A WERE-TIGER. 271 



animal, now nearly all tiger, tore itself from the puny 

 grasp of the youngsters and fled into the darkness of 

 the forest. Though I did not tell the story as a true 

 one, To'Kaya shook his head and said, " That was a 

 narrow escape. But it is fitting that we should talk of 

 were-tigers, for here in the village of Bentong which 

 we are approaching there was a were-tiger not many 

 years ago." 



This is the story : not, it will be seen, as To'Kaya 

 told it, but as I have reconstructed it from what he 

 told me. 



A few years ago Bentong, a village of considerable 

 importance in a sparsely-populated district, for it con- 

 sisted of some fifty houses, had suffered much from the 

 depredations of a tiger. Scarcely a month passed 

 without a buffalo or two being taken, and the Malays 

 were in despair. They had tied up goats with spring- 

 guns set over them, and they had made elaborate 

 traps, like gigantic mouse -traps, baited with dogs. 

 But the tiger would have none of them, and the Malays 

 were beginning to talk of abandoning the village, for 

 they depended upon the buffaloes to plough the padi- 

 fields, and the possible extermination of the herd 

 meant nothing less than utter ruin. 



Such was the state of things in Bentong when late 

 one afternoon, in drenching rain and growing dark- 

 ness, an old Korinchi pedlar named Haji Brahim 

 was hastening towards the village, where he intended 

 to spend the night. He had a regular round through 

 the district, in which he had been known for years, 

 and the next day would peddle cloths and silks to the 

 women-folk, collect his small debts, and then move on 



