champagne, and the double-barrelled rifles near an old
palm-tree, with strict injunctions not to move,
I stole off down the nullah whisk-whisk, as the
natives say—which means very gently.

"I suppose I had not gone more than three
hundred yards from where I left the
khansamah and Ramchunder, before a path to the
right, trodden down as if by wild boars through
a tract of tall, dry, dusty jungle grass, burnt by
the sun to a pale straw colour, attracted my
attention. The beaters seemed to rouse nothing,
and I began to think the story of the white
tiger all a humbug and a flam.

"The path led on past a little tope of cocoa-nut
palm, strung with fruit. Curiosity and a natural
love of adventure carrying me on, I followed it
for some hundred yards, till I saw the path a few
yards before me open out into a sort of natural
amphitheatre, beyond which lay the dry bed of
a small watercourse, the surface of which, if
you'll believe me, sir, was one vast tangle of
enormous jungle flowers—great crimson fellows,
big as teacups, and smelling of musk and
patchouli; ropes of creeping plants binding tree
to tree, and strung with scented yellow
blossoms and trails of things like tulips, only as
large as my hat, and with purple-bell flowers
every half inch down the stalk.

"In a small open space surrounded by deep
Moonje grass, and only visible from the higher
clump of ground where they sunned themselves,
strutted half a dozen peacocks. I had just
knelt down and covered the biggest of them
with my rifle—a splendid fellow, with a great
fan-tail, all green and purple—when, lo and
behold! what should come skipping from tree to
tree but a whole tribe of monkeys, chattering,
chasing each other, holding each other's tails,
and cutting such capers, that it was all I could
do to keep from laughing out and spoiling the
whole game.

"I had scarcely readjusted my aim which these
monkeys had thrown out, before, from out of the
jungle, close to me, ran three little spotted deer
and a wild hog, and began racing about as
if that spot was their regular playground,
and yet with a sort of fascinated stare and
alarm that made me suspect mischief. I
determined, however, coûte que coûte, to see the
thing out, so I drew the brandy-flask from
my No. 13 pocket, and took a sup to steady
my hand. Before I had put it back, sure
enough, out between two champa-trees came
a tremendous beast of a boa-constrictor, as
large round as a bolster, and seventy feet long,
if he was an inch—his scales wet and shining
with the dew, and he writhing and undulating
like an enormous caterpillar.

"If you'll believe me, sir, surprised as I was,
I had still presence of mind enough to aim firm
and steady at his nearest eye, thinking what
a triumph it would be to take him home to poor
Twentyman. When what I should see about
twenty feet beyond this beast but some strange
object waving in the grass! I covered it with
my rifle, and was just going to press the trigger
with my forefinger, when I heard a rush, and an
enormous tiger, clearing the boa-constrictor,
leaped a space of nearly forty feet (as I afterwards
measured), and struck me to the ground
before I could readjust my piece.

"It was the WHITE TIGER—THE MAN-EATER—
I felt sure of it at the first glance; a splendid
fellow, full thirteen feet long, of a pale tawny
cream colour striped with dark brown, his chest
almost white.

"If you'll believe me, sir, as he held me and
shook me in his mouth, I felt no pain and no
terror, but a sort of almost pleasant benumbed
drowsiness, and a strange curiosity as to how
the brute would eat me. I could hear the
deer, monkeys, and snake scuttle off as he
shook me, as a cat does a mouse, or a terrier a
rat. Then I remember I tried to get a pistol
from pocket No. 13, and fainted.

"Before I came to, full half an hour must
have elapsed. There I lay in a nest of dry
Moonje grass. I felt that the monster was still
over me. I felt his pestilential breath on my face
even in my swoon. Yes, there he was, his
enormous length reclining beside me, his striped tail
sweeping across my face at every vibration—his
head turned from me. If you'll believe me, sir,
he had actually munched and chewed the whole
of my left leg from the toe to the knee; he had
eaten about three feet of it, sir (pardon the
awkwardness of the expression), during my
swoon."

"Chewed, Major Monsoon?" I cried, in an
expostulatory voice. "Why, there are your
two legs as sound as mine!"

"Pooh! pooh! my dear sir," said he, without
a smile and quite unruffled, holding out his
left leg to me to pinch, "the leg he munched
was cork then, as it is cork now, and as it has
been ever since. A cannon-ball took off its
fleshy predecessor at the siege of Mooltan. One
happy result of its being cork, as you may
imagine, was, that it took the beast some time
to get through, and that the beast didn't hurt
me much.

"I opened my eyes quietly when I found what
he was at, for he kept growling and snarling
over the rather indigestible meal, and I began to
look round me to see where my rifle was. If
you'll believe me, sir, there it lay, full-cocked,
not three inches from my right hand.

"My first thought was to steal my hand
along and get hold of my rifle, but the instant I
moved even a limb, the beast of a 'man-eater'
began to growl, and evinced a dangerous
disposition to leave my cork leg and settle on the
more valuable one of flesh. I therefore, for the
moment, abandoned the attempt, and resigned
myself to death; for it seemed certain that
when the beast had finished the cork leg, and
began to taste my blood, he would turn round
and devour me.

"I was sufficiently cool, even in this horrible
emergency, to cast my eyes round to see if I
was wounded. I found no wound, but
discovered that the tiger had, in seizing me, torn
off and probably devoured the tenth and eleventh