CHAPTER VIII 



THE success which had attended my first attempt to shoot 

 a tiger from a tree, as described, plus the accompanying 

 fascination of the days and nights spent in the heart of the 

 forest, had whetted my appetite for this form of sport. 

 Hence when, some three months later, my duties necessi- 

 tated a sojourn of some days in a distant rest-house situated 

 in the midst of a dense jungle, I looked forward to relieving 

 the monotony of my solitary existence by devoting my 

 leisure moments to further experiments in this mode of sport. 



My late experience had, however, shown me that of all 

 the methods employed by the Anglo-Indian sportsman in 

 hunting the large carnivora, there are few that test his 

 qualities so thoroughly as this one. 



In the first place, to be successful the vigil should be a 

 lonely one, for absolute silence being necessarily the most 

 important element of the business, it is wiser to reduce the 

 chances of a cough or sneeze or any similar indiscretion to 

 the capacity of one individual only. Another and most 

 essential quality is patience, without which it would be 

 useless to attempt this kind of sport, and this brings me to 

 my adventure, for from it will Jbe seen to what extent one's 

 patience may be tried. 



I had been about three days in the bungalow when the 

 panther I am about to tell of made his first appearance on 

 the scene. When I say " made his appearance," I do not 

 mean to imply that I saw him then. For that was a pleasure 

 I was not destined to enjoy till the moment that I shot 

 him six days later on. 



But although during this period he was not visible to 

 the eye, he had made his presence known, and sometimes 

 felt too, in various aggravating ways, not the least un- 

 pleasant of which was the music with which he favoured 

 me at nights. 



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