284 RIFLE AND ROMANCE 



he added in a low tone ; " and we, going together in a body 

 to the edge of the walls, did note the sounds rise clean to the 

 hearing, and the voice the voice of the G6ndni " 



" Gondni ? " I snapped out, now wide awake. " What 

 G6ndni?" and as suddenly before he could reply I 

 knew ! That old woman ! the hag ! the unbidden visitor 

 of two nights since. Also Jhapoo ; and the chest ! 



" By the time of the drinking of your honour's coffee the 

 beaters shall be ready below ! " and the heavy boots of 

 my trusty man retreated briskly from the flagged courtyard. 



To shoot two full-grown tigers right and left in a mere 

 patch of scrub thirty miles from the nearest heavy jungle ; 

 to see them lying sprawled out dead there before me, the 

 soles of their pads abraded by much fast travelling; to 

 marvel at the dazed fashion in which one had aimlessly 

 climbed the bare hillside, while the other, immediately after- 

 wards, and with equal imbecility, had endeavoured to 

 break away over the bare plains all was inexplicable and 

 wrong! None of the usual rejoicings seemed now to 

 be taking place ; the figures of men moved as automatons 

 as in a dream. To complete all, I had just returned from 

 the covert which I had then entered alone, to find the 

 little jungle utterly deserted, but a mass of tigers' pugs, 

 and Jhapoo's travelling sarcophagus closed and locked ! 



Then it was that the strange spirit of this strange quest 

 at last entered into me much as I had learnt it had 

 possessed my predecessor in the ownership of this extra- 

 ordinary box, but perchance in a different manner. A very 

 lust for slaying tigers set in an elevation of the material 

 and mental faculties in the conviction that success in the 

 pursuit of these usually elusive animals was now so com- 

 pletely at my command. All seemed as clear as day The 

 ancient crone and her mission, the hitherto mysterious 

 qualities of the stuffed man, the air of the occult and 



