254 ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 



etc. He was not of the riding sort, and felt happier boxed 

 up in a bullock-coach, or even jolted along in a country 

 cart, than when forced by unkind circumstances to trust 

 himself on a horse's back. Unluckily for him, the nature 

 of his profession often took him into eerie places, bristling 

 with that promise of adventure and novelty which is as the 

 breath of life to some, but only inspired him with horror. 

 He was not to blame. His bump of caution was so largely 

 developed that a timely visit to a phrenologist might have 

 saved him from being pitchforked into such a very unsuit- 

 able environment, as perhaps it would do in the case of 

 a good many others. Exactly what happened on a certain 

 tour which he was making in the course of his duties could 

 never be learnt, there being no witness. All that was known 

 was that the bullocks, with the coach he was travelling in 

 hanging on somehow, came to a standstill of their own 

 accord in the first village they reached, bearing all the 

 evidences of frantic effort impelled by terror. Blood was 

 spurting from their nostrils, and they were almost broken- 

 winded, falling down from exhaustion the instant they 

 stopped — but safe ! A dog that had been his master's 

 coach companion (taken, it was rumoured, to be thrown 

 as ' a sop to Cerberus ' in case of attack by the way) 

 stumbled in, absolutely spent, his sides and feet torn and 

 bleeding from the flints and thorns encountered in his 

 headlong race — he was safe too ! And the driver ? There 

 was none ; but there was blood on the box and on the wheels, 

 in the spokes of which some rags were caught. The poor 

 fellow had evidently been dragged away to his death. And 

 the young gentleman himself ? Well, he was safe too, and 

 lying on the floor of the coach in a swooning condition, with 

 his undischarged rifle beside him. That betrayed him. He 

 had not raised a hand to succour his poor servant, exposed 

 to attack, and without means of defence. 



How it happened that the bullocks arrived as they did 



