nto your cage; we heard him clawing away at the timber, and as
you didn't fire again we were afraid something was the matter."

"The mother was," the Doctor said testily. "The moment the tiger sprang,
the woman threw herself down at full length right on the top of my
second rifle, and when I went to push her off I think she fancied the
tiger had got hold of her, for she gave a yell that fairly made me jump.
I had to push her off by main force, and then lie down on my back, so as
to get the rifle up to fire. I was sure the first shot was fatal, for I
knew just where his heart would be, but I dropped a second cartridge in,
and gave him another bullet so as to make sure. Well, if either of
you want his head or his claws, you had better say so at once, for the
natives will be singeing his whiskers off directly; the practice is a
superstition of theirs."

"No, I don't want them," Wilson said. "If I had put a bullet into the
brute, so that I could have said I helped to kill him, I should have
liked the head to get it preserved and sent home to my people, but as it
is the natives are welcome to it as far as I am concerned."

Richards was of the same opinion, and so without further delay they
started back for the village, where, upon their arrival, they were
greeted with cries of joy by the women, the news having already been
carried back by a boy.

"Poor beggars!" the Doctor said. "They have been living a life of terror
for weeks. They must feel as if they had woke from a nightmare. Now,
lads, we will have some supper. I dare say you are ready for it, and I
am sure I am."

"Is there any chance for supper, Doctor?--why, it must be two o'clock in
the morning."

"Of course there is," the Doctor replied. "I gave orders to my man to
begin to warm up the food as soon as he heard a gun fired, and I will
guarantee he has got everything ready by this time."

After a hearty meal and a cigar they lay down for a few hours' sleep,
and at daybreak rode back to Deennugghur, the two subalterns rather
crestfallen at their failure to have taken any active part in killing
the tiger that had so long been a terror to the district.

"It was an awful sell missing him, Miss Hannay; I wanted to have had the
claws mounted as a necklace; I thought you would have liked it."

"I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Wilson, but I would much rather not
have had them. If the tiger hadn't been a man eater I should not have
minded, but I should never hav