136 SPORT IN BENGAL. 



What was she observing, and on what could she be so 

 intent ? By heavens, I have it ! 



Two hundred paces on our left, quite out in the open, 

 was a fuel-cutter in a field, the high grass of which had at 

 first hidden him from us as he stooped to his labour ; but the 

 tigress, both seeing and hearing him, had doomed him to a 

 sudden and cruel death. 



Quickly the projecting head turned from us as the man- 

 eater took a cautious view up the path running parallel to 

 the jungle, and then slowly and silently withdrew. What 

 would be her next move ? We had not long to wait to be 

 informed. Fifty yards nearer us than the point at which she 

 had first shown her head was a patch of coarse grass, and 

 from it a water-channel led up to the fields where the wood- 

 cutter cut and tied up his fuel. Skirted and half hidden by 

 weeds and low scrub, this drain, now quite dry, approached 

 us diagonally to a point some sixty paces in the plain to 

 our left, and then forming an elbow, turned immediately 

 towards the man's back, bent low to his work. The 

 tigress's tactics became now plain, and her intention clearly 

 was to creep up the ditch, and strike her victim from 

 behind. 



On again showing herself to us fifty paces nearer, the 

 tigress crouched flat on the ground after a rapid glance up 

 and outwards, and then she commenced to creep along the 

 bed of the shallow channel, slowly and noiselessly. 



All three of us had sunk to our knees to watch her pro- 

 ceedings, peering under and through the bushes behind which 

 we lay hidden. My men breathed hard, and a strange look, 

 half awe, half ferocity, flashed from their eyes, but no fear 

 nor irresolution. My own heart was bursting, and my blood 

 coursing like lightning through my veins, at this close sight 

 of my first tiger ; and such an one too ! Rapidly and silently 

 we exchanged opinions on the situation, and formed our plans. 

 The tigress had now nearly gained the point where the water- 

 course turned to the right at nearly a right angle ; she moved 

 very slowly, with a slightly undulating motion, very snake- 



