KHANDESH REVISITED 



blessed him for having built it, as it had afforded me warm 

 shelter on many an occasion. 



My trip this time, however, proved somewhat unprofit- 

 able, so far as the shooting was concerned, though it was 

 very pleasant to be back again amongst old scenes and 

 faces, for many of the shikaris I had known, and friends 

 from native states, all came in to welcome me. They had 

 quite decided that being now a married man, I could no 

 longer be the keen shikari I had been, and I was very glad 

 of the opportunity of correcting this impression. 



In addition to my wife a friend from the Deolali depot 

 accompanied me on this trip, the best and cheeriest of 

 comrades, who almost directly afterwards, poor fellow, 

 was killed in the South African campaign. We had several 

 blank beats, and on one occasion I was posted with my wife 

 on the identical tree from which many years before I had 

 killed a tigress, though suffering at the time from a severe 

 attack of ague. 



I remember trembling so violently while the beast came 

 on, that I was afraid her attention would be attracted to 

 the tree. However, she came out straight toward me, and 

 managing, somehow, to get my shaking rifle on to her, I 

 rolled her over with a bullet through the forehead. 



The blank beats I have mentioned continued for some 

 days. At last, late one morning, we got good khubbar of a 

 tiger having killed one of the buffaloes we had tied up as 

 bait. 



We started off at once, but the place was a long distance 

 away, and by the time we arrived there, and made all 

 arrangements for the beat, it was already late afternoon. 



As my friend H had never shot a tiger I was par- 

 ticularly anxious that he should have the shot, so gave him 

 the best place, but it was a very large piece of jungle and 

 difficult, not merely to beat, but to command all its natural 

 outlets with two guns only. 



However, as it happened, at the first sound of the 

 beaters, a fine tiger came out about fifty yards from his 



tree, but behind him, and as H could not turn round 



quickly enough, the beast went on. 



As soon as I realized that H was unable to fire, 



and that the tiger, if not stopped, would probably get away, 



121 



