Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/345

 by shot and smoke, went over him, and alighted almost at the feet of Flinn.

That worthy was equal to the occasion. At the sound of his friend's double shot he had seized the large rifle and leaped forward in time to meet the baffled tiger. Quick as light his practised hand discharged the heavy bullet, which, passing over the animal's head, went into its spine near the haunches, so that when it tried a second spring its hind legs refused their office, and it rolled over fuming and struggling in an agony of pain and rage.

Flinn ran a few paces backward so as to reload in comparative safety, while Slagg followed his example, but in desperate haste. Before he had half charged the first barrel, a second shot from the heavy rifle laid the royal monster dead on the ground.

"Well done!" cried Flinn, seizing his friend's hand and wringing it. "It 's Nimrod you are, no less. I niver saw a purtier shot. An', faix, it 's not every man that kills a tiger his first day out."

"But I didn't kill it," said Slagg modestly.

"Sure but ye drew first blood, me boy, so the tiger's yours, an' I wish you joy. Come, we 'll go home now an' git help to fetch the carcass. Won't they open their two eyes aich of them whin they see it! Here, ye black spalpeen, take the rifle an' give, me the gun."