The Three Sapphires. Fraser William Alexander

say: 'Khudawand, pass here, for the thorns in the bush are bad for thy feet,' and if tiger was inclined he would pass, or he would turn. Often lying on the broad back of a buffalo as we crossed where the muck is deep I would see tiger lying in wait for pig or chinkara, and I would call, 'Kudawand, good hunting!' Then what think you, sahib, if after years of such living in peace, this depraved outcast, begotten of a hyena, makes the kill of a cow?"

      "A tiger, like a woman, is to be watched," Finnerty declared, quoting a tribal adage.

      "And all in the way of evil temper, sahib, for the cow lies yonder with no mark beyond a broken neck, while in the jungles rajah tiger is growling abuse. A young cow, sahib, in full milk. For the sake of God, sahib, come and slay the brute."

      The Banjara had worked himself into a passion; tears of rage stood in his eyes. "And to think that I had saved the life of this depraved one," he wailed.

      "You saved the tiger's life, Lumbani?"

      "Surely, sahib. Of the Banjaras some are Mussulmans – outcasts that lot are – and some are Hindus, as is your servant, so we are careful in the matter of a kill, lest we slay one of our own people who has returned. This slayer of my cow always took pleasure in being near the buffalo. Why, huzoor, I have seen him up in the hills looking as though he had felt lonesome without the herd. Noting that, it was in my mind that perhaps a Banjara herdsman had been born again as a tiger. That is why I saved his life from the red dogs of the jungle; nothing can stand before them when they are many. From the back of a buffalo I saw one of these jungle devils standing on high ground, beckoning, with his tail stuck up like a flag, to others of his kind."

      "I've seen that trick," Finnerty commented.

      "The tiger had been caught in a snare of the Naga people as he came to partake of a goat they had tied up, as he thought, for his eating; the sahib knows of what like a snare is to retain a tiger. A strong-growing bamboo, young and with great spring, had been bent down and held by a trip so that tiger, putting his paw in the noose, it sprang up, and there he was dancing around like a Nautch girl on the rope that held his wrist, being a loose bamboo too big for a grip of his teeth; it spun around on the rope. The red dogs, hearing his roars, knew he was trapped, and were gathering to settle an old dispute as to the eating of a kill. They would have made an end of him. A mongoose kills a cobra because he is too quick for the snake, and they were too quick for the tiger; so, taking pity upon him as an old friend, with my staff I drove them off; then, climbing into the bamboos, cut the rope."

      "Did you tackle them alone, Lumbani?"

      "Surely, sahib; jungle dogs run from a man that is not afraid."

      Finnerty's shikarri, Mahadua the Ahnd, who had come to the verandah, now said: "The tiger this herder of buffalo tells of is 'Pundit Bagh;' he is well known to all."

      "And you never brought word that we might make the hunt," Finnerty reproached.

      "Sahib, we Ahnd people when we know a tiger is possessed of a spirit do not seek to destroy that one."

      "Why is he called Pundit? Is he the ghost of a teacher?"

      "This is the story of Pundit Bagh, sahib: Long ago there was a pundit that had a drug that would change him into an animal, and if he took another it would change him back again."

      The Ahnd's little bead eyes watched his master's face furtively.

      "One day as the pundit and his wife were walking through the jungle a leopard stepped out in the path to destroy them. He gave his wife one powder to hold, saying: 'I will take this one and change into a tiger, and when I have frightened the leopard away give me the other that I may change back to myself.' But the poor woman when she saw her tiger husband spring on the leopard dropped the powder and ran away; so the pundit has remained a tiger, and is so cunning that it will be small use to make the hunt."

      "But coming and going as he must, Mahadua, how know you it is the same one?"

      "By the spectacles of the pundit, sahib; there is but one tiger that wears them."

      Finnerty laughed. "Does he never drop them, little man?"

      "Sahib, they are but black rings around his eyes – such as are on the back of a cobra's head – like unto the horn glasses the pundit wore."

      "Baboo Dass declared the tiger that peeped in his window wore spectacles; it must have been this same legendary chap," Swinton remarked.

      An old man came running up the road, between its walls of pipal trees, beating his mouth with the palm of his hand in a staccato lament. At the verandah he fell to his knees and clasped Finnerty's feet, crying: "Oh, sahib, Ramia has been mauled by a tiger the size of an elephant, and from the fields all have run away. Come, sahib, and slay him."

      "Pundit Bagh keeps busy," the major said; "but by the time we make all our arrangements it will be near evening, and if we wound him we can't follow up in the dark. Go back and keep watch on the tiger; to-morrow we will make the hunt," he told the old man.

      To the Hindu to-morrow meant never; when people did not mean to do things they said "to-morrow." Perhaps the sahib was afraid; perhaps he had presented the tiger in too fearful a light, so he hedged. "Come, protector of the poor, come even now, for we are afraid to go into the grass for Ramia. The tiger is not big – he is old and lame; one ball from the sahib's gun will kill him. Indeed, sahib, he is an old tiger without teeth."

      Finnerty laughed; but the Banjara flamed into wrath at this trifling. "Son of filth! Skinner of dead cattle! Think'st thou the sahib is afraid? And did an old, toothless tiger kill a buffalo of mine? Begone! When the sahib goes to the hunt, he goes."

      The Ahnd now said: "Have patience, man of buffaloes; perhaps another, a leopard, is the guilty one. Pundit Bagh acts not thus; in fact, in the little village of Picklapara, which he guards, more than once when the villagers have made offering to him of a goat has he driven away a leopard that had carried off an old woman or a child."

      "Fool! Does a leopard break the neck of a bullock? Does he not slit the throat for the blood? And always does not a leopard first tear open the stomach and eat the heart and the liver? I say it was the tiger," and the Banjara glared at Mahadua.

      "It was a small, old tiger," the Hindu declared again.

      "Seems a bit of luck; evidently 'Stripes' is inviting trouble," Swinton observed.

      "You'll want Lord Victor to have a chance at this first tiger, I suppose, captain?"

      "If not too much trouble."

      "I fancy our best way will be to make the hunt from elephants," Finnerty said musingly. "We can beat him out of the grass." He spoke to the old Hindu sternly: "Tell me the truth. Is Ramia still with the tiger?"

      The Hindu blinked his eyes in fear. "It may be, huzoor, that he ran away to his home, but there is a big cut in his shoulder where the beast smote him."

      "Sahib," the Banjara advised, "if the Presence will go on foot, even as he does many times, I will go with him, carrying the spare gun; the tiger knows me well and will wait till we are able to pull his whiskers."

      "These Banjaras haven't a bit of fear," Finnerty commented. "Is it good ground for elephants?" he asked.

      The Banjara's face clouded. "Sahib, the elephants make much noise. Perhaps the tiger will escape; perhaps if he comes out in an evil way of mind the elephant will run away."

      "Well, Swinton, if you'll ride back and get Gilfain – what guns have you?"

      "I've a Certus Cordite and my old .450 Express."

      "Good as any. Soft-nosed bullets?"

      "Yes, I have some."

      "Well, use them; we'll be pretty close, and you'll want a stopping bullet if the old chap charges. What's Gilfain got?"

      "A battery – a little of everything, from a .22 Mannlicher up to a double-barrel, ten-bore Paradox."

      "Tell him to bring the Paradox – it won't take as much sighting as the rifle; Gilfain has probably done considerable grouse shooting. He's almost sure to miss his first tiger; nerves go to pieces generally. I'll get two elephants – you and Lord Victor in one howdah, and I'll take Mahadua in