“I expected two friends, officers from Calcutta, that very day, and wished not to kill the tigress, but to keep her for our combined shooting next day. We had not proceeded far, when on the other side of the nullah we saw dense clouds of dust rising, and heard a confused rushing, trampling sound, intermingled with the clashing of horns, and the snorting of a herd of angry buffaloes.
“It was the wildest sight I have ever seen in connection with animal life. The buffaloes were drawn together in the form of a crescent; their eyes glared fiercely, and as they advanced in a series of short runs, stamping with their hoofs, and angrily lashing their tails, their horns would come together with a clanging, clattering crash, and they would paw the sand, snort, and toss their heads, and behave in the most extraordinary manner.
“The cause of all this commotion was not far to seek. Directly in front, retreating slowly, with stealthy, crawling, prowling steps, and an occasional short, quick leap or bound to one or the other side, was a magnificent tigress, looking the very impersonification of baffled fury. Ever and anon she crouched down to the earth, tore it up with her claws, lashed her tail from side to side, and with lips retracted, long mustaches quivering with wrath, and hateful eyes scintillating with rage and fury, she seemed to meditate an attack upon the angry buffaloes. The serried array of clashing horns, and the ponderous bulk of the herd appeared, however, to daunt the snarling vixen; at their rush she would bound back a few paces, crouch down, growl, and be forced to move back again, before the short, blundering charge of the crowd.
“All the old cows and calves were in rear of the herd, and it was not a little comical to witness their awkward attitudes. They would stretch their ungainly necks, and shake their heads as if they did not rightly understand what was going on. Finding that if they stopped too long to indulge their curiosity, there was danger of getting separated from the fighting members of the herd, they would make a stupid, lumbering, headlong rush forward, and jostle each other in their blundering panic.
“It was a grand sight. The tigress was the embodiment of lithe savage beauty, but her features expressed the wildest baffled rage. I could have shot the striped vixen over and over again, but I wished to keep her for my friends; and I was thrilled by the excitement of such a novel scene.
“Suddenly our elephant trumpeted, and shied quickly on one side from something lying on the ground. Curling up its trunk it began backing and piping at a prodigious rate.
“‘Hallo! what’s the matter now?’ said I to Debnarain.
“‘God only knows,’ said he.
“‘A young tiger! Bagh ta butcha,’ screamed our mahout, and regardless of the elephant or our cries, he scuttled down the pad rope like a monkey down a backstay, and clutching a young dead tiger cub, threw it up to Debnarain. It was about the size of a small poodle, and had evidently been trampled by the pursuing herd of buffaloes.
“‘There may be others,’ said the gomasta, and peering into every bush, we went slowly on. My elephant then showed decided symptoms of dislike and reluctance to approach a particular dense clump of grass.