Tiger Shooting. 61: 



descended and clothed themselves, but seeing the men 

 running, and climbing aloft, they did likewise. My 

 lugalay (boy) was very reluctant to come with me, 

 but I told him if he moved or attempted to loiter, I 

 would tie him up as a bait, for I was determined to 

 have that tiger. But there was no need for fear, or 

 further precautions, for after a little search I found a 

 tiger stone dead, lying on its back, hidden by a 

 rock, and on which he must have been crouching 

 preparatory to springing on the girls. Calling out 

 that the other tiger was also dead, I told the 

 people to come down and drag both to the river 

 bank, but until the boy had assured them that it 

 was really true that both the beasts were defunct, 

 not one of them would move. Indeed the girls were 

 the first to set this example, for they slipped off their 

 perches and came to where I was standing, clasping 

 my knees as they knelt down, and calling me their 

 preserver and goodness knows what, whereas if the 

 truth be told, the whole time the scrimmage lasted 

 and it was not of five minutes' duration I had not 

 given the women a thought, for my hunter's instinct 

 had been so wrapped up in the death of the royal 

 cats, that everything else had gone out of my 

 head. But of course I was glad that I had been 

 instrumental in having saved them from becoming 

 food for such monsters, for the girls were far too 

 fine specimens of the human race to have met with 

 such a fate. I was then told that these two tigers 

 always hunted in company, and that they had killed 

 over twenty people in two months, a great mortality 

 for a tract so sparsely populated. 



