282 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTEAL INDIA. 



and bloody. But he recognised me when I came to him, and 

 conjured me to go out forthwith and bring in her body next 

 day if I wished to see him live. I knew that the natives have 

 a superstition to this effect ; and, though I was then in a high 

 fever, I sent off my elephant at midnight to a village near the 

 spot, following myself on horseback at daybreak. Much rain 

 had fallen, and all old tracks were obliterated. The jungle 

 was also very green and thick, and I spent the whole day 

 till the afternoon, hunting, as I afterwards found, in a wrong 

 direction. At last I came on a fresh trail, with one hind foot 

 dragging in the sand, and then I knew I was near the savage 

 brute. We ran it up to a dense j^man cover in the river-bed, 

 and I had barely time to get the people on foot safely up trees 

 when the tigress came at me in the most determined manner. 

 She looked just like a huge cat that had been hunted by dogs 

 her fur all bedraggled and standing on end, eyes glaring with 

 fury, and emitting the hoarse coughing roar of a charging tiger 

 that no one, to the very close of his tiger-shooting, hears with- 

 out a certain quickening of the blood. The first two shots hit 

 fair, but did not stop her ; and she was not more than a few 

 yards from the elephant's trunk when the third ball caught her 

 clean in the mouth, knocking out one of her canine teeth 

 and passing down the throat into the chest. She could do no 

 more, but lay roaring and worrying her own paws till I put an 

 end to her with another shot in the head. She was a lean 

 greyhound-made brute scarcely bigger than a panther. The 

 Lalla" was avenged, but the poor fellow was beyond any help 

 that the sight of his enemy might have afforded him ; and not- 

 withstanding every care for he was the favourite of every- 

 body who knew him he sank under the exhausting drain of 

 so many fearful wounds. 



Very different from the old Lalla is the usual pattern of 



