‘IN AT THE DEATH.’
There were three of us chumming together in a solitary little hole in the jungle, not so very far—as one counts distance in India—from Secunderabad. We were Cooper’s Hill young men; and fate and the government had given us a chance of distinguishing ourselves, and extinguishing our fellow-creatures, by the making of a branch railway including a bridge and a tunnel. So there were three of us; and a right jolly time we had on the whole. Our bungalow was a real work of art, covered with creepers, by which I do not mean to insinuate centipedes, of which, however, there were also a good few, but jessamine, plumbago, a climbing moss—which one of us had rescued from the tangle of the jungle, and coaxed to live in a more civilised position—besides many other lovely specimens. To save our valuable time, we generally addressed each other by our initials. Mine, unfortunately, spelt M. A. G., to which my companions, in moments of hilarity, sometimes added a second course of P. I. E. I was the eldest of the trio.
We had not been very long at our branch-line work, when I was laid low with an exhausting attack of jungle fever and ague. My friends E. S. P. and H. F. by turns nursed me with a tenderness and care for which I can never be sufficiently grateful. I pulled through, thanks to them; but since that time, have been subject to rather severe fits of ague, from one of which I was recovering, at the time the incident happened I wish to tell you about.
It had been an absolutely broiling day, and we had been driven to the verge of insanity between the heat and the flies. We were reclining, after our day’s work, on our basket sofas, on the veranda, in the cool of the evening, puffing away solemnly and silently at our brier-root pipes, when it suddenly struck us that a group of native workmen, who were superintending the cooking of their evening meal in a corner of our very improvised sort of compound, must have received some exciting intelligence. Being young and sportively inclined, we were all three fellows of one idea, and that idea was, ‘tigers.’
‘Just call to that gaping fool and ask him what’s up,’ suggested I, in a washed-out voice.
‘St John!’ shouted E. S. P., whose voice carried farther than either of ours, clapping his hands loudly at the same time, to attract the attention of the gabbling group; and up came the tallest, thinnest native to be met in a very long day’s ride. We had christened this man ‘St John,’ first, because he wore the most fearfully and wonderfully made camel’s-hair garment that civilised eyes ever looked upon; and secondly, because he was so desperately lean and lanky, we were certain that he must feed on either locusts or grasshoppers, which are both supposed to be a very anti-fat diet.
Up, then, came this mysterious coolie; and, with many salaams, much gesticulation and showing the whites of his eyes, he informed us that there was a most bloodthirsty man-eater lurking in the neighbourhood, close by, at our very door! I looked nervously round, not enjoying the idea of being caught by Monsieur Maneater armed only with a brier-wood pipe. E. and H. at once appeared to be seized with St Vitus’s dance, so absurdly and hysterically active had they suddenly become.
‘Where was he last seen?’ ‘How large was he?’ ‘What village was the scene of his last meal?’ ‘How many people was he known to have eaten?’ ‘Who brought the news?’ ‘Send him up to be questioned!’
St John went away; and in a few minutes reappeared, accompanied by a native postman, who, it seemed, knowing that the railway Sahibs were partial to tiger, had kindly dropped in with the intelligence. We found out all we could from the man, and rewarded him with some money and tobacco.
The last victim was a poor native woman, who had crept into the corner of the veranda of a bungalow some miles away, and fallen asleep, from which, poor soul, she was roughly awakened, and then half-carried, half-dragged to a clump of thick jungle-grass and bushes about two and a half miles from where we were. The postman’s eyes and teeth glistened with sympathetic pleasure, as he saw how keen and eager the other two fellows were to be after the brute. I was out of it altogether, as I could not trust my shaky hands with a rifle in such a case of life or death, so I looked on and listened to all their suggestions and arrangements with the deepest interest.
‘That poor old bag of bones is not likely to have afforded him much of a “gorge,”’ said H. ‘He may turn up on our veranda to-night, boys, to see if he can find some light refreshment here.’
‘He will get some black pepper which may not agree with him,’ said E. S. P., who had gone into what we called our armoury and brought out his rifle, which he began to clean and make ready for very active service.
By this time darkness had closed in round us, with that small respect for twilight which so bothers the enterprising traveller in foreign lands. The servants and workmen had dispersed to their various habitations, and our white-headed native factotum was standing before us announcing dinner.
‘Hush!’ said H., putting his finger up in a commanding way and listening intently. ‘Didn’t either of you hear something leap over the wall?’
‘Oh, bother your imagination—I’m off to dinner,’ said I, rising abruptly, and disappearing through the open window. The other fellows followed, and were soon busily employed in making the most of the meal of the day and arranging about the morrow’s sport.
