The tiger-hunt was being prepared for evidently with childlike delight, and instead of its being a few hours’ expedition, it proved that it was to be an affair of a week. Tents were to be taken, huts to be formed, and quite a large district swept of the dangerous beasts. For as the sultan informed the English officers, the tigers had been unmolested for quite two years, and saving one or two taken in pitfalls, they had escaped almost scot free. The consequence of this was, that several poor Malays had been carried off from their rice-fields, and at least a dozen unfortunate Chinamen from the neighbourhood of some tin mines a few miles away.
“I never meant to enter into such an extensive affair, gentlemen,” said the resident to Major Sandars and Captain Horton after dinner one day, when they had all been entertained at the mess-room. “I almost think we ought to draw back before it is too late.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Major Sandars. “It will please the sultan if we take a lot of men, and this is rather a stagnating life. I frankly tell you I should be very glad of the outing, and I am sure it would do good to the men.”
“I quite agree with you, Sandars,” said Captain Horton; and Bob Roberts and Tom Long, who were opposite one another at the bottom of the table, exchanged glances. “I want a change, and I should be glad to give my lads a turn up the country. Drill’s all very well, but it gets wearisome. What do you say, Smithers?”
“I must confess to being eager to go,” was the reply. “It seems to me the only gentleman who does not care for the trip is Mr Linton.”
“My dear fellow, you never made a greater mistake in your life,” said Mr Linton, laughing. “Nothing would please me better than to be off for a couple of months, with a brace of good rifles, and an elephant, with plenty of beaters. I could even manage to exist for three months without reading a report, or writing a despatch.”
Here there was a hearty laugh, and Mr Linton went on,—“There is one voice silent—the most important one, it seems to me. Come, doctor, what do you say? may we all go up the country and live in tents?”
“Hah!” said Doctor Bolter, “now you have me on the hip. I want to go myself; horribly.”
“Ha, ha, ha, ha!” laughed every one in chorus.
“I want to see those black monkeys like our friend Mr Bob Roberts has for a pet. I say I want to see them in their native state. I want to get a specimen of the pink rhinoceros, and some of the Longicorns. Nymphalis Calydonia is to be found here, and I must shoot a few specimens of Cymbirhynchus Macrorhynchus, besides supplying my hortus siccus with a complete series of Nepenthes.”