THE BIOGRAPHY OF A TIGER 63 



the chosen steed for two wild nights in the year of the 

 dread Bh6nwarde"o ! why, it was absurd ! He was in- 

 vulnerable ; and the bullets would drop harmless from his 

 hide ! Thus hinted the grinning jungle-folk, who had not 

 the least objection to accepting the sportsman's rupees 

 for their services as beaters, but who would quietly open 

 out as they drove the jungle, so that their old patron, if 

 by any chance he should be there which was not very 

 likely might have no difficulty in passing to safety 

 through the gap in their line. 



Thus flourished old Lungra of the Sfpna; while his 

 fame spread abroad, and it seemed that his long reign 

 would only end when he should choose to slip from mortal 

 ken in the mysterious fashion of tigers that die in the 

 natural course of a green old age, and so departing, leave 

 no trace behind. 



And yet what miserable fate was this to choose for so 

 magnificent a brute ! to be hounded in his last tottering 

 weakness to a shameful end by some rapacious pack of 

 wild dogs! to furnish a midnight rendezvous for the 

 fiendish, carrion-scenting hilarities of a chorus of yelling 

 jackals ! to drag himself away to die in some lone cave, 

 and be discovered and gloated over by the cowardly 

 striped hyaenas limping lickerishly round ; and then, 

 when all was over, to be ghoulishly dismembered and 

 scattered through the jungles in the hideous orgies pecu- 

 liar to these repulsive scavengers ! 



So, lucky to the last, Fate spared him such indignities. 



In his dotage and the overweening confidence of a life- 

 long experience the old tiger at last committed a fatal 

 error. He developed a dangerously regular habit and 

 took to nightly perambulating the old forest road, the 

 cart-track that runs through the centre of the Si'pna 

 valley, crossing and recrossing the shingly river-bed that, 

 shouldered now right now left by the steep banks against 

 which it impinges in its serpentine course, sweeps from 



