Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/159

 sepoys began beating from the opposite part of the hill; a man in a tree communicated that the tiger was roused, and our expectation of his coming towards us was for a time intense. Keeping to the jungle of the hill above the pathway, he turned back in the direction from which we had come, and avoided the line of beaters. We quitted the rocks, and placed ourselves in the pathway beyond the part of the jungle the tiger had taken to, and the beating by the men bringing round the left of the line recommenced towards us. Scarcely a minute seemed to have elapsed before we heard an ugh-ugh from the tiger, though we were in ignorance at the time it was the roar with which he accompanied his spring on one of the sepoys, for at that time we got no sight of the tiger; but the news of a man being knocked down soon reached us, and a sepoy carried him down upon his back; a few scratches were visible on the shoulders, but the extent of the principal injury, which was on the head, was concealed by the turban, almost completely stained with blood.

"I heard afterwards that he was a-head of the others, crouching down, and looking into the jungle grass on the top of the hill, at the edge of the tree jungle, for traces of the tiger, when the animal sprung on him from behind, lighting with his fore-paws on his shoulders; and that the wounds inflicted on the scalp were from a bite, the teeth luckily slipping over the surface of the skull. Mr. M and I took a more advantageous position on the slope of the rising ground, facing the conical hill, and at about sixty yards from the place where we afterwards saw the tiger emerge. An havaldar put himself at the head of those men who had brought guns, and continued the hunt, much incensed against the tiger; he at length exposed his whole flank at about sixty yards to Mr. M and myself. Mr. M fired a little before me, and striking the tiger, caused him to turn round and escape the heavier bullet from my gun. The havaldar shortly after shot him again a little in front of the hip; Mr. M's shot was behind the shoulder. We left the tiger for that day; the next evening we beat the whole hill, but he was not to be found; probably he