iv THE MAN-EATING TIGER 75 



frightful glaring yellow eyes. This was the most trying 

 of all things named ; he was coming straight towards 

 me, and a tiger always springs forward when fired at 

 or hit, and woe betide the man, beast, or tree that 

 comes in his way when his monkey is up. It was a 

 very awkward position, and so called forth every power. 

 I glanced off the rifle and saw the tiger-path he was 

 on turned off about 5 yards (the length of your 

 bedroom) before it came to me. I was behind a low 

 bush about the height of your head, but so like a tree 

 is my coat, and so occupied was the tiger with the 

 thoughts of * those he left behind him,' that he never 

 saw me, but the chances were in two steps more he 

 would. All this that takes so long to describe only 

 filled up the space of four or five seconds, but in such 

 seconds one lives a lifetime. Already he was turning 

 slightly to one side, leaving poor me out of his straight, 

 direct course anyway, and already I was beginning to 

 slightly pull the fated trigger. I thought, ' In one or two 

 more strides you're mine ' ; and as I looked at the awful 

 head, the long, lithe, powerful body, the frightful fore- 

 legs, as thick and hard as billiard tables' ; and above all, 

 as I listened to that low, savage threatening growl, like 

 a heavy waggon going fast over a wooden bridge, I felt 

 a proud bit of feeling rise in me at the thought of 

 fighting the * Great Cat ' out on his own ground. I 

 was just pulling the trigger when a whiz past my ear, 

 a sharp crack, a terrific grand roar, a sensation of 

 some great danger flying past my devoted head in the 

 shape of a very noisy thing in a striped waistcoat, two 

 or three tremendous crashes in the bamboo jungle, and 

 all was as it were a dream. Now for the explanation 

 (a case of Lord Byron, * explain your explanation '). 

 A rascal, a very naughty man, a regular nasty creature 

 of a man ! O words ! how inadequate you are to 