When ‘To Tum,’ as we irreverently called our venerable butler, brought me my tea and biscuits at six the next morning, I had much to ask him, for E. and H. had gone off without waking me, probably thinking that the sight of them with two rifles in their hands, and a tiger in the bush, would be too exciting and tantalising for me. I found that the Massa Sahibs had departed after a very hasty breakfast, and had taken St John with them, carrying a third gun, in case of accident. A railway coolie reported distant shots, heard about an hour after the Sahibs had left the bungalow; but nothing had since been seen or heard of men or man-eater.
‘You can open that blind, To Tum,’ said I, pointing to one of the windows looking towards the north, for I thought I should probably see the conquering heroes returning that way, covered with glory and thorn scratches. The butler had departed and left me to my meditations, and good intentions of performing my toilet and going to see what was doing on the line. I continued to lie, looking dreamily out of the window, the jalousie of which To Tum had thrown back. It was not much of a view, consisting only of a corner of the compound wall and the jungle beyond; but a soft pinky haze beautified everything; and, fanned by a most delicious cool breeze, I closed my eyes again and dozed for a few minutes, utterly and blissfully ignorant that sudden death had just cleared that compound wall, and was making, stealthily and wearily, straight for my open window. I heard—in a dream as it were, so did not heed—a curious scratching noise, followed by soft limping footsteps across the veranda; then heavy breathing, almost gasping, which seemed so unpleasantly near, that I opened my sleepy, dreamy eyes just in time to see his most Serene Highness the Bengal tiger throw himself in an utterly done-for condition by the side of my bed!
Here was a situation! My very marrow seemed to freeze in my bones, and every hair on my head was alive with electrified fright. I lay as still as a corpse, and in my heart thanked a considerate providence which had made the beast turn its back to me, instead of its villainous face. I was too paralysed even to think of what I could do to get out of the room, which, perhaps, was fortunate. The animal had evidently run far and fast, as its panting sides and foam-flaked jaws plainly showed; so there was just a feeble chance of its going to sleep, and then would be the time to cautiously escape. Its great murderous-looking paws were stained with blood; and, though I could see that one of them was wounded, the idea would take possession of my weak and agitated mind, that it was the blood of one of my companions, and not the tiger’s own. Suddenly, to my horror, the brute lifted its head from its paws, pricked up its ears, and listened intently. I also listened as well as I could; but every nerve was throbbing, and the sound in both ears was as the surging of stormy waves on a pebbly beach. I, too, however, caught a distant ‘click,’ very faint and indistinct, and I could not make out what it was. The tiger again composed itself to sleep or watch; it was impossible to see if its eyes were open or shut. After a lifetime of miserable sensations, I guessed, by the even rise and fall of its sides, that it must be having what might not be more than the proverbial forty winks; so now was my time, or never! Not once taking my eyes off the object of my terror, I slipped out of the bed, which gave a gentle creak, that, to my fevered imagination, sounded like a death knell. He did not move! I wished I had more on, I felt so defenceless. I crept slowly to the door, not taking one foot off the ground till I had carefully steadied myself on both. I reached the only thing that divided me from comparative safety, softly turned the handle. The door was locked! For one second I had taken my steady gaze from the sleeping brute; when I looked again, what a change! Head thrown back, ears flat, eyes glaring savagely, and flanks trembling and quivering with the stealthy movement of an animal about to spring! But not at me! I followed the tiger’s glance, and caught a glimpse of the barrel of a rifle, just one second—then a flash—a roar—a struggle—and I fell senseless on the floor.
When I came to myself, I was lying wrapped in my dressing-gown on a sofa in the sitting-room. E. S. P. was kneeling beside me with a bottle of something in his hand, and H. F. was standing at my feet with an expression of the greatest solicitude.
‘Don’t talk just yet, old fellow,’ said he; ‘wait till you feel stronger, and we’ll tell you all about it. By Jove! you had a narrow escape.’
After a few minutes’ quiet, my curiosity awoke in full force. ‘Tell me,’ said I—‘did you kill him straight off?’
‘O yes,’ answered E. S. P. ‘He’s as dead as mutton. But we had no idea that you were there. To Tum told us that you had gone to the line ages ago; and we tracked the brute through your open window, where he had taken refuge. H. wounded him in the off hind-leg, when we got our first sight of him in the jungle; and instead of coming at us, he bolted, and led us a precious dance. To Tum bolted your door on the outside, thinking it would stand a charge better, in case the tiger made one; but he thought that you were safe off the premises.’
‘Well,’ said I, shuddering at the recollection, ‘I really don’t think I am more cowardly than most people, but may I never spend another such mauvais quart d’heure!’