“Then you really have done nothing?”
“No, sir; only found that this seems to be the place in the forest where somebody comes to shoot tigers. And talk about them chickens—that’s why I did not go so far as I might. Every now and then I could hear one of them calling to its mate; and the first time it scared me so that I swarmed up a tree into the shelter or scaffold sort of place, where you could sit down.”
“Well, what then?” said Archie impatiently.
“Well, sir, I sat down.”
“Naturally,” said Archie.
“And then, when I thought it safe, and I was going to climb down in the dark to have another look, mi-a-o-u! There was that there great pussy again—and he was a whopper!”
“But you couldn’t see him?”
“No, sir; it was too dark. I knew he was a whopper, though, by the size of his squeak. But I am pretty sure that he could see me, for he seemed to come and sit upright in the middle of the clearing, and began to purr. Blessed if he didn’t sound just like a threshing-machine out in the fields at home after harvest-time.”
Archie was silent for a few moments, and Peter Pegg went on quietly and thoughtfully:
“Yes, sir; it sounded just like that.”