Thus, Sahib, our conversation ended: the night had passed in its relation, and I went to rest a different being from what I had been for many days before. I rose, and found all my former energy and spirit had returned to me; and whereas a few days before I went about like a love-sick maiden, I now held up my head, threw out my chest, and felt a man. It was true I was still a boy, I was only eighteen years old, but I did not suffer my thoughts to dwell upon this; a few years, thought I, and, Inshalla! I shall be somebody. To prove to you, Sahib, the excitement that possessed me, I shall relate to you the following circumstance. I might have joined in the action before, but never should have dreamed of doing the deed of daring I then did, in the presence too of men who were soldiers by profession, but who hung back at the moment of danger.
It happened, a day or two after the conversation with my father which I have related, that a tigress with a cub came into a small tract of jungle which lay near our village; the first day she was seen she killed a shepherd, the second day another man who had gone to look for his body, and the third she grievously wounded the Potail of the village, a man who was held in universal estimation, and he died during the night. A general meeting of the villagers was held at the place set apart for deliberations, and it was determined that all the active men should proceed in a body and attack the beast in her lair. The next morning we all assembled before daybreak. There was one man, a huge large-whiskered and bearded Pathan, who volunteered to be our leader; he was literally hardly able to move for the weapons he had about him. Two swords were in his belt, which also contained an assortment of daggers of various sizes and shapes; a long straight two-edged sword hung over his left shoulder, the point of which nearly touched the ground; he had also a shield across his back, and in his right hand a matchlock with the match lighted. He addressed my father as we came up.
"Salaam aleikoom! Ismail Sahib," said he, "is a quiet person like you coming out with us, and the Sahib zadah too?"
"Yes, Khan," replied my father, "it is incumbent on all good men to do their utmost in a case of need like this; who knows, if the brute is not killed, but that some one else may become food for it?"
"Inshalla!" said the Khan, twisting up his mustachios, and surveying himself, "we have determined that the brute dies to-day. Many a tiger has fallen from a shot from my good gun, and what is this brute that it should escape! May its sister be defiled; the only fear is, that it will not stand to allow us to prove that we are men, and not dogs before it?"
"As to that," said my father, "we must take our chance; but say, Khan, how will you move with all those weapons about you? Why, you could not run away were she to rush out."
"Run away!" cried the Khan; "are our beards to be defiled by a brute? What are you thinking on this morning to suppose that Dildar Khan ever turned from anything in his life? Only let it come out, I say, and you will see what use the weapons will be! Trust to me single-handed to finish it: first I shall shoot it with my matchlock; it will be wounded; then I shall advance on it thus," said he, drawing the long sword and flourishing it, at the same time twirling round and round, and leaping in every possible direction.
"There!" said he, quite out of breath, "there! would not that have finished it? Why I am a perfect Roostum in matters of this kind, and killing a tiger is only child's play to Dildar Khan! why, I could eat one, tail and all. But come along, and when the play begins, let no one come in Dildar Khan's way," said he to the assembled group, "for, Inshalla! I mean to show you poor ignorant people how a tiger can be killed by a single man."
"I know the Khan to be as arrant a coward as ever breathed," said my father to me; "but come, let us see what he will do, for I confess I am anxious to behold him capering before the tigress."
"By Alla!" said I, "if he does perform such antics, the brute will dine on him to a certainty."
"That is no concern of ours," said my father; "it is a matter of destiny; but I would venture a great deal, he never goes within an arrow's flight of him."
We all set out headed by Dildar Khan, who still flourished his long sword, holding his matchlock in his left hand, now and then smoothing up his moustachios, which grew, or had been trained to stick upwards from his lips, and reached nearly to his eyes. We soon reached the jungle, and on entering it, I thought the Khan showed signs of fear.
"The beast can be but a panther after all," said he, "and it is hardly worth the while of Dildar Khan to put himself to trouble. See, boys," continued he to some of us; "I will wait here; if it should really turn out to be a tiger you can let me know, and I will come and kill it."
Against this, however, we all protested, and declared that all would go wrong without him; and after some demur he again proceeded.
"I told you," said my father, "how it would be; but let us see how he will end the affair."
We went on till some bones and torn clothes, and the head of one of the unfortunate men who had been killed, lying near a bush, proved very plainly that the animal was not far off, and at these the Khan showed fresh signs of fear.
"They say it is a Purrut Bagh," said he, "a beast into whom the unsainted soul of that mad Fakeer, that son of the Shitan, Shah Yacoob, has entered, and that it is proof against shot. Why should we risk our lives in contention with the devil?"
"Nay, Khan," said a young dare-devil lad, the scamp of the village, "you are joking, who ever heard of a Purrut Bagh that was a female? besides, we will burn the beards of fifty Shah Yacoobs."
"Peace!" cried the Khan, "be not irreverent; do we not all know that Purrut Baghs can be created? Mashalla! did I not see one near Asseergurh, which a Fakeer had made, and turned loose on the country, because they would not supply him with a virgin from every village?"
"What was it like?" cried a dozen of us, and for a moment the real tigress was forgotten.
"Like!" said the Khan, rubbing up his mustachios with one hand, and pressing down his waistband with the other, "like! why it had a head twice the size of any other tiger, and teeth each a cubit long, and eyes red as coals, which looked like torches at night; and it had no tail, and——"
But here he was stopped short, and our laughter too, by a loud roar from a short distance; and a moment afterwards, the tigress and a half-grown cub, rushed past us with their tails in the air.
"Well, Khan," said the lad before-mentioned, "that is no Purrut Bagh at any rate; did you not see the tail of the big one, how she shook it at you?"
"I represent," said he, "that, tail or no tail, it holds the accursed soul of that wretch Yacoob, may his grave be defiled! and I will have nothing to do with it; it is useless to try to kill the Shitan; if he chose, you know, he could blow us all into hell with a breath."
"Namurd! Namurd! coward! coward!" cried some of us; "you were brave in the village; how are you now?"
"Who calls me Namurd?" roared the Khan; "follow me, and see if I am one or not," and he rushed forward, but not in the direction the tigress had gone.
"That is not the way," cried some, and at last he turned.
"This is child's play," said my father; "come, if we are to do anything, we had better set about it in good earnest."
And we went on in the direction the beast had taken. It led to an open glade, at one side of which there was a large rock, with some very thick bushes about it.
"She is there, depend upon it," said an old hunter; "I never saw a more likely place in my life."
We were all about thirty steps from the rock and bushes, and Dildar Khan did not at all relish his proximity to them. "I beg to represent," said he in a low voice to us all, "that having killed so many of these brutes, I know best how to manage them; and as I am the best armed of the party, I shall take up my position near yonder bush, by which runs the pathway; she will take to it when she is driven out, and then you will see the reception she