M., C. and S. were just beginning to move towards the rocks when their footsteps were arrested by the sharp crack of a rifle, instantly followed by the roar of a tiger. 'My God! it's all over with poor Godfrey!' exclaimed M. 'I feared it would be so,' said S. 'Let's get forward,' said C.; 'we may not be too late to help. It was up this rock he went.' All were scrambling up, keeping their guns ready for instant use, when bang went another rifle-shot. 'That sounds healthy,' said M. 'Oh, it's grand!' said C.; 'you may depend on it he has found and killed.' 'On my honour,' said S., 'it's almost too good, too glorious, to be true.' Then arose shouts for Godfrey, and 'Where are you; how can we get at you?'

By this time some of the natives had found out where W. was, and then confused cries of 'Saib Ateha hi, hither owe! is turrup sey, hither owe! hither owe! Bhague murgia, koodah ki fuzzul sey, Saib my mana,' and many other cries and utterances and exclamations crowded on the ears of those who had lately been in such painful anxiety that they could bear it no longer. By-and-by W. was seen descending by a path so difficult and dangerous that it was hard to say whether the tiger or the pathway were the more so. At last he achieved his descent without broken bones, and could converse with his friends, who at once overwhelmed him with questions and inquiries. He was not hurt? No; he had not got a scratch! 'How was it? How did you find the beast?' 'It was just as I suspected. That rock which we neglected to examine this morning led to the beast's fortress. When I had climbed to the top of it, I found that there was a vast chasm between the rock on which I stood and all the surrounding rocks. I also observed that there was a ledge jutting out some two and a half feet from the body of the rock about twelve feet below me. This ledge ran along the face of the rock for some thirty yards, and then gradually descended on the left side from where I stood. From the sight of some half-gnawed bones that lay on the ledge nearly in a perpendicular line below me, I suspected that my friend's dwelling could not be far off, but how to let myself down puzzled me for a time. The precipice went down from the ledge probably near a hundred feet. I did not, therefore, like to risk a jump, lest I should lose my balance after landing on the ledge. I could let down my gun by means of my shot-belt and some twine I had about me, but I did not see how to let myself down so that I could be sure of keeping my balance. I walked from one end of the top of the ridge to the other, and thus found that at one part of it I could get down nearer to the ledge by two feet, and that by hanging from that part of the ridge I should only have two feet to drop. Having made these observations, I gently let down my gun, so that it rested on the ledge upright against the ridge. I then got down as far as possible, and afterwards dropped on to the ledge as gently as I could. On reaching the ledge I instantly seized and disembarrassed my gun. Two paces to the right brought me in front of a large and deep cave, formed in the body of the main rock, at the bottom of which I saw two balls of fire. I aimed just between them and fired. My shot was a very lucky one, as it hit the beast so hard that on attempting to spring he fell down almost at my feet. Could he have sprung, I must have been dashed to pieces by being knocked down the precipice. Finding that the animal was not quite dead, I gave him the other barrel, which was the second shot you heard.'

As soon as he had finished his explanation, he was so overwhelmed with laudation and congratulation of all kinds that he said: 'Come, let us think of getting home, and to do that we must get hold of the carcase of the cat, and we must take his measure before we take off his coat.' 'What a queer customer he is!' said B., who had from excitement and the persevering use of chatties of cold water in some degree recovered himself. 'Most fellows have their coats off before they begin to fight; this chap waits till the fight is over.' 'What! you've found your tongue, have you, Frank?' said W. 'I thought you were too far gone to have eyes or ears for anything.' 'Not a bit of it,' returned B.; 'I must have been dead drunk, indeed, if I had not heard the row that poor beggar up yonder kicked up when your messenger made him give tongue. But, by Jove! here he comes! What fellows these natives are! They have not taken ten minutes to sling the beast on bamboos, to get him out of his dark mansion, and to bring him down here.' This explained the tom-toms and songs and music, as well as the crowd of Sepoys and beaters and villagers that was now advancing from the rocks, bearing in triumph, and in a sort of procession, the enemy that had lately been so dreaded far and near. The tiger, an immense creature, was borne along slung by all fours to a bamboo carried at least by twenty men, for every villager tried hard, if only for a yard or two, to have a hand in carrying his enemy, not only to ensure future good luck, but to triumph over him. With all the sounds of rejoicing described the crowd brought the tiger, and laid him at W.'s feet. 'Ram Sing' (the naigue of his company), said W., 'how did you manage to get the beast here so quickly?' 'Oh, sir, we were all ready; we had bamboos, and ropes, and ladders all prepared, and plenty of willing hands anxious to do anything I told them.' 'Oh, that was it, was it?' said W. 'Well, my men have been wonderfully speedy. I'll reward them by-and-by; but now we must take the dimensions of our quondam friend.' 'But, sir, the villagers want leave to speak, if you will allow them.' 'Well, let them say their say, if they will promise not to make it long.'

