OP THE OLD WORLD. 93 



whatever it is, I am ready to look out for squalls, 

 and perhaps it may be a black panther.' With any ' 



other man than M I should have hesitated to 



lire, considering the awkward position I was in, 

 perched on the shoulders of a man who I knew 

 would bolt at the first sign of danger, and expose 

 me not only to a nasty fall, but also to the mercy 



of a wounded brute. But with M I felt quite 



safe, knowing his extreme coolness in time of danger, 

 and the fatal accuracy of his aim. Again I raised 

 the rifle to my shoulder and was about to pull trigger, 

 when I bethought me that if it was only a bear he 

 could not spring on me, and that I could fire with 

 more fatal effect from the tree itself. I accordingly 

 got on to the fork of the tree, and as soon as 

 I got a steady footing I raised my rifle to fire. 

 Again I put it down, thinking that I might only 

 slightly wound the brute by firing in this way, so I 

 gave the black mass of hair a poke with the end of 

 the barrel of my gun in order to stir it up. Imagine 

 my astonishment when I saw the upper part of a 

 human face and a pair of eyes bob up and then go 

 down again ! To hang my rifle on a broken branch 

 and whip out my shekar knife was the work of a 

 moment, and thus armed I clutched the supposed 



animal by the hair, and shouted to M and the 



rest to come up ; when the thing I was holding began 

 to moan and struggle, and shortly a curious kind of 

 paws, with huge claws, emerged from below and 

 fastened on my hand, and it was only by frequent 



