slow degrees reached the side of Brace's
charpoy, and was bending himself down, till his fingers, now spread out
like the long ugly talons of some horrible bird of prey, were within a
few inches of poor Brace's throat, then nearer and nearer till he seized
his prey, and as a dull, low sound of painful breathing rose in the dark
room, I knew that it was time to swing my arm round, snatching the sword
from the scabbard, and laying the horrible old miscreant lifeless upon
the floor.

The time had come, my right arm was across my chest, my hand tightly
holding my sword-hilt, but that arm was now heavy as lead, and I tried
in vain as I lay there upon my back to drag out that blade.

But it was impossible. I was as if turned to stone, and the horrible
gurgling breathing went on, heard quite plainly as I lay in that
terrible state.

How I tried to struggle, and how helpless I felt, while the mental agony
was terrible, as I seemed to see the old wretch's features distorted
with a horrible joy at his success, and I knew that as soon as poor
Brace was dead, he would come over and find me an easy victim, and then
I should never see the light of another day; I should never meet father,
mother, sister again out on the hot plains of India; and the guns would
never be recaptured; and yet they seemed so near, with the wheels
sinking deeper, and ploughing those deep ruts which I was walking in
with one foot, so as to keep to the track, for poor Brace was so set
upon recovering them; and now he was dead, it was ten times my duty to
keep on and get them, if the old Hindu would only spare my life. Poor
old Brace! and I had thought him a coward, and yet how brave and
determined he was, but yet how helpless now that the tiger had crept up
closely and sprung into the howdah to force him back and plant its
talons in his throat. No, it was not the tiger, it was the Hindu, the
old old-looking man with the bony fingers. No, the tiger, and it was
not Brace who was making a horrible, strangling noise, but the elephant
snorting and gurgling and moving its trunk in the air, instead of
snatching out its bright sword and with one stroke cutting off the
tiger's--the Hindu's--the tiger's head, because it had left its sword in
its quarters when it went out shooting that morning, and it had all
grown so dark, and its arm was as heavy as lead, because I was turned
into an elephant and the tiger had leaped on to me, and then into the
howdah to attack