JAN SAHIB'S TIGER.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 430, 13 January 1912, Page 2

JAN SAHIB'S TIGER.

* Suthoo was palsied with terror at the suggestion from the boy that they two should go in search of a ti?er. "Jan Sahib," he whispered, feebly, * there is no shikar for us this light." "If I see a tiger, I shoot," remarked John Sahib, stubbornly. " Don't you make any mistake about ;hat. What did I come for ? " " Fact is, you're frightened," con r rinued John Sahib with cruel canlour. " You couldn't shoot straight f you tried. Why, your hands are shaking ! " A sharp rustle of the undergrowth and the sound of speedy feet broke jpon their naturally acute hearing. Tap-tap-tap on the baked earth, c[uite close now, and a buck rushed past to drink at the river. Suddenly it swerved into the shallow water, and at the same time a huge body sprang at it and missed it because of that adroit swerve. The buck was away like an arrow from the bow. With a hideous, snarling cry of rage and disappointment the tiger alighted just in front of a barricade behind which the pair were lying, twisting round to strike, even before the spring was completed. The terrible eyes flamed full at the terrorstricken humans, and the reek of the mangy body floated to their nostrils. Then came a roar that deafened and dazed them, and the great beast struck, slicing the air with a lightning stroke. In the very madness of despair, seeking more to protect the boy than himself, Suthoo raised himself and plunged forward with his huntingknife. The weapon met the irresistible paw and was dashed away out of reach like a broken match. The tiger gave a sharp yelp like a hurt puppy, because his foot was bleeding and lilne all bullies, he feared pain. Even while John Sahib stood paralysed with horror, the brute seized the old man by the shoulder and dragged him with trailing feet away into the thicker jungle. Then it was that the boy's courage leapt to full growth. Forward he marched into the darkness, shouting defiance of the tiger, calling it a pig and the child of a pig in the manner of a sais addressing a restive pony. " I come, Suthoo ! I come ! Have no fear ! " he cried.

For nearly a hundred yards he marched, then heard the tiger snarl within a few feet of him and made it out, crouching over Suthoo's prostrate bodj. Greatly he feared that the old man might be dead, and he burnt to avenge him. Again he saw the glancing green and yellow flame of the beast's eyes and the whiteness of the bared fangs. A fallen tree-trunk lay not three yards away, and upon this John Sahib deliberately rested his gun and took aim between those flaming orbs.

They shifted a little and lowered, for the beast was getting ready to spring at this audacious and persistent enemy. The boy lowered his aim, pulled the trigger, heard the thunder of the discharge and fell back into the brushwood almost stunned by the kick of the vicious old muzzle-loader. Pitched across the tree-trunk was the tiger, checked in its spring only just in time. It struggled and choked and gurgled, but it never rose, because the bullet had gone in straight between the eyes and made a clean ending of it. John Sahib picked himself up, feeling a little shaken and sick. " Are you alive, Suthoo ? " he cried out in a sort of screech, "the tiger is dead ! " Then Suthoo moved and got on to his feet with difficulty. Blood was dripping from his torn left shoulder and his right arm was hanging useless. His turban was gone and so was his amulet. His eyes lighted upon the stretched-out body of the tiger and immediately his wounds were forgotten. He blazed with excitement, and the juugle echoed to his triumphant voice.

"We two, and without beaters, we slew my lord the tiger !" John Le Breton, in the " Royal Magazine."