"What will your father say if the gods of the jungle carry you off?" asked Achmed, half-banteringly. But he could not long refuse his favourite nephew anything that he could give him, and so it was arranged that Achmed, with two of his best drivers, and Chola, should meet the Colonel Sahib and his party at the big railway station in Lucknow in a week's time. From there they would take the "fire-wagons" to a certain small village, from which they would make their real start for the jungle.
CHAPTER VII
CHOLA GOES ON A TIGER HUNT
Poor Mahala felt very badly as he stood in the big railway station and watched Chola and the little Sahib go off in the fire-carriage. "I will go and buy some sweetmeats," he said finally. This made him feel a little better, for Mahala had a very "sweet tooth."
Meantime Chola and his little friend were speeding quickly through waving rice-fields and grain-fields. This is even more fun than travelling in the ox-wagon, thought Chola, as they rushed through town after town and watched the trees fly past. Finally they stopped at the village where Achmed had arranged for the elephants and the beaters to meet them, for the real way to hunt tigers is to go after them on elephants.
The servants had packed away their belongings and camp things on top of the two big elephants, as they expected to have to live in the jungle for several days.
"Isn't this splendid?" exclaimed Harry, as the elephants went rocking along through the tangled grass. He was so excited that he could not keep still, and even Chola's mild black eyes were sparkling.
The beaters, whose business it is to beat through the long grass and underbrush where a tiger might be hidden, were full of tales of a great man-eating tiger that was the terror of the region, and who was in the habit of coming boldly up to the fields and gardens, carrying off goats and even attacking the oxen.