Rujub, the Juggler, G. A. Henty [top fiction books of all time .TXT] 📗

“I have just put it on, but will take it off again. Here, old man, you get down first, and we will hand the guns to you.”—this to the shikari.

With some difficulty they scrambled down from the tree.

“Now we may as well cap our rifles,” Richards said; “the brute may not be dead after all.”

They approached the bush cautiously.

“You are quite sure he is dead, Doctor?”

“Quite sure; do you think I don't know when a tiger is dead?”

Still holding their guns in readiness to fire, they approached the bushes.

“You can do no good until the villagers come with torches,” the Doctor said; “the tiger is dead enough, but it is always as well to be prudent.”

The shikari had uttered a loud cry as he sprang down from the tree, and this had been answered by shouts from the distance. In a few minutes lights were seen through the trees, and a score of men with torches and lanterns ran up with shouts of satisfaction.

As soon as they arrived the two young officers advanced to the cage. On the top a tiger was lying stretched out as if in sleep; with some caution they approached it and flashed a torch in its eyes. There was no doubt that it was dead. The body was quickly rolled off the cage, and then a dozen hands cut the lashing and lifted the top bars, which was deeply scored by the tiger's claws, and the Doctor emerged.

“I am glad to be out of that,” he said; “six hours in a cage with a woman and a crying brat is no joke.”

As soon as the Doctor had got out, the subalterns eagerly examined the tiger, upon which the natives were heaping curses and execrations.

“How many wounds has it got?” they asked the Doctor, who repeated the question to the shikari in his own language.

“Three, sahib. One full in the chest—it would have been mortal—two others in the ribs by the heart.”

“No others?” the subalterns exclaimed in disgust, as the answer was translated to them. The Doctor himself examined the tiger.

“No; you both missed, lads, but you need not be ashamed of that; it is no easy matter to hit a tiger even at a short distance on a dark night like this, when you can scarce make him out, and can't see the barrel of your rifle. I ought to have told you to rub a little phosphorus off the head of a match onto the sight. I am so accustomed to do it myself as a matter of course that I did not think of telling you. Well, I am heartily glad we have killed it, for by all accounts it has done an immense deal of damage.”

“It has been a fine tiger in its time, although its skin doesn't look much,” Wilson said; “there are patches of fur off.”

“That is generally the case with man eaters. They are mostly old tigers who take, when they get past their strength, to killing men. I don't know whether the flesh doesn't agree with them, but they are almost always mangy.”

“We were afraid for a moment,” Richards said, “that the tiger was going to break into your cage; we heard him clawing away at the timber, and as you didn't fire again we were afraid something was the matter.”

“The mother was,” the Doctor said testily. “The moment the tiger sprang, the woman threw herself down at full length right on the top of my second rifle, and when I went to push her off I think she fancied the tiger had got hold of her, for she gave a yell that fairly made me jump. I had to push her off by main force, and then lie down on my back, so as to get the rifle up to fire. I was sure the first shot was fatal, for I knew just where his heart would be, but I dropped a second cartridge in, and gave him another bullet so as to make sure. Well, if either of you want his head or his claws, you had better say so at once, for the natives will be singeing his whiskers off directly; the practice is a superstition of theirs.”

“No, I don't want them,” Wilson said. “If I had put a bullet into the brute, so that I could have said I helped to kill him, I should have liked the head to get it preserved and sent home to my people, but as it is the natives are welcome to it as far as I am concerned.”

Richards was of the same opinion, and so without further delay they started back for the village, where, upon their arrival, they were greeted with cries of joy by the women, the news having already been carried back by a boy.

“Poor beggars!” the Doctor said. “They have been living a life of terror for weeks. They must feel as if they had woke from a nightmare. Now, lads, we will have some supper. I dare say you are ready for it, and I am sure I am.”

“Is there any chance for supper, Doctor?—why, it must be two o'clock in the morning.”

“Of course there is,” the Doctor replied. “I gave orders to my man to begin to warm up the food as soon as he heard a gun fired, and I will guarantee he has got everything ready by this time.”

After a hearty meal and a cigar they lay down for a few hours' sleep, and at daybreak rode back to Deennugghur, the two subalterns rather crestfallen at their failure to have taken any active part in killing the tiger that had so long been a terror to the district.

“It was an awful sell missing him, Miss Hannay; I wanted to have had the claws mounted as a necklace; I thought you would have liked it.”

“I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Wilson, but I would much rather not have had them. If the tiger hadn't been a man eater I should not have minded, but I should never have worn as an ornament claws that had killed lots of people—women and children too.”

“No, I never thought of that, Miss Hannay; it wouldn't have been pleasant, now one thinks of it; still, I wish I had put a bullet into him.”

“No doubt you will do better next time, Mr. Wilson. The Doctor has been telling me that it is extremely difficult to hit an animal in the dark when you are not accustomed to that sort of shooting. He says he was in a great fright all the time he was lying in the cage, and that it was an immense relief to him when he heard your rifles go off, and found that he wasn't hit.”

“That is too bad of him, Miss Hannay,” Wilson laughed; “we were not such duffers as all that. I don't believe he really did think so.”

“I am sure he was in earnest, Mr. Wilson. He said he should have felt quite safe if it had been daylight, but that in the dark people really can't see which way the rifles are pointed, and that he remembered he had