TIGER-HAUNTED JUNGLES 35 



animals awake from their siesta and stretch themselves 

 and drink. A sudden start and rattle of stones in the 

 bed of the stream revealed that a sambur stag had come 

 to the water and had scented the tiger. He fled up the 

 glen as if the fiend was behind him, throwing back his 

 velvety horns to avoid the boughs. Then a slight 

 crackle of a dead leaf was detected, followed by a scrap- 

 ing, as of claws on a tree in another direction. All round 

 in a circle the tiger seemed to have stalked, to scent 

 for danger before approaching his prey. The intense 

 excitement of those hours, which seemed moments 

 and the moments hours, have left an impression which 

 carmot be effaced, and every incident will come back to 

 the writer's memory, as if it were happening now while 

 the story is being written. How the tiger's presence 

 was felt before he was heard, and heard before he was 

 seen, could only be realized by having had the experience. 

 When the tiger's great yellow flanks became visible as 

 he moved on through the thicket, it was such a slow, 

 gliding motion that were it not for the black stripes 

 the eye would fail to catch it, and the ear could detect 

 no actual sound. When all object for concealment 

 ceased, and he had satisfied himself that there was no 

 trap, he walked out into the open proudly, with the air 

 of a monarch. But a cruel, ravenous monarch. Terrible 

 in his nature, he seized the poor dead calf and shook it 

 as a cat does a mouse, snarling fiercely in his wrath, and 

 commenced to devour the hind-quarters, crouching low 

 on his belly and crunching savagely, his great yellow 

 eyes glaring with savage satisfaction. His comfortable 

 meal was his last, and three shots finished his guilty 

 career. The first behind the shoulder, when he roared a 

 mighty roar and bit the dust, breaking his claws on the 

 rocks ; the second and third, from the double rifle, were 



3—2 



