This was addressed to the above-mentioned little boy, who had just rushed in with the fruit-tray, which he dropped at his master’s feet.
“Hooli! hooli!” was all the boy could gasp. “The tiger! the tiger!”
“What!” cried Lyell, starting up, “a tiger in the very village?”
But it was easily explained: a dead bullock lay in a bit of bush only a stone’s throw up the stream, and on this the beast had doubtless come to regale himself. He was there now; and it was resolved to wait quietly on the top of Moondah’s house, and watch.
It was a long watch. Daylight faded away, twilight faded into darkness; the stars shone out; a great red round moon rose slowly up from behind the trees, paling as it went, till at last it shone out high above them, bright, and white, and clear. But still no tiger made his appearance. At last though, there was a crackling noise amongst the bushes, then a stealthy footstep, and out into the open stalked the majestic beast. He stood for a moment as if to listen, then moved onwards to the river to drink. He presented a splendid shot. Seeing Lyell’s rifle at the shoulder, Chisholm, who was of a chivalrous nature, withheld his fire. But Lyell only wounded the brute in the leg. He was staggered, and emitted a roaring cough that seemed to shake Moondah’s house to its very foundation. Now it was Chisholm’s chance; he had knelt, and ere the crack of his rifle had ceased to reverberate among the rocks the tiger was stretched lifeless on the river’s brink.
One day Moondah came to the camp. It was evident he had something on his mind, for he never came without good news of some kind.
“Twenty mile from here,” he began, “lives a man who married two or tree of my sister.”
“Well done,” said Lyell, laughing.
“But that is nothing,” continued Moondah; “in the scrub around his village are antelope plenty; and my brodder he keep cheetah. There are also panther in the scrub; and dere are,”—here Moondah’s eyes sparkled, and his mouth seemed to water—“dere are wild pigs in de woods.”
“Oh, bother the pigs!” said Lyell. “Let us go to the village and see the cheetahs hunting. Let us go for two or three days, and make a regular big shoot of it.”