ed, a
little sideways and toward him; and again he heard the heavy, stealthy
footfall.

They stayed still then for what may have been a minute, and another
sense--smell--warned him and stirred up the man in him. He had never
smelled it in his life; it must have been instinct that assured him of
an enemy behind the strange, unpleasant, rather musky reek that filled
the room. His right hand brought the rifle to his shoulder without
sound, and almost without conscious effort on his part.

He forgot the heat now and the silence and discomfort. He lay still on
his side, squinting down the rifle barrel at a spot he judged was midway
between a pair of eyes that glowed, and wondering where his foresight
might be. It struck him all at once that it was quite impossible to see
the foresight--that he must actually touch what he would hit if he would
be at all sure of hitting it. He remembered, too, in that instant--as a
born soldier does remember things--that in the dark an attacking enemy
is probably more frightened than his foe. His father had told it him
when he was a little lad afraid of bogies; he in turn had told it to the
other boys at school, and they had passed it on until in that school it
had become rule number one of school-boy lore--just as rule number two
in all schools where the sons of soldiers go is "Take the fight to him."

He leaped from the bed, with his rifle out in front of
him--white-nightshirted and unexpected--sudden enough to scare the
wits out of anything that had them. He was met by a snarl. The two eyes
narrowed, and then blazed. They lowered, as though their owner gathered
up his weight to spring. He fired between them. The flash and the
smoke blinded him; the burst of the discharge within four echoing walls
deadened his cars, and he was aware of nothing but a voice beside him
that said quietly: "Well done, bahadur! Thou art thy father's son!"

He dropped his rifle butt to the floor, and some one struck a light.
Even then it was thirty seconds before his strained eyes grew accustomed
to the flare and he could see the tiger at his feet, less than a yard
away--dead, bleeding, wide-eyed, obviously taken by surprise and shot as
he prepared to spring. Beside him, within a yard, Mahommed Gunga stood,
with a drawn sabre in his right hand and a pistol in his left, and there
were three other men standing like statues by the walls.

"How long have you been here?" demanded Cunningham.

"A half-hour, sahib."