'Did the tiger then spring upon the Sahib and kill him?' I faltered. 'Where is the Sahib's body?'

'Alas!' said the shikari, 'who can tell! Listen, Protector of the Poor. The Sahib Eccles shrieked, for the great yellow beast—may he lead a life of pain!—sprang upon him, as you say. The Sahib's bullet had struck but not killed him. He bore the Sahib to the earth, and lay for a moment upon him, the Sahib crying out once and twice again. With the Sahib's second gun I fired into the body of the beast, but whether I hit him or not I cannot say, for all was confusion and dust and terror, and also there was the fear lest the bullet should strike the Sahib. Then, in a moment, the tiger had disappeared, and the Sahib also. There was none to see, for these other men, the beaters, had quickly taken flight at the sound of the roar of the tiger, and, as for me, I must confess that, for a moment, after shooting at the beast, I turned my back upon the animal, fearing lest he should now fall upon me. When I looked again—it was but a few seconds later—both tiger and Sahib had, as I say, disappeared; therefore I made no doubt that the savage brute seized the Sahib Eccles and carried him into the jungle. Alas! there is no doubt that he is dead. This is an evil tiger, an eater of men. There is no hope that the poor Sahib is still alive.'

I listened to the shikari's narrative in speechless horror. It was difficult to realise that he had spoken of Charlie Eccles, my old school friend; that this tale he had just told me was of Charlie's death; and that his death had happened within an hour or so, and might have been prevented if I had arrived but a single day, or even half a day, earlier.

'Shikari, this is a dreadful tale you have told me,' I groaned. 'If you have told me the truth, and not lied in order to hide your own cowardice, the Sahib Eccles is probably dead. This, however, must be ascertained immediately, and his body must be found and brought in. You will guide me at once to the spot, and we shall follow upon the tiger's tracks.'

'Into the jungle, Sahib!' exclaimed the shikari. 'Upon the track of a wounded tiger! Then we are lost men, both of us.'

'At any rate, if you are a coward, and dare not help me to seek your master, you shall at least show me where he was seized, and I will go alone.'

The shikari, though evidently a nervous man, was no coward. He pulled himself together.

'I will go with the Sahib,' he said. 'It shall not be spoken of me that there was a thing of which I was afraid. The Sahib will allow me to carry this second rifle of the Sahib Eccles?'

'Of course. You have answered well, shikari; it shall be said that you are a brave man. Take the rifle and come, for this is a matter that cannot wait.'

So we set out for the place where poor Eccles had lost his life, some two or three miles from the bungalow, and my heart was heavy as lead as I tramped along with the shikari at my side, recalling many scenes in which old Charlie had been my companion at school and at Oxford and in after-life. I scarcely thought of the extreme danger of the enterprise upon which the shikari and I were now engaged, my mind being otherwise occupied; but when we came near the place, and the native, looking frightened and positively trembling as he spoke, whispered that here, within twenty-five yards, was the spot where the tiger had sprung upon the Sahib, I suddenly realised that we were about to meet a crisis in our lives.