re
violently repugnant to our natures than any sensation with which the
thought of the blundering charge and savage goring of the buffalo, or
the clumsy kneading with giant knee-caps, that the elephant metes out to
its victims, can ever inspire in us.

Again the long-drawn moaning cry broke upon the stillness. The cattle in
the byre heard it and were panic-stricken. Half mad with fear, they
charged the walls of their pen, bearing all before them, and in a moment
could be heard in the distance plunging madly through the brushwood, and
splashing through the soft earth of the _padi_ fields. The dogs
whimpered and scampered off in every direction, while the fowls beneath
the house set up a drowsy and discordant screeching. The folk within the
house were too terror-stricken to speak, for fear, which gives voices to
the animal world, renders voluble human beings dumb. And all this time
the cry broke forth again and again, ever louder and louder, as He of
the Hairy Face drew nearer and yet more near.

At last the cruel whining howl sounded within the very compound in which
the house stood, and its sudden proximity caused Mat to start so
violently that he overturned the pitch torch at his elbow, and
extinguished the flickering light. The women crowded up against the men,
seeking comfort by physical contact with them, their teeth chattering
like castanets. The men gripped their spears, and squatted tremblingly
in the half light thrown by the dying embers of the fire, and the flecks
cast upon floor and wall by the faint moonbeams struggling through the
interstices of the thatched roof.

'Fear nothing, Minah,' Che' Seman whispered, in a hoarse, strange voice,
to his little daughter, who nestled miserably against his breast, 'in a
space He will be gone. Even He of the Hairy Face will do us no harm
while we sit within the house.'

Che' Seman spoke from the experience of many generations of Malays, but
he knew not the nature of the strange beast with whom he had to deal.
Once more the moan-like howl broke out on the still night air, but this
time the note had changed, and gradually it quickened to the ferocious
snarling roar, the charge song, as the tiger rushed forward and leaped
against the side of the house with a heavy jarring thud. A shriek from
all the seven throats went up on the instant, and then came a
scratching, tearing sound, followed by a soft, dull flop, as the tiger,
failing to effect a landing on the low roof, fel