Her eyes shining and face beaming with excitement she shook his hand.
"Wasn't it thrilling? I thought he'd have got both of us." Then to the mahout she continued in Urdu, "Gul Dad, are you hurt?"
The man was solemnly feeling himself all over. He stared at a rent in the shoulder of his coat, torn by the tiger's claw. It was the only injury that he had suffered. He put his finger on it and grumbled:
"Missie-baba, the shaitan (devil) has torn my coat."
In the reaction from the strain the girl and Wargrave went off in peals of laughter at his words.
"But are you not wounded?" Miss Benson repeated. "Has it not clawed you?"
The mahout shook his head.
"No, missie-baba; but it was my new coat," he insisted.[1]
Frank looked down at the tiger stretched motionless on the yellow grass.
"By George, you shot him dead enough, Miss Benson!" he exclaimed.