392 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTKAL INDIA. 



further on it stopped, and the round face again glared 

 at me over the grass. Surely it must be a tiger ? A 

 glimpse of a striped red hide settled the question, and I 

 moved a little down to cut her ofl' from the river bed. 

 All was motionless for a few minutes, and then again 

 the slowly waving grass showed the stealthy progress 

 towards the deep gully in which ran the river. A 

 shallow ravine was a little ahead, down which she 

 could steal unobserved, except in one place, where a 

 little jungle pathway crossed it, and I took up a place 

 commanding this at about sixty yards, waiting with 

 cocked rifle and beating heart. Now she is close to 

 the opening, the grass rustling gently above her. Now 

 she sneaks rapidly across, crawling low, but halts 

 for a moment to look again before entering the further 

 cover. Fatal pause ! A ball speeds through her 

 shoulder, and, turning with a roar, she gallops back 

 again up the hollow. I thought she meant a charge, 

 and hastily reloaded the discharged barrel of my breech- 

 loader, as I had only one gun out, being on a pad. But 

 she left the nala, when nearly opposite me, on the wrong 

 side. I think she must have forgotten, for she evidently 

 looked out for her assailant, jumping high above the 

 grass at every bound — a really beautiful sight, with her 

 very bright-coloured skin, hair erect, and tail streaming 

 behind her. About the third bound I causjht her with 

 another bullet, and she fell, crumpled up in mid-air, for 

 all the world just like a partridge struck full by a charge 

 of shot. She was lying stone-dead when I came up, 

 and no wonder, for the ball had entered near her tail, 

 traversed the whole length of her body, and was resting 

 under the skin of her forehead. The rifle was a twelve- 

 bore breech-loader, on my own spherical ball principle, 

 the penetration of w^hich may be judged of by this 



