TIGER SLAYER BY ORDER 



door. Fortunately, however, it made no attempt to 

 attack him, but turning quickly round, sneaked off into 

 the jungle whence it came. It was a lucky escape, for 

 in his eagerness to catch the beast in the act of uttering its 

 curious, weird cry, my friend had run out unarmed. 



His next adventure, experienced a year or so later, was 

 even more exciting, and might well have ended in disaster, 

 if not to himself, to one or more of the twenty odd persons 

 present at the time. 



On this occasion the scene of the adventure was a 

 shooting camp, pitched on the borders of a large Govern- 

 ment Reserve Forest, and the time, as before, while my 

 friend and his guests were at dinner. 



The meal had just been served in the brilliantly lit up 

 dining tent, when, suddenly, there was a tremendous 

 uproar in the camp, servants and camp followers all 

 shouting together, but producing no intelligible sounds, 

 except for the two words " Jungli Hati — Jungli Hati " * 

 which, repeated frequently, could be heard above the 

 din. 



In a moment the dining tent was emptied of all but the 

 two lady guests, the rest rushing out with one accord, 

 most of them wondering, for the moment, what had 

 happened, for amongst them were some to whom the two 

 Hindustani words conveyed no information. 



My friend ran out with the others, but, mindful possibly 

 of his former indiscretion, called for his rifle, which with 

 some cartridges were quickly brought to him by one of the 

 Khit-magar f in attendance. Loading the weapon, he 

 followed the others to where the shouting crowd of natives 

 were assembled. 



There, standing about thirty paces from this crowd, and 

 in the very centre of the camp, consisting of some half a 

 dozen larger and several smaller tents, was a huge tusker 

 elephant, coated from head to foot with mud from a pool 

 in which it had evidently been wallowing. 



Whether frightened at the shouting, or merely confused 

 for the time, it stood perfectly still, its only movements 

 being a forward and backward motion of its huge ears 



♦ Wild elephant. t Table servant, 



58 



