He had been seen flying from the elephant up the defile, as Wills had turned the charge of the mad creature upon himself. Some of them remembered now that the discharge of a gun had been heard afterwards up this defile; but why had the boy not returned?
Mr. Gilchrist sent the chief Burman and some coolies to search for him. Osborn would not leave his friend, over whom either sleep or stupor seemed to be creeping. Gilchrist himself went, with the rest of the men in another direction, ascending a hill which promised to afford a view up that defile; but nothing could be seen from the thickness of the jungle below.
They shouted, called, fired off blank cartridge,—but no response came. Slowly, and much perplexed, they returned to the gharrie, to find Wills growing rapidly worse. The search party came back with no news. Not a trace of the lad could they discover; but they brought in two young tiger cubs, that they had found lying asleep, to all appearance alone.
It was not to be supposed that two such very young cubs could have been there, and their mother be far away; but though there was evidently a lair there, no vestige of the parent animal was to be seen. The certainty of such creatures being in the neighbourhood, however, hastened the men's return. They had killed the cubs with their hunting-knives, lest the sound of guns should have brought down the female tiger upon them, and then they had hurried back, as fast as possible, from desire to secure their own safety.
Had Ralph fallen a victim to these creatures? Was the absence of the mother from her cubs due to the destruction of the poor young fellow? Mr. Gilchrist shuddered, as he recognised the probability of this explanation.
But one shot had been heard, and no further sound,—no cry for help, no call, no other report of firearms. What could this mean except one thing?
And what must he do now? Was it of any use to wait, to search further for Ralph? To save Wills they must push on to the English station. It would be best to do so, and return to search for the boy.
There could be little doubt but what he had fallen a victim to the tigress; but at least some evidence to this effect might be found,—his gun, some portion of his clothing, at least, might be there.
If he had escaped, he could have come back. He had ammunition with him, though it might not be much, for he had shot a good supply of birds that day. He had some biscuits with him. Finally, Mr. Gilchrist ordered a little tent to be pitched for him, a large fire to be built up, which would serve to mark the place from a distance, and would identify it to himself when he returned to it. He wrote a few lines upon a piece of paper, affixing it to the tent-pole, to desire Ralph to wait there until he came back to join him, which should be done as soon as possible.