360 RIFLE AND ROMANCE 



rock slope, and thence glide, smooth and oily, to enter that 

 pool below. Sliding down the smooth green rock, it would 

 enter that pool almost without a ripple. But, although 

 the surface of tlfe now dry mossy rock-slope was quite of 

 the kind that often cuts away one's feet and leaves one 

 painfully anathematising the too numerous projections on 

 the human frame, it was hard to imagine that a large body 

 like a panther could possibly follow a path similar to that 

 taken by sliding water. He could have scarcely been fit 

 for much movement after falling such a height, with an 

 already broken back ; and yet there was scarcely a doubt 

 that he had crawled away ! If he had fallen into the pool 

 at the foot of the rock-slope a little piece of water in a 

 " pot-hole " about fifteen by five feet in size he must have 

 left some trace of a splash ! If he had then emerged from 

 the lower end of the pool and crawled away, then equally 

 surely he must have left water-splashes to betray that 

 journey. 



Going to the brink of the little pool, we glanced in. 

 Festering and stagnant for all those long months of an 

 Indian hot-weather sun, the water was of a hideous clammy 

 green, and quite opaque. Opaque therefore might hide 

 anything that fell into it ! 



" A long bamboo, please," was what we shouted then ; 

 and shortly a Korku's axe was at work disengaging a 

 suitable " rod " from a neighbouring clump of those useful 

 plants. 



The water was deep, and the end of the bamboo found 

 bottom with difficulty as we searched every corner with it, 

 striking against nothing but hard rock. Then all at once 

 the probe struck soft something yielding and yet firm. 

 The secret was out ! 



The K6rku rarely appears to display any overpowering 

 liking for water applied externally, so it was to be ex- 

 pected that we should encounter some coyness when the 

 suggestion was made that one of the jungle men should 



