TIGER SLAYER BY ORDER 



In the course of these stolen interviews this subject 

 was probably discussed, for it ended in the Englishman 

 assisting her to escape. By some method of signalling 

 he discovered which was the window of her particular cell, 

 and on the night fixed for the venture, he climbed up and 

 proceeded to carry her off. 



To save her good name, it was arranged that a cloth 

 should be thrown over her, and that she was to pretend 

 to resist him so as to give the appearance of being carried 

 off against her will, but as he lifted her down he was dis- 

 agreeably surprised to find her heavier than he had imagined 

 and more bulky than he had any reason to expect, also 

 that in the matter of resistance her struggle seemed to 

 be somewhat unnecessarily violent. 



However, thinking she was merely over-acting her part, 

 he ignored these unpleasantly realistic efforts till they 

 ended in her biting him. Taken completely by surprise, 

 as well he might be, he dropped her at once, when to his 

 horror he discovered that it was the portly Lady Abbess 

 he had been so painfully abducting instead of his sylph- 

 like, cherry-lipped nun ! 



Leaving the stout dame where she had fallen, he made 

 good his escape, and though the plot was eventually 

 discovered, no further steps were taken by the Portuguese 

 authorities, nor was it even known what became of the 

 unfortunate nun, but common report had it that she had 

 been walled up alive. 



To give anything like a complete description of Old 

 Goa would fill too many pages of a work purporting to be 

 a book on sport, and adventure only. I will, therefore, 

 conclude my notes on the subject with a brief account of 

 a curious and interesting ceremony performed annually 

 in honour of the Patron Saint. 



This great holiday of the year and festival of the Church 

 in Goa, more important even than Easter, is the feast of 

 Saint Zavier, when the Saint's mummified body is exposed 

 in the cathedral. Goanese from all parts of India come to 

 attend this solemn ceremony and join in the subsequent 

 merry-making. The body is now confined in a glass 

 coffin, and the congregation, as they file past it, stop to 

 bow and cross themselves. It used formerly to be exposed 

 156 



