198 SPORT IN BEXGAL. 



Khassia Hills, when that station was not so large as it has 

 since become, and when the houses were much scattered over 

 a distance of two or three miles. Returning home about 

 midnight, after dinner and a rubber with our friend G. H., 

 I and D., with whom I was living at the time on a visit, had 

 to ride fully a couple of miles to his house, along a road, 

 narrow and unfinished in some parts and bordered here and 

 there by pines and other trees. As we were on the point of 

 turning to the left to cross the bridge on the road to the 

 Shillong Hill, a panther started up from the shadow of a 

 tree, and galloped off, seemingly much alarmed, and plainly 

 discernible as it came into the light of the moon, near the 

 full. Our ponies neither shying nor bolting, we reached 

 home none the worse for the adventure, and turned in at 

 once. 



D.'s house was a new one, not quite completed, the 

 drawing-room being still without doors and windows, and 

 therefore open to thieves and trespassers ; accordingly a 

 " Chokeydar," or watchman, slept in it at night, and afforded 

 protection by his presence. 



About a Quarter of an hour after we had retired, we were 

 awakened from sleep by loud guttural sounds, resembling 

 the sawing of hard timber, proceeding from the direction of 

 the unfinished drawing-room, followed shortly by a yell 

 of terror from the watchman, answered by a repetition of 

 the sawing, apparently from the verandah in front of that 

 room. The man, now almost mad with terror, called loudly 

 to his master to awake and come to his assistance, as a tiger 

 was coming to seize him. " Go to sleep, you fool," was D.'s 

 somewhat unsatisfactory response in Hindostani ; " it is only 

 a bear or a pig, which will not hurt you." 



Now D. was (alas ! that I cannot write is) one of those 

 men who never see or believe in danger till in the very 

 midst of it ; accordingly on the repetition of the sawing and 

 cries for help, I thought it full time to rouse up D. to do 

 something, " the bull being on his side of the hedge," or in 

 other words, the panther being on his side of the house. 



