354 BUILDING BETTER THAN HE KNEW. 



" What does this mean ? " asked the wondering Dick. 



"Some calamity has befallen them during the night; there is Jo he will 

 inform us." 



Jo, who was the leading servant, spoke English almost as well as a European. 

 Seeing his masters, he ran forward to meet them. 



" Oh, sahib !" said he, making an elaborate salaam; "great sorrow has come 

 upon the village." 



" What is the trouble ? " 



" The tiger, the tiger ! He entered the village last night, sahib, and seized n 

 child right before its father and mother. We ran after the beast, shouting and 

 throwing torches at him, but he heeded us not; he is gone with the child, and great 

 is the grief of our friends over their loss, sahib." 



Mr. Godkin turned to Dick. 



" You may depend upon it that was the animal that paid us a visit last night" 



" It must have been after he carried off the child." 



" Likely it was the same beast." 



" And, sahib," continued Jo, " a snake bit one of the villagers, and he died." 



" That wasn't the same serpent that visited us last night," remarked Dick. 



" But it was the same species. I don't know that we would have been any safer 

 in the village than in the bamboo hut." 



"Where are the ichneumons that are sure death to all cobras ?" asked the 

 youth. 



"It would seem that these people ought to be supplied with those valuable 

 creatures, which have saved many a life from serpents." 



The villagers continued their lamentations, and besought Mr. Godkin and Dick 

 who they saw were fully armed, to slay the dreaded tiger, which would give them 

 no peace now that he had had a taste of one of their number. 



By this time Jim and Jack came up, and they added their lamentations to those 

 of their friends. With some trouble, my agent secured an account of what had 

 taken place during the night. 



The native who had died of the cobra's bite had been stricken early in the 

 evening, but the appearance of the tiger had been so recent that Dick saw he was 

 mistaken in believing that it was before he visited them. He must have come 

 directly from the hut and seized his victim. 



There could be no doubt that it was the same beast, for two of them rarely wor* 

 so near each other in the manner named. 



" Be calm," called Mr. Godkin, forgetting that only three or four of those who 

 heard him could understand his words; " we shall rid this district of the man-eater; 

 we have come to slay him." 



