Page:Wren--The young stagers.djvu/101

Rh night after night and year after year, throughout all the village cultivation?' answered the headman. 'Will he pay the value of the goats, sheep, cows, buffaloes, children, and women that will be killed if our virtuous tiger's place be taken by some old toothless scoundrel of a man-eater, who will not hunt for himself but will batten upon our flocks and herds and upon us? Not he! '

"And again the headman clucked.

"But the shikari was not a villager of Soni and cared nothing for its fate. He was out for fame and fortune, and the man who gets hold of a Travelling M.P. and gains not both, does not deserve either. Many rupees and much honour (among Sahibs) would be his if he guided the feet of so foolish and ignorant an employer to the slaying of a fine tiger. His position was a sad one. It appeared that he must either forego his hopes of gold and honour or find that something most finally fatal had been put in his supper by the hospitable villagers of Soni. He could see no way out of the difficulty, but, being an Indian and a wily shikari, he could see one