The doctor held his gun with one hand and pulled out his match-box with the other, when, in spite of his wounds, the Malay knelt down, drew a piece of dammar from the fold of his sarong, stuck it in a cleft stick, and then striking a match he fired the dry grass and lit the dammar, which made an excellent torch.
With this advanced he took a couple of strides forward, and holding the light down, there lay the tiger on its side, the white under fur showing plainly, the doctor seeing that the creature’s neck and legs were stretched out, and that it was indeed dead.
“Thank heaven!” he muttered, fervently: and standing his gun against a tree he set to work piling up dead wood and dry canes to make a fire, when by its light and that of the dammar-torch the doctor proceeded to roughly dress the Malay’s wounds.
The tiger had seized him by the muscles of his left shoulder and clawed the upper part of his arm—terrible wounds enough, but not likely to prove fatal; and when the doctor had done all he could to make the poor fellow comfortable, the Malay lay down, gazing up at him as he trickled a little brandy from his flask between the poor fellow’s lips.
“You are good,” he said at last. “You saved my life. Now I shall save yours.”
“Save mine?” said the doctor. “Well, I hope we shall have no more tigers to face.”
“No,” said the man, “not from tigers, but from men. You did not eat blachang to-night?”
“No,” said the doctor. “Why?”
“Sultan Hamet had toobah put in it to-night: same as to make fish sleep.”
“What? I don’t understand you!” cried the doctor excitedly.