lowed in its track, always with eyes wide open, to detect it crouching in some brake ahead or on either hand; and then I saw it lying within ten yards of me, in the shade of a bush that in a great measure concealed it. I saw it, and it saw me; and as I levelled my smooth-bore at it, it rose and roared and tried to charge. But mine was not to be the fate of those torn and broken saplings; one bullet, full in the tiger's chest as it came head up towards me, dropped it, and the cow and the dryads were avenged. Mostly, my machan-shot tigers were killed there and then, and died within a few yards of my bower-sometimes within sight of it. Those afforded little sport in the shooting, and none after the one or two shots required had brought the forest king to earth, unless it can be deemed of the nature of sport to descend from a tree in some uncertainty as to whether an exceedingly angry and sufficiently lively tiger is or is not at the foot of it. In some instances the tiger went away mortally wounded, and was found dead the next day, if it could be tracked; or later on, when, perhaps, the vultures led to its discovery. On other occasions I followed and found the tiger still alive, and animated by a greater or less degree of pugnacity, which was usually in excess of its physical power, but with results no more exciting than those I have just described. Never did one of those tigers or any other place me at the disadvantage of being charged before I had seen my enemy. It was reserved for a bear and my first

panther to do that: no tiger ever made good its charge upon me or any one of my beaters.

But I always had the feeling that in shooting tigers from a machan I was an unworthy foe-a mere assassin—and, at the best, that the performance, however largely beneficent, was distinctly inglorious. The peasants whose cows or wives or

were killed by tigers were other - minded. They were not disposed to criticise methods so long as the tiger was destroyed. They even approved of murder by strychnine, and would have canonised the Marchioness de Brinvilliers herself had she practised some part of her toxicological art upon those beasts. They saw no merit, no good point whatever, in a tiger, which I, rightly or wrongly, regarded as the veritable king of beasts, and far more worthy of this style and title than the over-vaunted lion. Those benighted peasants were eaten up by prejudice as well as by tigers. I suppose it was much the same with the relatives of those maidens who were requisitioned for the larders of dragons. Those biassed people would have thought St George quite in the right had he employed dynamite, and destroyed thereby the whole dragon race.

It was otherwise, however, with the tigers that I shot from the ground, even though here I took such advantage as I could of the enemy. There was the inevitable advantage that came to me as the one forewarned. I knew the tiger was coming (or might come), and that it might be expected to emerge from the jungle at or about a certain spot.

The tiger did not know that I was awaiting it, and would have all its attention directed to the shouting, drumming, and braying that was driving it. forth. Then I usually had in front of me a low screen of boughs that hid me to some extent, and acted as a piece of furniture against which I could place my spare gun and rifle ready to my hand, should more than two shots be necessary; and, having the pick of the ground, I could take up a position that would, in all probability, give me a further and important advantage, in that it would expose the tiger to a flank attack, to a deadly shot in or behind the shoulder, which could be repeated before the tiger turned upon his aggressor, if it did turn.

I thought quite enough of myself when, thus, I had shot two or three singly: it was the proudest moment of my life, as post-prandial oratory hath it, when I bagged a brace right and left. They came out of the jungle close together -a tiger and his consort; and I had hardly realised the fact that this king of beasts had walked into the open, when the queen was there, two or three yards behind her sovereign lord. Slowly they came forth, with backward glance, that told of some bewilderment, and, on the female's part, it may be conceived, some curiosity. No fear quickened the pulse or stride of the twain; no suspicion of my presence crossed their minds. Calmly those splendid beauties of the forest sauntered on, giving me full broadside shots at a distance of some twenty-five yards.

Crack! crack! right and left the bullets from my smooth-bore went home, and the two tigers dropped the female never to rise again. The tiger, terribly hard hit, rose and made a feeble demonstration in my direction, but another shot settled it; and there were the couple bagged, and the curtain dropped upon this splendid drama of the forest. It was to be my lot, later on, to kill three, and on one occasion four, at one time; but those subsequent performances found me more blasé than I was now, and were the results of much more elaborate preparation than the impromptu sport I have just described. Those triplets and quartet were, moreover, shot from elephants, and, with one exception, by two or three of us. These two, like most of the animals that made up my Deoghur bag, were the spoil of my gun alone.

186

CHAPTER VII.

THE JAMTARRA MAN-EATER.

THE TIGER OF A HUNDRED VICTIMS-" BAGH! BAGH!"-DEATH OF

THINK I have said enough of those Deoghur tigers generally; but there remains one

whose infamous career and execution call for description-the JamIt was said of this beast that

tarra man-eater.

it had killed a hundred men and women; and