Teak and Bamboo. 23 



plunge I passed them, and, crossing the bed of the nala with 

 a clatter, disappeared among the trees, just as a second 

 bullet buried itself with a thud beyond me in the bank. A 

 few steps more and I came to a standstill, feeling faint 

 and sick ; then, seeing a small side nala, I crept a short 

 distancs up it, and had barely squatted in its sheltering 

 grasses, and pressed my head to the ground, when my 

 enemies came in sight, and, passing close by my hiding- 

 place, their eyes fixed intently ahead, rapidly receded 

 up-stream. 



There were now two sahibs, one of whom was gasping out 

 as he ran " A perfect monster ! a forty-five incher !" 

 Their footfalls grew faint in the distance, and at length I 

 was able to creep from my nook, and, with horns laid back, 

 stealthily retrace my way, and take a jungle-path that led me 

 finally, limping, halting, out of that glen and into the next. 



Proceeding thus, my fears and the smart of my wound 

 ever pressing me on, I drank at a pool, and, going stronger, 

 had put some miles between me and the scene of the disaster 

 before I crept under the thick tangle of a woody hillside 

 and laid me down. My hurt was painful, but had long 

 since ceased bleeding, being caked with leaves. Lying thus, 

 the rapid twilight closed in, the pink glow died from the 

 opposite hillside, and a single star trembled in the deepen- 

 ing sky. A big owl sent its weird quavering cry floating 

 over the hushed forest, and was silent. 



The sleepy croak of a frog rose on the still air ; and the 

 jungle sank to rest. 



When the waning moon rose, about midnight, I staggered 

 to my feet, and crept stiffly down-hill to the cold raw valley, 

 where the surface of a pool lay silver between black rocks. 

 Wading in, I stood deep in its cooling waters, licking 

 my wound clean. 



