THE BIOGRAPHY OF A TIGER 65 



and, gathering great crisp fallen leaves of teak, strew 

 them carefully in a broad band across the little road. 

 Then passing on, they disappear round a distant bend; 

 and the jungle lies still and deserted. 



Now the last long ringers of the sinking sun have with- 

 drawn. The westerly sky is painted with fiery hues, and, 

 through the close-set saplings, glows like a furnace behind 

 its red-hot bars. 



Low, opposite the ardent west, hangs the golden sphere 

 of the full moon, slowly paling into silver as she mounts 

 over the dusky hills beyond the valley. 



The gradually cooling air is laden with the strong sweet 

 scent of the sickly mhowa flowers that, ripened, drip 

 steadily into the fallen leaves from their leafless trees 

 around. The latest sounds of day have departed, the 

 peafowl have roosted with their sad wild cries, and night 

 has fallen swift, still, complete, after the abrupt fashion 

 of the tropics. 



And already the jungle is rustling with the movements 

 of nocturnal creatures, small and great. The nightjars 

 are tapping out their long succession of monotonous notes 

 or sailing abroad like shadows through the balmy air ; a 

 tiny screech-owl chuckles diabolically in the gathering 

 gloom ; a flying squirrel poises from a slender tree-top, 

 black against the sky, then, launching out, goes swooping 

 across a dim glade. 



Emerging from the sable shadow of the old mango tree 

 the jungle road runs onward to the next bend through 

 long swathes of dry reed-grass. To the right the forest is 

 dense and dark ; but through an opening in the bare- 

 twigged saplings to the left the little valley is seen lying 

 pale under the wan moonlight pale, with stretches of 

 grassland, sombre with indistinct belts of jungle and 

 copse, the black tree-bordered line of the Sipna beyond, 

 and bounded by the blue-grey hills that, spiky and rough 

 with the strange naked growth of the teak forest, slope 

 F 