Accordingly, the head men of the several villages which had lost inhabitants from the man-eater came forward, accompanied by the surviving relatives of those who had been carried off. These poor people, many of them with tears in their eyes, came and threw themselves at W.'s feet anxious to touch his garments or kiss his shoes. In their untaught and simple way they made poojah to him, i.e., they literally worshipped him as a superior being, and implored their deities to shower blessings on the brave Ingrasy Sahib who had rescued them and theirs from the fangs of the devourer. 'Well, that's enough,' said W.; 'you had better get up, now.' 'But,' replied the head men, 'we have not yet done what we came to do—we have a bag of 500 Rs. that we beg the Captain Sahib will take from us; it is contributed jointly by all the villages that have suffered.' W. knew well the general poverty of the villages, and being wholly unprepared for any such unusual demonstration from the natives, was for a moment thrown off his equanimity. He walked away a few yards, and it was observed that his eyes were moist, but he soon recovered his ordinary quiet and unmoved demeanour. Then, turning to the people kneeling and prostrate about him, he said, speaking Hindustani fluently: 'My good friends, for what I have done I am amply repaid in the consciousness of having delivered you from your enemy; besides, the search for large game is to a British officer and a sportsman a very great pleasure, and he would feel himself dishonoured if he accepted money or presents for anything he might do as a sportsman. Do not, my friends, suppose that it is from pride that I do not accept your bag of rupees; I feel grateful to you for the kindness shown in the offer, and to show my sense of it will accept from each of the villages that have suffered a pair of doves or quails. But as to money, that is out of the question. On the other hand, I am debtor to you all for the assistance and information you rendered me in the beginning in tracking and beating, and now in bringing down, the dead beast. I have ordered my head boy to pay to each of the villages 15 Rs. All I want you now to do is to lay the carcase straight, that we may measure the exact length from the nose to the tip of the tail' (which was found to be nine feet and nine inches—a grand specimen). And when this had been done, he said: 'Now all I have to ask is that you will help Ram Sing to take off the skin. Ram Sing knows all about that.'

When W. had finished speaking, the natives one and all again broke out into pæans of praise in behalf of their deliverer, so extravagant, indeed, judged by our notions, that W. was scandalized, or, if not, he feared ridicule; so he gave orders to his head boy to take them away, and to his friends he said, 'Come, let's get home; I am not a little hungry, and trust they've kept something at the mess for us, which I shall attack, as soon as I've had a bath, with as much ferocity as ever our dead friend his choice food.' 'We all say ditto to that, and God help the mess butler if he doesn't show to-day in good form, for he'll find us on this occasion all tigers.'

