he took with him to the tree which was nearest
the pool, and at the same time was least high
from the ground, and, consequently, easiest to
shoot from. These various arrangements took
some little time, and they were barely complete
when Hassein, who was standing on a branch
just below me, pinched my arm, and, pointing
with his chin to the east, made me see that the
first peep of dawn was colouring the horizon.
"Soon him come."

Nor had we long to wait. In the dim grey
of the morning—the moon having gone down
since we arrived—I could make out that
there was an animal drinking at the pool; but
it might have been a calf, a colt—anything. It
certainly looked much smaller than I had
expected to see a Bengal royal tiger; and it was
not until Hassein had again and again declared
it to be "him tiger," that I believed I saw my
first tiger in the jungles. Hassein feared
that, in my anxiety to kill, I should fire
before I could see the animal well, and thus
frighten him away without any of the others
of the party getting a shot at him. However,
the light was getting stronger every
moment, and, as I very soon felt calm and
self-possessed enough to take aim, I quickly
cocked my single-barrelled rifle, which carried a
two-ounce ball, and which I had already sighted
for as near the distance as I could guess. The
only fear I felt was lest some of my companions
should shoot before me, and kill the brute before
I could do so. This thought no doubt flurried
me a little, but otherwise no more certain aim
was ever taken from behind gun or rifle than
I then took. Just as I was about to pull
the trigger, the tiger looked up from drinking,
moved a little way further into the pool,
and brought his broadside nearly full to me.
This, of course, made my shot all the easier,
and gave me fresh courage. I aimed direct at
the shoulder, and the fearful roar that followed
told me plainer than any words could that I
had not missed the brute.

But I had neither killed, nor even disabled, the
tiger to the extent of hindering him from getting
away. In a moment, and repeating again and
again the tremendous roar, he had turned and
was making off. As he did so, two shots rang
out from the rock where my brother-officer and
his companion were stationed. So far as I
could judge, the first of them missed him, but
the second stopped him. He stumbled forward,
as a horse that has put his foot on a rolling
stone might do. But in a moment he was up
again, and I could now see that he dragged one of
his hind legs behind him, evidently broken, whilst
with one of his fore legs he limped in great pain
and badly hurt. A moment more, and he was
hid from our sight by some thick underwood.

Like most young sportsmen I was rash
enough to wish to follow him on foot, but
Captain Ring, who was, by common consent, the
leader of the party, would not listen to such
folly. He insisted upon waiting until the
elephants came up, and then tracking the
animal to his lair. A wounded tiger is not a
pleasant creature to meet, the more so as you can
never know when he may spring out upon you.
Captain Ring was by far too old a hand at tiger-
shooting, and had witnessed too many accidents,
to be rash on these occasions. The mahouts,
moreover, had been on the alert, and at the first
sound of our firing had made towards the spot
where we were, so that in less than a quarter
of an hour after the tiger had departed we were
after him.

The greatest possible caution was needful in
moving through the now very thick jungle.
Hassein seemed, however, from instinct, to
know the direction the animal had taken, and
very soon we could perceive every here and
there large fresh drops of blood, showing that
the beast had been badly hit, and indicating
very plainly that the old fellow was right. But
the vitality of tigers is something wonderful.
Any kind of cat will live when he has gone
through what would kill most animals. As
we followed, Hassein, who was sitting behind
me on my elephant, got more and more excited,
and kept warning the party to look out, for
the tiger could not be far off. Still it was a
tail chase, and as every now and then we lost
the trail, the animal had plenty of time to forge
ahead. At last, a perfect scream from the old
fellow behind made me turn round, and there
he was frantically pointing to an almost
perpendicular piece of rock, about six hundred yards
to our right, up which the tiger was scrambling.
A very few minutes brought us to the spot, but
only to find that the wounded animal had taken
refuge in a cave, the entrance of which was
about twenty feet high, and perfectly inaccessible
to a man, unless he crawled to it on his hands
and knees.

Here, then, we held a council of war. To
return to camp without the tiger for which we
had worked so hard was out of the question;
but it seemed still more impossible to ascend to
the cave to put the poor brute out of his misery.
We were well provided with fireworks, and these
we now began to use, keeping up at the same
time a fire into the cave, so as to force the tiger
to break cover. That he was inside the place
there could be no doubt, for every now and then
we heard a suppressed growl, as if our bullets,
although fired at random, had touched him. But
after a time this ceased, and we began to think
that some of our shots must have finished him.
Still the risk of going up to the mouth of the
cave, and looking in to see whether he was alive,
was greater than any sane man would have
encountered, and we were seriouly thinking of
going back to camp, when all of a sudden an
end was put to our doubts.

For some time Hassein had been getting
more and more excited. At last he seemed
almost frantic with rage, at the idea that the tiger
would escape us. He roared out that he would
ascend to the cave, and see for himself whether
the brute was dead. In vain did Captain Ring
and the rest of the party try to dissuade him—
even to order him not to go. The old fellow's
blood was up, and he would listen to nothing.
He divested himself of every article of clothing,
except a pair of short low drawers and