304! THE HUNTING GROUNDS 



ceived, for with a short angry roar she left the 

 corpse and crouched low to the ground, with her 

 head down, her back arched, and her tail lashing 

 her heaving flanks. At this moment, before she 

 could make a spring that might have proved fatal, 

 carefully aiming between her eyes, which glared 

 upon me like balls of fire, I let drive — she reared 

 up full length on her hind-legs, pawed the air, and 

 fell back dead. 



Vengeance satiated, I went up to poor All, whom 

 I found shockingly mutilated ; his death must have 

 been Instantaneous, as the tigress, with the first blow 

 of her paw, had crushed in the skull (for the brains 

 lay scattered about the place) and then made her 

 teeth meet in his throat and shoulder, breaking the 

 arm in two places, and lacerating the fleshy part of 

 the thigh. 



B and the gang came up shortly afterwards, 



and long and loud were their lamentations, for Ali 

 was much liked by them all, and a great favourite 

 with his master, to whom he had ever proved a will- 

 ing and devoted follower. 



We bound up his head, covered his face with a 

 cloth, and by the aid of our axes constructed a litter 

 of bamboos, on which we carried him towards the 

 hut, where Yacoob Khan, Hassan, and Cassim, 

 B 's " kidmudjar," (butler,) who were also Mus- 

 sulmans, performed the last rites of " the Faithful ;" 

 and we buried him in a deep grave, under an over- 

 hanging rock near the lake, in which the nose, whis- 