W., in his extreme modesty, had sought to avoid the triumphal parade of bringing the tiger into the cantonment, and had therefore given the orders already mentioned. But his intended curtailment of the public triumph did not at all suit Ram Sing, or any of the natives, Sepoys, beaters, or villagers, in any way connected with the deed. They could not comprehend the doing a noble and daring action with the wish to say and make as little as possible of it. They therefore determined, whether W. liked it or not, that he should have a public ovation; and, accordingly, they entered the cantonment in grand procession, with lights and torches and drums, tom-toms, horns, trumpets, and all sorts of heterogeneous instruments, making a most infernal row and outrageous discords, in the centre of an immense concourse of people, bearing along the tiger, singing songs, setting forth Burrah Bhague's evil deeds, describing his conqueror as nothing less than Rustum, giving the attributes of a demigod to him, and describing his skill and courage as invincible and irresistible; these hymns of praise they assisted with all the noises they could bring together, not forgetting squibs, crackers, rockets, and all the fireworks they could procure. In this way they paraded through the whole cantonment, partly back again, till they reached the compound of the mess-house of the regiment. There, to W.'s intense disgust, they would have recommenced their tom-toms and their music, with fireworks and songs, but W. ordered them at once out of the cantonment. 'Confound the rascals!' said W. 'I shouldn't wonder if they set fire to the lines with their d——d folly.' W.'s indignation amused his friends amazingly. They exclaimed against his severity in this way: 'You, the hero of the day, the Roastum, ought to sympathize with the poor devils, and not be so irate with them for doing you honour in their own way.' 'The deuce take them! I wish they'd keep their honour and their d——d noise to themselves! If I had allowed them to remain in the cantonment, I shouldn't have had a wink of sleep all night long, besides the shame of having my name connected with their absurd proceedings. I declare I am sorry I told Saul Jaker to give them any money; perhaps he'll give them more than he ought to-night, and then the great majority of them will drink too much rack.' 'Well,' said B., 'if they do once in a way, it's a poor heart that never rejoices.' 'Quite true,' said W.; 'but sometimes the hearts that are not poor rejoice so much that they are not able to help their friends, however great the need of help may be.' 'Oh, Godfrey, that's a shame, to cast a fellow's misdeeds up to him in that way!' 'Why, then, do you take the part of such a noisy set of rascals as those yonder? Thank God, I can scarcely hear them now, so I'll go to bed, and wish you all good-night.'

Many years after, W. arrived at the French Rock, and was staying there for a day or two as a guest of the mess, being en route to Bangalore. There was at the same time a young lad, whom I shall call Gascoigne, who had but lately arrived from England. He had brought a letter of introduction to W. from some of his friends at home. The young gentleman, a studious and quiet lad, was, in consequence, putting up with W., who, as hospitable and kindly disposed as any man in the world, welcomed the youth cordially, and was, by shikar parties, and every other means in his power, trying to entertain him. On W.'s account, everyone in the regiment did the same. Young G. had besides, as a pretty horseman, and an excellently good shot for so young a man, won the hearts of most of the young men of the regiment. He came from one of the Midland counties famous for hunting and sporting, and was therefore quite at home.

After dinner one unfortunate evening, when all the men of the regiment and the two guests mentioned were sitting outside in front of the mess-house, with their teapoys, their cheroots, and their eternal brandy-pawny, the conversation turned on the different styles of horsemanship. The young stranger spoke rather in ridicule of the cavalry seat and the long stirrups it enjoins, and he wondered how anyone could possibly ride across country with them. His remarks produced some sharp replies from B., the cavalry man present. 'Well, G.,' said W. to his friend, 'although you and I prefer the short stirrup and the usual cross-country seat, others ride well and strongly with the long stirrup. Our friend B. here rides with a long stirrup, and few men ride better than he does.'

By such kind and judicious observations W. threw oil on the troubled waters, and for the time stopped any further unpleasant remarks; but he could not, on the part at least of B., do away with the irritation that had been caused by young G.'s observations, and the remembrance of them rankled in this officer's mind. However, W. turned the attention of the party to other matters, and all seemed smooth. After a time he said, 'Come, let's have an all-round rupee shot at that weathercock on the top of the school-room; the first man that hits it carries the pool, and we'll draw lots for the order of firing.' 'Agreed, agreed!' said all present. 'I'll hold the stakes,' said Colonel D., 'as I don't intend to compete.'

Accordingly the firing commenced, and great was the laughing and the chatter as the whole party one after the other missed the weathercock. 'I should have hit the confounded thing,' said B., 'but just as I fired the wind swirled it round, so that I lost my chance.' 'Well, never mind, you haven't lost your stake, and you can try again,' said the Colonel.