284 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



neighbourliood of Ms haunts, and the very first night the 

 villain had the impudence to kill and drag away a good- 

 sized baggage pony out of my camp. The night being 

 warm, I was sleeping outside, for the sake of coolness, and 

 was awakened by the riving, gurgling noise close to my 

 bed. It was too dark to see ; so I pulled out the revolver, 

 that in those uncertain times always lay under my pillow, 

 and fired off a couple of shots to scare the intruder. Getting 

 a light, I was relieved to find it was only the pony, instead of 

 a human being, as I had half feared, and we proceeded to 

 investigate the condition of the deceased. 



The brute had seized him by the neck, which was dis- 

 located; the jugular was also divided, and he had evi- 

 dently been drinking the blood when my shots, or perhaps 

 the light, scared him off. The night was too dark for any 

 attempt to kill the panther, who, moreover, had probably 

 been scared completely away from the neighbourhood of 

 the camp. It was, however, very probable that he would 

 return next evening in quest of the pony before it was too 

 dark to shoot, and I was persuaded by the old shikari to 

 sit up on a " machan " and watch for him. A small 

 nala ran from the river nearly up to the camp, as is always 

 the case when a misadventure like this occurs. This I 

 had overlooked when selectiag a site for my tent. We 

 dragged the carcase, without touching it ourselves, to the 

 head of this nala, where there was a convenient tree. The 

 shikari — an old hand at this sort of work — strewed the 

 ground for some paces round the pony with fresh white 

 wheat-chaff, which he said would not prevent the panther 

 coming to feed, while it certainly rendered the chance of 

 hitting in the dark much greater; and about sunset he 

 and I took our places on the machan. There was small 

 chance of the panther making his appearance so early in 

 the evening, so I commenced a whispered conversation 

 with the old man about machan-shooting in general, which 

 he evidently considered the finest sport in the world, as 

 well as the safest. He was full of stories of curious events 

 that had occurred to himself and others ; and told me many 

 as we sat through the long hours together, of which I only 

 remembered one next morning sufficiently well to note it 



