r. I saw the marks of
the beast's paws pitting the shiny surface of ooze and sand; the trail
came in a straight line from the land to the right of the village
where Bunk's brother lived to the starboard bow of the brig. The beast
had sprung easily aboard. We were not in India, nor in Africa, nor in
any country where such huge yellow horrors as that flourished;
therefore, on recovering my wits and my breath whilst I looked down
over the rim of the top, I guessed that the tiger had broken loose
from some show or menagerie, and had made for this desolate waste of
sand to escape the hunt that was doubtless in loud cry after him. But
I could not get any comfort into me out of the reflection that we had
stranded on English instead of African or South American mud; down on
deck, now crouching close beside the boy without, however, offering to
touch the motionless figure, was a massive savage beast, apparently a
man-eater; and it was all the same to me whether it had sprung aboard
off the banks of an Indian river, or trotted across this breast of
English slime out of a showman's cage.

The boy lay as though dead, and I turned sick, fearing to see the
creature eat him. I was going to call, thinking he would answer me,
then reflected if he was not dead my voice might cause him to move,
and bring the tiger upon him, and so I lay silent in the top, now
staring down, then glaring round upon the scene of mud and at the
distant blue crescent of sea for the help that was nowhere visible.

Presently the tiger got up, and, passing over the body of the lad,
stepped with its supple gait into the bows. I took my chance of
shouting to William, but the lad never stirred. Again and again I
yelled down at him, and I saw the splendid, horrible beast in the bows
gazing at me, and still the lad remained lifeless. He was upon his
face, with his arms out, as though his hands were nailed to the deck.
I looked for blood, but saw none.

The most awful time that ever passed in my life now went along. The
tiger roamed the deck silently, smelling at everything, once shoving
its huge head into the companion-way, and I prayed with all my heart
it would go below, that I might skim to the hatch and secure it. It
drew its head out, and going to the boy stopped and smelt him. The
very blood in me was curdled, for I made sure the beast was about to
eat the lad. Sometimes I broke out into the noisiest roarings and
screaming my pipes could set up in the hope of