Sir Dyce, however, only laughed at the superstition of the group, as he sat, surrounded with his men, in the largest bungalow of the little place, organizing his party for the morning. Even Ram Banee, the greatest coward of all, exclaimed: "I have comfort when I behold this stately Englishman, his guns, his bullets. And hearken to his elephant eating behind the bungalow!"
At dawn he and his party were off. Out through the village street with horns and tam-tams the procession moved. The preceding afternoon a bullock had been seized. The crushed twigs and jungle grass, often spotted with gore, were now traced for a mile by the trackers. Suddenly a shout went up from these. "The bullock! the bullock!" Sure enough, when Sir Dyce had forced his way with two others into the open, there on the jungle's edge lay what was left of the unlucky animal. "Hurrah!" cried the enthusiastic Englishman; "she can not be far away. Get together, all of you, quickly. Beat the bush on the other side of us—yonder, across the clearing."
Sir Dyce left his elephant, and joined on foot the excited natives. The open was crossed. Wild cries and shouts, the clanging of the cymbals and tam-tams, filled the morning air. The bush was thoroughly beat, every eye and ear on the alert.
Sir Dyce and his party located themselves carefully in the underbrush within easy shot of the carcass. It was their best chance. The afternoon passed slowly. Each member of the little ambuscade had become a sentinel. But no tigress came slinking into sight. The shadows grew purple. Sir Dyce began to doubt the wisdom of further remaining in so exposed a spot without a regular camping out. Or had not they best return to Sundapoor? The elephant had been stationed some hundred yards to the rear. Suddenly an old native laid his hand warningly upon Sir Dyce's sleeve. The English hunter started, and looked out from behind their screen toward the little clearing. Full in face of them, every line and curve of her beautiful form brought into relief by the distance and the green shade behind her, was seated at last a tigress on the opposite side of the open. The great beast was indeed returning from her lair, either to finish her supper here and now, or else to forage for another one.
She sat there upon her haunches very composedly, looking over at the bullock. Perhaps she suspected something. At all events, she seemed reluctant to stir just yet. She remained well out of range, licking her paws, and preening herself precisely like pussy before the fire.
The natives with Sir Dyce in his lurking-place would have risked a shot already had he not checked them. After a moment, however, the great cat raised her head, then lowered it, smelling the ground, and finally advanced slowly toward the dead bullock. The excitement of the natives upon actually beholding before them the dreaded marauder and murderess of their district was evinced by their breathless watchfulness of every motion she made.
The tigress gained the side of the bullock. Thereupon she stooped, and, much to Sir Dyce's discomfiture, instead of beginning her supper then and there, began easily and rapidly to drag the bullock back toward the opposite thicket.
There was no time in such an event to be wasted. The elephant was not available. Sir Dyce stepped quickly from cover and fired. Two of his native companions followed his example. The tigress started, uninjured, dropped the carcass, and turned. Perceiving the hunters, she stood for an instant in a dignified attitude, then roared, lashed her tail furiously, and charged down upon them. The natives shrieked, and rushed pell-mell back. Sir Dyce fired, and pierced the brute's shoulder. She now charged furiously upon him as he stood alone just forward of the edge of the jungle. His last bullet met her. She leaped into the air, rolled over and over in her death-agony, and then lay rigid and motionless. No more cattle or priests or women would Kali bear away from Sundapoor or any other village.
The natives approached the dead beast tremblingly, and offered prayers to the great goddess whose name they had given it, before they ventured to take the creature home in triumph. Sir Dyce had a rude ovation in Sundapoor that evening that he often smiled over afterward. He cared less for the songs sung in his honor, less for the fire-works and drumming and the procession around his camp-stool, than he did for the noble skin that afterward he took to his English home for his little sons to roll upon. But then only an Indian village that has been long in terror from a man-eater can appreciate what a relief he and a good English gun had given it.