Told by the Doctor. 1 1 



I at once recognised as the peculiar smell emanating from 

 a body in the last and hopeless stage of pyaemia or blood- 

 poisoning! 



" I whipped round! The machdn was empty! I was 

 absolutely alone ; not a sound disturbed the pale silence 

 but a choking* gasp from the expiring tiger. An owl 

 hooted far up the glen. But that dreadful unhallowed reek 

 of rotting, festering humanity hung still, thick, choking, 

 almost palpable, over, under, and around me ! 



" Why I spoke in English then I know not, but I leant 

 over, and said in a low voice, ' Who's there ? ' then, recol- 

 lecting myself, * Kaon hai? ' Again I repeated, in a voice 

 that I scarcely recognised, ' Ho ! Kaon half 



"The silence was paralysing and unbearable. 



"I will ask you to imagine the horror of the situation. I 

 am, as you know, not imaginative. I have seen strange 

 things in my time ; but the awful, petrifying effect of that 

 moonlit dread, with its disgusting physical accompaniment, 

 upset all the man in me, and I felt as a child feels when it 

 starts quaking and whimpering from the terrors of night- 

 mare to the black throbtiing blackness of night. 



"I bore up awhile in a rapidly increasing fear that quite 

 mastered me; and then I could stand it no longer, and, 

 untying the cord I kept wound about my chdgal, I let my 

 rifle down to the ground, and followed myself, regardless, 

 thoughtless of barked shins and palms, fell the last few 

 feet on my face, picked up my rifle, and, with a glance at 

 the dead tiger, made my way to camp, vainly trying to 

 reconcile the scene I had just passed through with the fan- 

 cies of a brain suddenly dragged from slumber. 



" Reaching the sleep-steeped camp at 3 a.m., I helped 

 myself to a stiff peg and a cheroot, and lay smoking till 

 dawn. I had a cup of coffee then, and accompanied my men 



