 
which it was reported the panther had taken no less than forty people 
within three years, There was not a house that had not mourned the 
loss of father, or mother, or brother, or sister, or wife or child, from 
within this little hamlet. Piteous indeed were the tales told as our 
friends halted to gather news, and the scars of the few who were 
fortunate enough to have escaped with life after a struggle with the 
enemy, were looked at with interest ; but the most touching of all were 
the stories artlessly told by a couple of children, one of whom witnessed 
the death of a sister, and the other of a brother, both carried off in broad 
daylight, for the fell destroyer went boldly to work, knowing that they 
were but weak opponents.”* I was out several times after this 
diabolical creature, but without success; as I sat out night after night 
I could hear the villagers calling from house to house hourly, ‘‘ Jég¢é ho 
bhiya!l jagté ho!” “Are you awake, brothers ? are you awake!” All 
day long I scoured the country with my elephant, all night long I 
watched and waited. My camp was guarded by great fires, my 
servants and followers were made to sleep inside tents, whilst sentries 
with musket and bayonet were placed at the doors; but all to no 
purpose. ‘The heated imagination of one sentry saw him glowering 
at him across the blazing fire. A frantic camp-follower spoilt my 
breakfast next morning ere I had taken a second mouthful, by declaring 
he saw him in an adjoining field. Then would come in a tale of a 
victim five miles off during the night, and then another, and sometimes 
a third. I have alluded before to his cowardice ; in many cases a single 
man or boy would frighten him from his prey. On one occasion, in my 
rounds after him, I came upon a poor woman bitterly crying in a field ; 
beside her lay the dead body of her husband. He had been seized by 
the throat and dragged across the fire made at the entrance of their 
little wigwam in which they had spent the night, watching their crops, 
The woman caught hold of her husband’s legs, and, exerting her strength 
against the man-eater’s, shrieked aloud. He dropped the body and fled, 
making no attempt to molest her or her little child of about four years 
of age. ‘This man was the third he had attacked that night. 
He was at last killed, by accident, by a native shikari who, in the 
dusk, took him for a pig or some such animal, and made a lucky shot ; 
but the tale ofehis victims had swelled over two hundred during the 
three years of his reign of terror. 
* ¢ Seonee.’ 
