82 SIR VICTOR BROOKE CHAP. 



and buried here. It was a wild, drizzling day, and the 

 clouds were flying across the churchyard, playing round 

 the sad -looking, tall, white tombstones, and almost 

 adding to the difficulty of our mournful task. We 

 found it at last with the simple inscription- 

 Here lies 



Captain the Honb'le . . . Hancock, 



late of the Fusiliers. 



He was killed by a 



Tiger 

 near this place on the 22nd of Dec. 1858. 



Aged 24 years. 



This monument is erected by his sorrowing father. 

 Lord Castlemaine. 



Brine and I stood for some minutes gazing at it, 

 and I daresay what we both had so often dared and 

 so narrowly escaped never struck us before with such 

 clammy horror. Poor fellow ! only six months before 

 he had been asking Brine, as they both came out 

 together Brine being then a well-known sportsman in 

 India, and a great authority, how to shoot tigers 

 Brine's answer was: 'Always climb a tree at least 20 

 feet (a tiger will knock a man out of a tree 4 feet 

 higher than the dining-room ceiling with one bound), 

 and when you wound a tiger or knock him over don't 

 go near him for some time, and then when you do, look 

 out for squalls.' Not one month afterwards, as the 

 poor fellow was on his way here, he heard of a tiger ; 

 it was the first he ever heard of even. Away he went, 

 got up a tree, had the jungle beaten, and he got a shot 

 quite close, and knocked the tiger over motionless ; 

 down he got, quite excited, to examine it, and was 

 stooping to pick up his paw, when, with one stroke 

 his dying struggle the huge brute almost cut him in 



