ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 205 



of them durst follow, knowing rescue to be impossible, even 

 had it been their own father. He had not cried out, they 

 said, and must have been struck down from behind, and 

 instantly borne off. They heard the sudden rush back 

 through the bushes, and knew which side of the path it 

 was, but as to the direction taken there was not the quiver 

 of a leaf to tell, so close was the cover and so quickly was 

 it done. Just for one instant they heard the sound a tiger 

 makes with his prey in his jaws — a growling and snarling — 

 and then dead silence. A cat that has caught a mouse 

 behaves in exactly the same way, making an angry, threaten- 

 ing sound, harmless enough to human beings in her, but 

 terrifying in the tiger, though of the self-same character. 

 From this sound they knew it was a tiger, recognising the 

 growling over possession ; for they had heard it before when 

 some animal from their flocks had been seized — that had 

 been bad enough. But now they saw nothing ; only knew 

 that their companion was hideously gone, had fallen a 

 prey to the prowling enemy ; that it might have been any 

 one of them — might yet be, for aught they knew ! 



One hears occasionally of people being carried off by man- 

 eating tigers, but never of any escaping if once attacked ; 

 at least I never did, and there must be many more who meet 

 death in this awful form, simply not being heard of again. 

 But neither does such a tiger himself escape for very long ; 

 his life is a marked one, for he leaves a trail of blood 

 wherever he passes. To-day this tiger had killed his last 

 man. 



The scene of the sickening tragedy was unusually high 

 up the Ghat side for a tiger to ascend ; they prefer warmer 

 latitudes — that is to say, low-country tigers do ; for there 

 are plenty in cold latitudes also, each keeping to their own 

 habitat. The spot must have been at an elevation of quite 

 three thousand five hundred feet, where it would be com- 

 paratively cold. How far his quest led him on we could 



