258 ENCOUNTER WITH BOAR, [CH. xv. 



Nothing daunted, but rather aroused by the thought to an increased 



determination to destroy the monster, M e resolved quietly to 



await his return. 



466. Hour after hour passes. The shades of evening fall. The 

 bark of the jackal and the howlings of the hyaena, showing the 

 advance of night, meet his ear, but not the longed-for roar of the 

 expected lion. Surely he will again seek his lair while the bright 

 moon yet favours the intrepid sportsman. No he comes not. Com- 

 plete darkness sets in darkness intense in that deep recess ; but 

 ere long the discordant screams of the peacock announce the early 

 dawn, and after a while the hot beams of the sun again hush all 

 into silence, save the busy hum of innumerable insects. Horrible 

 suspense ! The weary hours drag on still he returns not ; and 

 there still sits M e, but not the man he was. Anxious excite- 

 ment want of sleep and, above all, the deprivation of bodily 

 stimulants, have done their work. He was agitated and unnerved. 

 To quote his own words when afterwards recounting the adventure, 

 he " would have given worlds to have been away, or to have had a 

 flask of brandy." What madness, he thought, could have tempted 

 him to seek such certain destruction ? Had the taint of his feet 

 raised the animal's suspicions ? Was his presence detected ? And 

 was the shaggy monster watching outside, crouching low, ready to 

 spring when his victim should be forced by hunger to emerge ? Quit 

 he dare not ; yet to remain with nerves unstrung was terrible. In 

 his diseased state of mind imagination conjured up awfully har- 

 rowing scenes in which man in his feebleness had succumbed ; 

 and was it really decreed that his crushed bones should mingle 

 unhonoured and unnoticed with the heap around him ? Hours that 

 seemed days of torture passed away again the sun reached the 

 zenith again it sets and again it shines upon the remains of 

 huge limbs, and upon those of slighter mould that bear a fearfully 

 close resemblance to his own ! The sun has sunk behind the sum- 

 mit of the distant hills, already the short twilight commences. Can 

 he survive another night of horrors, or shall he, risking v all, rush 

 forth. 



467. Suddenly a deep and angry growl is heard. It acts as 

 music upon his soul his nerves are at once restored to their 

 pristine firmness strong is his pulse steady his hand ; his coun- 

 tenance lights up with hope and animation ; and as the cave is 

 darkened by the entrance of its legitimate but no longer dreaded 

 owner, the favourite barrels are deliberately levelled with the ac- 

 customed deadly aim. 



468. The Hindoos, who are naturally an inoffensive timid race, 

 have an almost fabulous reverence for the courage of Europeans, 

 whom they often term fighting devils an epithet applied in no dis- 

 paraging way, but, on the contrary, as the highest of compliments. 



The Assistant-surgeon (B h) and a Lieutenant (D n), of a 



regiment to which I once belonged on the Indian establishment, 

 were travelling up the country. On arriving early one morning at 

 their breakfast tent (which had been sent forward as usual the 



