

Reminiscences of Jungly pur. 143 



Just below me was a small bit of cactus scrub, and 

 in this our spotted friend came to a pause. I took the 

 chance ; hitting him, as I afterwards found, in the foot. 

 The left barrel scored a miss, and, by the time fresh 

 cartridges were inserted, he was sprawling up some 

 precipitous rocks with the same deceptive lobbing 

 gait. At the next shot, hard hit, he clung des- 

 perately to the smooth surface of a boulder, and fell 

 back some feet; but recovered himself and crawled 

 along horizontally, getting under a little ledge. He 

 ha,d now ascended into the base of the cliff, which hung 

 beetling over us five hundred feet above the ravine, and 

 which, nearer its base, decends in perpendicular basalt scarps, 

 alternating with short precipitous slopes of rubble and 

 rock. Above one of these slopes he now lay in a sort of 

 niche under the sheer rock- face, showing nothing but the 

 end of his tail and the ridge of his back. Seeing that he 

 was now in the hollow of our hands, I climbed some way 

 higher to get a clear view of him; then, with a man hold- 

 ing me firmly behind, got astride a little salai tree project- 

 ing from the dangerously steep hillside, and balanced self 

 .and heavy cordite rifle for the shot. The bullet struck fair 

 on the panther's spine, and out he came, rolling rapidly 

 over and over to the edge of the slope. Next instant he 

 shot over as though impelled by a spring, and, every claw 

 extended, described a beautiful curve in mid-air, to the 

 accompaniment of astonished exclamations from the won- 

 dering Korkus. Falling through a clear hundred and fifty 

 feet, like a yellow meteor, he disappeared into the ravine, 

 still revolving; and then there came a distant but sicken- 

 ing thud. My orderly, warned by my cry to " stand from 

 under," very nearly got the carcase' 'on his head! Of 

 course, that panther was as dead as a door nail when I got 



