Hardly had he spoken when the sharp click of the rifle-locks was heard, as their owners brought them to full cock, and almost at the same moment, with a loud growl, a dark, massive form topped the low wall, and with one blow of his powerful fore-arm the man-eater struck down its prey. The tiger turned to fly, carrying with it the dead sheep, but the rope by which it was tied to the stake stopped it. With a low growl of anger the brute glanced round, as though not understanding the reason of the check. The starlight streamed over his painted hide, and the simultaneous reports of the two rifles rang out on the air. Hard hit, the tiger turned, dashed at the wall, clearing it once more, but as he did so received the contents of the two remaining barrels of the rifles, disappearing with a howl of pain and rage.
Harris, worn out by heat he was little accustomed to, had dropped into that dead sleep which invariably overpowers Europeans not broken to an Indian climate. Awoke suddenly by the growl of the tiger, closely followed by the reports of the rifles, it took him some seconds to realise the situation. Even then his faculties seemed confused, for, seizing his rifle, he dashed, without speaking a word, through the gate, in the low compound wall, followed by the loud laughter of his comrades.
“Hallo! stop, you sleepy hunter of tigers!” shouted Curtis, as soon as he could speak for laughter. A fierce growl from the other side of the compound was heard, a long snarl of mingled anger and pain dying away into a deep moan, the report of a rifle ringing loudly on the night air, and all was still.
The two officers looked at each other for a second, then, their emptied pieces in their hands, they also dashed through the gateway, followed at a cautious distance however by the now thoroughly awakened bearers, who had been sleeping beside the palanquin.
The starlight showed the tiger lying dead, and beside it in a half sitting posture, Ensign Harris, with his rifle across his knees.
The wounded brute, after clearing the low wall, had fallen, then dragged itself heavily forward, just passing the gateway, when Harris, at top speed, dashed out, to pitch head foremost over the writhing body in its death struggle. The rifle fell from his hand, and the tiger, though dying, eager for revenge, struck out at the youth’s body, as he rolled over and over, carried on by the speed at which he had been running.
“By Jove you’ve had a narrow escape, my boy. It’s not every fellow clears a tiger that way,” exclaimed Hughes, as the two stood leaning on their rifles by the carcase of the dead animal.
“I haven’t got clear,” replied the Ensign, rising to one knee, and wincing with pain as he did so; “but you will find my ball in the tiger’s head, and so I have fairly earned the skin.”
“Here, you fellows, fetch the palky,” cried Curtis. “It is a question of your own skin, not the tiger’s. Wounds are never so easily cured under the sun of India as at home.”
“Oh, it’s only a scratch, Curtis,” said the brave lad, as the palanquin came up, and his comrades placed him in it.
“I tell you there’s no such thing as only a scratch here. If you will go with him to his quarters, Hughes, I’ll send Chapman.”
The Ensign’s bungalow was close by; Chapman, the assistant-surgeon of the regiment, was soon awoke, the wound found to be a severe but not dangerous one, the tiger, having struck forward like a huge cat, with its powerful fore-arm just catching the youngster’s leg, scoring deeply into the flesh, and tearing off the light shoe. The wounds were bandaged, and Ensign Harris’s name placed on the sick list.
“Good-night, Hughes, and a pleasant journey to you,” said Curtis, as the two shook hands at the entrance of the compound.
The air was fresh and cool, the “Southern Cross” was just dipping towards the distant horizon, the long mournful howl of a far-away hyena came across the plain, and on the white dusty road stood the dark-looking palanquin, with its group of dusky bearers, as, wringing his brother officer’s hand, Captain Hughes stepped into it, and with a sing-song chaunt the palkywallers shouldered their burden, and moved away on the first stage, which was to lead to the broad plains and well-stocked prairies of that Shikaree’s heaven, the hunting-fields of South Africa.
The “Halcyon” Brig.
“Sail ho!” shouted the look-out in the foretop of the merchant brig, the “Halcyon,” one fine afternoon, some three months after, the events related in the preceding chapter.
The sun was just setting in the western horizon, tinging the trembling waves with a golden hue. The brig was making good weather of it, and she looked a likely craft to do so. Her long, low, black hull supported a pyramid of white canvas, every sail drawing to a nicety, as, with a fresh breeze right over the quarter, she held her course to the northward and westward, bound for the coast of Africa. Three men only were pacing her quarter-deck. The one, a middle-sized, stout built man, his face tanned to the colour of mahogany, was evidently the master of the brig. The second, much younger, was his first mate; while leaning over the bulwarks, lazily looking into the sea, a solitary passenger, who had been taken on board when the brig lay in Madras roads, completed the trio. Forward, on the forecastle, was a group of sailors, thrown here and there under the weather bulwarks, some asleep, some telling tales of former adventures in the land now a hundred miles away on the brig’s larboard bow, and which they hoped to sight in the morning.
“Sail ho!” shouted the look-out, and Captain Weber stopped suddenly in his walk, turning to windward, his long grey hair streaming out on the breeze as he did so. His was the seaman’s face of the old type. The forehead low and massive; the thick eyebrows overshadowing small piercing eyes; the large good-humoured mouth ever ready to smile, and showing as he did so a range of white teeth; bushy grey whiskers; and a skin tanned to a good standing mahogany colour. His short sturdy frame was clothed in a slop suit of pilot cloth, and a plain cap with a heavy peak completed the picture.
Captain Weber had entered the merchant service as a boy; had been pressed on board a man-of-war; had seen some service, and was now part owner of the brig he commanded. Mr. Blount, his first officer, was a man of another school. Taller, and more finely formed, the straight Grecian nose, dark hair, and carefully trimmed whiskers, were adorned by a naval cap having a thin strip of gold lace round it, and the short monkey jacket showed also on the cuffs of the sleeves the same bit of coquetry in the shape of gold lace, it and the waistcoat boasting brass buttons.
“Where away, Smith?—point to her,” replied the latter, as he too stopped in his walk, and looked aloft.
This was a phrase lately introduced into the Royal Navy, and copied by the old captain. In a gale, when the look-out’s voice could hardly be heard above the roar of the wind, the pointing in the given direction supplanted the voice, and was a useful innovation. The man’s hand, on this occasion, was held straight out, pointing to leeward, and there, sure enough, the loftier sails of a full-rigged ship could be seen, standing in the same direction as themselves. The two seamen, shading their eyes from the last gleam of the sun, which was sinking like a ball of red fire into the tumbling waves, gazed at the distant sail, making her out to be a ship lying to, perhaps a whaler.
“It’s a queer thing, that a whaler should be lying to so near land, Blount,” said Captain Weber, after he had looked long and attentively in the direction of the ship. “Hand me the glass.”
At this moment the passenger, waking up from his fit of abstraction, joined the two seamen.
“A ship lying to—and what is there strange in that?” was the question he asked.
“Why, Captain Hughes,” replied the mate (Captain Weber being too busy with the glass to reply), “a merchantman generally makes the best of her way from port to port. With her, time is money, while one of Her Majesty’s cruisers (God bless her!) would be jogging along under easy sail, not caring either for time or money; but certainly not hove to. No; yonder ship must be a whaler; but it’s not often those fellows find their fish in such high latitudes.”
“There,”