Tiger, Tiger

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 191, 13 August 1940, Page 15

Tiger, Tiger

Short Story -

IX this quiet garden she found it hard to believe only last month she had been denounced as a were-tigress. However, it was not the accusation which had hounded Leila Bell out of India, but the devilish fear that perhaps the accusations were true. Now, in this garden thick with trumpet daffodils, she could almost laugh at herself. Absurd, a were-tigress! That ghoul of the supernatural — a human being who takes the shape of a maneater to indulge a craving for human flesh. ■ "But even university-educated natives believe the superstition," she remembered, and shivered. The district where her husband was stationed in India had been for some time haunted by a man-eating tigress, which for two years had escaped justice. Poison, traps, sitting up over kills or bait proved useless, and the natives came at last tq believe that the animal was no natural being. Of course, it was some months before they decided, but when they did, the torrent of accusation poured forth on tongues loosened by fear. "The memsahib—she likes beef and quail nearly raw. The man-eater's footsteps have been seen near this bungalow. She has eyes like a cat's, and red nails . . ." Leila Bell's was a sculptured' sort of beauty—raven hair, green, lambent eyes. She was pale, though, for she was inclined to be delicate and had been ill in India. As a matter of fact, her health was the ostensible reason for her return home. Even after a long night's sleep, she would wake tired, burning hot, and yet shuddering as though with malaria, and the sight of breakfast revolted her. It was on one of those mornings in India that the appalling thought had come to her that perhaps . . . With eyes lit and feverish, she had voiced her N 4houghts to her husband, who, of course, sent for a doctor. "She must have a long rest-cure in England," the doctor told him in confidence. "She's very imaginative. Now she's run down and her nerves are upset and giving her strange ideas. She must avoid excitement, for it may bring on one of these attacks of exhaustion." Leila guessed what they were thinking, she readily agreed to go home, because in England there were no tigers. She would be safe from herself. "You get well in England, darling," her husband said. "We'll kill the maneater while you're gone, and then you can come back."

By Norah Burke

■ So here she was in a cottage, bein™ I looked after by two maids, and filling i her days with gardening—the only occupation considered sufficiently devoid of thrills for her. She went across to inspect the garden hedge which was beginning to sprout. Across the lane, immediately opposite her, was a gate into a field, and evidently this morning someone had stuck a small advertisement on to the post. "CIRCUS.' For one night only. Elephants, seals, lions, acrobats, clowns, tigers . . ." Her heart bounded as if shocked with electricity. Tigers! Here! To-night! The possibilities of this fiendish temptation to her inner and supernatural self left her aghast. Somehow she got back to the house and sat down to recover herself. She was in a blaze of emotion that terrified her. When she caught sight of herself in the glass she positively recoiled. Her eyes were like embers that had burned out their own sockets in her own blanched face. She went to bed early. She locked the door of her bedroom and threw the key out of the window. She took live or six nails and hammered the window shut. A full orange moon was floating over the sky. A full moon. . . . Almost at once she fell asleep. Almost at once it was morning, and a pretty maid, blue-frocked and whitecapped, who had been instructed to use the spare-room key, was setting tea and toast beside her bed. Horror grabbed at Leila's heart, for the old familiar symptoms were upon her. Drowsiness was like a drug in her eyes. Her muscles' felt aching and torn, burning hot yet shivering. Well, of course, she couldn't expect to. be cured at once, site told herself hysterically. "Oh, ma'am," said the maid brightly, "The milkman gave me such a scare this morning. Told, me that one of the tigers from the circus had escaped, and had killed and eaten a man. Why—whatever. ..." Leila had fainted. When she came round, a very white maid was slapping water on her face. "Oh, ma'am, whatever made you take it like that. It's nothing, really—he was only pulling my leg—trying to'scare me. I slapped his face. There, there, that's better. . . ." THE END.