76 RIFLE AND ROMANCE 



hooted far up the glen. But that dreadful unhallowed 

 reek of rotting humanity hung still, thick, choking, almost 

 palpable, over, under, and around me ! 



" Why I spoke in English then I know not, but I leant 

 over and said in a low voice, ' Who's there ? ' Then, recollect- 

 ing myself, ' Kaon hai ? ' Again I repeated in a voice that 

 I scarcely recognised, ' Ho ! Kaon hui ? ' 



" The silence was paralysing and unbearable. 



" I will ask you to imagine the horror of the situation. 

 I am, as you know, not imaginative. I have seen strange 

 things in my time ; but the awful, petrifying effect of that 

 moonlit dread, with its disgusting physical accompaniment, 

 upset all the man in me, and I felt as a child feels when it 

 starts quaking and whimpering from the terrors of night- 

 mare to the soft throbbing blackness of night. 



" I bore up awhile, in a rapidly increasing fear that 

 quite mastered me. And then I could stand it no longer. 

 Untying the cord I kept wound about my chdgal, I let my 

 rifle down to the ground, and followed hurriedly, regard- 

 less, thoughtless of barked shins and palms, fell the last 

 few feet on my face, picked up my rifle, and with a glance 

 at the dead tiger, made my way to camp, vainly trying to 

 reconcile the scene I had just passed through with the 

 fancies of a brain suddenly dragged from slumber. 



"Reaching the sleep-steeped camp at 3 a.m., I helped 

 myself to a stiff ' peg ' and a cheroot, and lay smoking till 

 dawn. I had a cup of coffee then, and accompanied my 

 men back to the dead tiger. Half ashamed, I found my- 

 self furtively looking about the base of the tree in which 

 I had spent the night. Not a mark in the soft soil but 

 those of my men and myself! And in that clear sweet 

 morning light, remembering that the odour of a well-fed 

 and lately fed tiger might be sufficient to account for what 

 had persuaded my nocturnal fears, I caught myself smiling 

 at the strange fancies that will come to a man in the hours 

 of darkness. Leaving the men to skin the tiger, which was 



