"Brothers, ye saw the plight of the bya bird but now; so was it with Nandha," said Ram Deen.
"One evening, ere the mail arrived, he called me to where he stood by the kikar tree yonder, looking down at the ground. In the dust of the road were large footprints.
"'These be the spoor of a tiger lame in its left hind foot,' I said to Nandha; 'see, here it crouched on its belly, and wiped away the wheel tracks made by the mail-cart this morning.'
"''Tis the lame tiger of Huldwani, coach-wan; he is old, and he hunteth man. Gunga send he is hunting elsewhere to-night!' replied Nandha.
"When we came within a mile of the Bore bridge that night, the horses stopped suddenly; they were wild with fear, and refused to move. The night was as dark as the inside of a gourd, and beyond the circle of light made by our lanterns we could discern in the middle of the road two balls of fire close to the ground.
"'Bâg! (tiger),' said Nandha, as he climbed over into the back seat; 'we be dead men, Ram Deen.'
"'Blow!' I commanded, giving him the bugle; and as he startled the jungle with a blast, I gathered up the reins, and, adding my voice to the terrors of Nandha's music, I urged the horses with whip and yell to fury of speed; and the light of the lanterns showed the great beast leaping into the darkness to escape our onset.
"Nandha ceased not from blowing on the bugle till I took it from him by force at the door of the post-office at Kaladoongie.
"They gave him bhang to smoke and arrack to drink ere he slept that night, for his great fear had deprived him of reason for awhile; and he looked round him as though he expected to see the tiger's eyes everywhere.
"'The bâg followed me to the hither side of the Bore bridge,' he said to me next morning, as we prepared to return to Lai Kooah. But I laughed at his fears, to give him courage.