THE HIGHER NARBADA. 355 



bold idea of lying in wait for one of the cowherds in his 

 own house. This he did, somehow manaoin"' to smucro-le 

 himself in unobserved ; and when the wretched man, 

 after securing his charge in their shed, returned blithely 

 home to his dinner, just as he reached the door forth 

 sprang the terrible scourge of the village, and, racing off 

 to the hills with the Aheer in his horrid jaws, disaj)peared 

 in an instant ! 



" It was about the hour of sunset, and most of the 

 villagers returned from their work were collected by the 

 image of Mahadeo, under the village pepul tree, discuss- 

 ing the events of the day. Amongst them was a Gond 

 Thakiir, named Padani Singh, who had killed his tiger, 

 and was consequently considered the village authority 

 on sporting matters. He was a man of determination, 

 as his after-conduct wdll show, and at once proposed 

 that they should proceed in a body and rescue the 

 remains of their fellow- villao-er from the maw of the 

 spoiler. Arming themselves as best they could, and 

 taking all the drums and other noisy instruments in the 

 village, they sallied forth and approached the spot where 

 the man-eater had retired to devour the Aheer. Bold 

 and undaunted as the tmev is when himself the ao-aressor, 

 the most terrible man-eater wants the courafye to stand 

 the approach of a body of men like this ; so he retreated 

 (as, indeed, the villagers very well knew he would). 

 They found the corpse half eaten, the upper half remain- 

 ing untouched. Padam Singh, the possessor of the only 

 matchlock in the place, proposed that the remains should 

 be left untouched, that he might sit up in a tree, and, 

 awaitinoj the return of the tiijer, rid the village for ever 

 of the pest. To this the dead man's relations yielded an 

 unwillinof assent, and Padani Singh was left to the 

 ghastly company of the corpse, perched high on a 



2 A 2 



