and shouting like children, calling me every
blessed name they could lay their hands on, and
promising to muster in force at the place
appointed, though they were half of them tiger
worshippers at Moonje, and would not have let
me kill the animal if he hadn't turned a 'man-
eater.'

"Back I went to Twentyman, who was sitting
up in bed, more cheerful, eating some fruit.

"'What's the row?' said he, quite in his old
voice.

"I told him that the people of Moonje wanted
me to go and kill a 'man-eater,' but I didn't
like leaving him.

"'Then you go, old boy,' said he, 'for Dr.
Johnson came in just as you left, and says I'm
twice the man I was yesterday; I'll get along
well enough with a book and a cheroot or two.'

"'And may I take your double-barrelled
breech-loader?'

"'Of course; anything I have, Monsoon.
Johnson says, Moonje has been full of tigers ever
since the last Rajah took to preserving them,
and made it death to kill one; but, for God's
sake, Monsoon, take care of yourself! Those
man-eaters are no joke, and if I were you I
would ride to Poonahjah and get Simpson and
Dever to go.'

"'No,' said I, 'Twentyman. This is an
affair of danger; I'll stalk the beast alone.
There shall be no Englishman but myself to
share the glory.'

"'You are a plucky fellow, Monsoon,' said
Twentyman. 'As you like, but, for my own
part, I'd rather have one Englishman than a
thousand of those noisy devils, with their infernal
drums and horns. They'd spoil an angel's
shooting.'

"The rest of that day I spent in preparing for
the tiger campaign at Moonje. I put on my
red-brown shooting-coat, made of stuff of that
peculiar dry leaf colour usually worn by Indian
tiger-hunters, and which I was the first to introduce
into the Presidency. The plan of this coat
was my own invention; it had fourteen pockets,
each destined for a special purpose, and never
used for any other. It held caps, gun-picker,
tigers' fat for greasing locks, spare nipples, gun-
screw, a small boot-jack (the use of which I will
tell you presently), a knife with sixteen blades,
greased patches, iron bullets, cartridges, a
pocket-revolver, a brandy-flask, a hunting-knife
as strong as a bill-hook, a dried tongue, a cigar-
case, a powder-horn, fusees, a sketch-book, a
small key-bugle, a camp-stool, and a few other
items useful to a man of several resources.

"As this white tiger I was to fight had
escaped the native pitfals, poison, spring-guns, and
other stratagems of the crafty natives of the
jungle village, I felt that at last I had met a
foeman worthy of my arm, and I prepared for a
gigantic effort. I filled Ramchunder's howdah
with tulwahs (keen native swords), double-
barrelled guns, rockets, and boar-spears; so
that, keeping that sagacious animal near me
fastened to a tree, I could return to him at any
time for fresh weapons and for lunch; for, even
in my enthusiasm for the chase, I did not forget
some cold fowls and two or three bottles of
hampague, &c.; and my khansamah (or butler)
was to sit in the howdah and attend to the
commissariat and general stores.

"The day came. I felt a strange glow of pleasure,
mingled with a strange presentiment of
danger which I could not shake off, do what I
might. However, I said nothing to Twentyman,
who wished me every success, and off I went on
Ramchunder, who seemed proud to share in the
adventure. Which was more than the cowardly
khansamah was, for his teeth shook like castanets,
and he dropped a bottle of bitter beer in sheer
nervousness in packing. At last we were ready.

"'Juhlde jao!' ('go quick'), cried I to the
mahout; and off trotted old Ramchunder to this
side of the Moonje jungle, where all the beaters
had assembled.

"If you'll believe me, even at the taking of
Mooltan, there wasn't such a gol-mol (I am
again talking Hindostanee—I mean, in pure
English, 'row') as when about two hundred of
the native fellows began to break into the jungle
of praus-trees and korinda-shrubs, firing match-
locks, yelling like fiends broke loose, rattling
metal pans, ringing bells, and blowing horns:
while half a dozen of the boldest and most active
of the beaters were sent on to climb trees and
give notice if the man-eater stole away in their
direction. It was arranged that I was to lie in
wait, with Ramchunder, opposite to one of the
most tigerish places; a crossing over a dry nullah
(or ravine), where three native postmen had
been carried off on consecutive days by the same
tiger.

"And now, again, the presentiment weighed
upon me as soon as I found myself alone with
that miserable funky old khansamah, who did
nothing but mutter prayers from the Koran, and
look at his amulet of tiger's claws. Sir, all sorts
of disagreeable anecdotes came fermenting up
in my mind. I thought of how Major Bunsen,
in the Forty-third, had died in four hours of lock-
jaw from a scratch he received from a tiger's
claw; and of how Captain Charters, of the
Fourth Light Infantry, was found dead in the
jungle from a tiger bite.

"I had been particularly careful with Dostee
Pooloo, the captain of the beaters, as to the
direction in which he was to drive the tigers,
for these rascals generally frequent the same
spot, and I had every reason to suppose that I
should soon have my hands full.

"'Dostee Pooloo, my boy,' said I, handing
him a cheroot (for the niggers like you to be
civil to them), 'be sure and drive everything
that is in the jungle, sou'-westerly, for if I am
far away from Ramchunder and the guns, when
they break covert, there'll be a blank space left
for me at the mess-table to-morrow.' When
I said this, Dostee Pooloo showed all his box
of teeth, and I saw that he was game to do
just what I wished, so long as he hadn't to
fight the tigers himself.

"Having planted my old khansamah with
Ramchunder, and the cold fowls, and