Here the colonel stopped for another sip of whiskey-and-water.
“What did you see?” cried Sir Alan. “Your wife?”
“Yes, sir, I saw her. She was sitting with the baby in her lap in the tonga—pale—I have never seen such an expression of strained terror on any human countenance. The bilewallah was in front, trying to keep the bullocks, which seemed almost frantic with fear, to the path. I knew the man well—one of the best hands with a team at the station—but just then his face was so distorted with fright that I hardly recognized him. You know that lilac-grayish tinge a native’s face gets when he is scared almost to death——”
“I know, I know,” broke in Sir Alan. “But what was the matter—what was frightening them? Could you see anything?”
“Indeed I could,” replied the colonel. “Cause enough they had; not five yards behind them trotted the largest tiger it has ever been my fortune to see.”
Various exclamations testified to the completeness of the surprise to which Colonel Eyre had treated his audience.
“Was it a man-eater?” I asked.
“At first I supposed it was, but if it had been I never should have seen them alive. After I shot the beast——”