"By a find of much eating!" ejaculated Gidar. "How I wish I had been with you, Killer of Cattle. A whole Bullock! Eating of the choicest kind for three days at least. Often for the length of that time have I searched through a famine-stricken village in my native land, and in the end achieved nothing, in the matter of food, but a pot of hot rice water thrown on my back by a Boberchie (cook)—an opium-eating stealer of his Master's goods."
"Would that you had been in my place," sneered Yellow Leopard, "for even as I was going away with my kill——"
"Squee-squee-squee!" interrupted Magh with a sneering laugh. "Even I, who am a Tree Dweller of little knowledge, knew that a tale from this Cut-throat would soon run into a lie of great strength. May I kiss the Tiger if I believe that Chita carried away a young Bullock."
"THE THING THAT HAD ME BY THE PAW WAS OF A FIENDISH KIND."
"You are wrong, Magh," reproved Sa'-zada; "in my hunting days have I seen even Bhainsa, the tame Buffalo, who is like unto a small Elephant, carried a full half-mile by Bagh."
"Yes," asserted Yellow Leopard, "had the kill been an Ape like unto Magh, I had bolted it at one mouthful lest the sight of it made me ill. As I was saying, I took the young Bullock in my mouth, but at the first step my forepaw was lifted by something of great strength. I was surprised, for I had seen nothing—nothing but the kill. The thing that had me by the paw was of a fiendish kind. Jungle-wisdom! but I was at a loss. Dropping my prey I tried first this way and then that to break away, but it gave with me every time, and when I was tired lifted me to my hind legs, for the pull was always upward."
"Was it a Naht?" queried Hathi. "One of the Burmese jungle Spirits that live in the Leppan Tree?"