ded quite
awful, and she must have pinched that poor little beggar of hers pretty
sharply to make him yell like that."

A low "hush!" from the shikari at his elbow warned Wilson that he
was speaking too loudly. Hours passed by, the cries being raised at
intervals.

"It is enough to give one the jumps, Richards; each time she yells I
nearly fall off my branch."

"Keep on listening, then it won't startle you."

"A fellow can't keep on listening," Wilson grumbled; "I listen each time
until my ears begin to sing, and I feel stupid and sleepy, and then she
goes off again like a steam whistle; that child will be black and blue
all over in the morning."

A warning hiss from the shikari again induced Wilson to silence.

"I don't believe the brute is coming," he whispered, an hour later. "If
it wasn't for this bough being so hard I should drop off to sleep; my
eyes ache with staring at those bushes."

As he spoke the shikari touched him on the shoulder and pointed.
"Tiger," he whispered; and then did the same to Richards. Grasping their
rifles, they gazed in the direction in which he pointed, but could for
some time make out nothing. Then they saw a dim gray mass in front of
the bushes, directly on the opposite side of the open space; then from
the cage, lying almost in a direct line between it and them, rose the
cry of the child. They were neither of them at all certain that the
object at which they were gazing was the tiger. It seemed shapeless,
the outline fading away in the bush; but they felt sure that they had
noticed nothing like it in that direction before.

For two or three minutes they remained in uncertainty, then the outline
seemed to broaden, and it moved noiselessly. There could be no mistake
now; the tiger had been attracted by the cries, and as it moved along
they could see that it was making a circuit of the spot from whence the
sounds proceeded, to reconnoiter before advancing towards its prey. It
kept close to the line of bushes, and sometimes passed behind some of
them. The shikari pressed their shoulders, and a low hiss enforced the
necessity for absolute silence. The two young fellows almost held
their breath; they had lost sight of the tiger now, but knew it must be
approaching them.

For two or three minutes they heard and saw nothing, then the shikari
pointed beyond them, and they almost started as they saw the tiger
retreating, and knew that it must have passed almost under them without
thei