"Oh, nonsense, sir; it's Miss Benson's. I ought to be kicked for being such a muff."
"Jungle law, Mr. Wargrave," said the girl, laughing "You hit it first, so it's your beast."
"You needn't be ashamed of missing it," added the Colonel. "A charging tiger coming full speed at you is not an easy mark. No; the skin is yours; and Muriel has so many that she can spare it."
"Well, Miss Benson, I accept it as a gift from you; but I won't acknowledge that I have earned it," said the subaltern.
"Now, we'd better pad it and see about getting back," said Dermot, looking at his watch.
The other elephants had now found their way up the bank and joined Badshah and his companion. When their mahouts heard from Gul Dad the story of the tiger's death they exclaimed in amazement and admiration:
"Ahré, Chai! (Oh, brother!) Truly the missie-baba is a wonder. She will be the death of many tigers, indeed," they said.
Then each in turn brought his elephant up to the prostrate animal and made her smell and strike it with her trunk in order to inspire her with contempt for tigers. Colonel Dermot measured it with a tape and found it to be nine feet six inches from nose to tip of tail. It was a young, fully-grown male in splendid condition. Then came the troublesome business of "padding" it, that is, hoisting it on to the pad of one of the elephants to bring it back to the bungalow to be skinned. It was not an easy matter. For the tiger weighed nearly three hundred and fifty pounds; and to raise the limp carcase, which sagged like a feather bed at every spot where there was not a man to support it, was a difficult task. But it was achieved at last; and with the tiger roped firmly on a pad the elephants started back in single file.
As they went over the plain in the burning sun Wargrave looked back to where the striped body was borne along with stiff, dangling legs.
"By Jove, it's been great, Miss Benson," he exclaimed. "Some people say tiger shooting's not exciting. They ought to have been with us to-day. I am lucky to have got a bison already and now to have seen this. With luck I'll be having a shot at an elephant next."