rigger, just as
he felt himself going; and at the same moment he heard the crack of
Ramajee Punt's rifle.

The instant they touched the ground, Tim and Charlie cast themselves
over and over, two or three times; and then leaped to their feet,
Charlie grasping his rifle, to make the best defence he could if the
tiger sprang upon him. The creature lay, however, immovable.

"It is dead, Tim," Charlie exclaimed. "You needn't be afraid."

"And no wonder, yer honor, when I pitched, head first, smack onto his
stomach. It would have killed a horse."

"It might have done, Tim, but I don't think it would have killed a
tiger. Look there."

Charlie's gun had gone off at the moment when the howdah turned round,
and had nearly blown off a portion of the tiger's head; while, almost
at the same instant, the ball of Ramajee Punt had struck it in the
back, breaking the spine. Death had, fortunately for Tim, been
instantaneous.

The tiger last killed was the great male which had done so much
damage; the first, a female. The natives tied the legs together,
placed long bamboos between them, and carried the animals off, in
triumph, to the camp. The elephant on which Charlie had ridden ran
some distance, before the mahout could stop him. He was, indeed, so
terrified by the onslaught of the tiger, that it was not considered
advisable to endeavour to get him to face another, that day. Ramajee
Punt, therefore, invited Charlie to take his seat with him, on his
elephant, an arrangement which greatly satisfied Tim, whose services
were soon dispensed with.

"I'd rather walk on my own feet, Mister Charles, than ride any more on
those great bastes. They're uncomfortable, anyhow. It's a long way to
fall, if the saddle goes round; and next time one might not find a
tiger handy, to light on."

Two more tigers were killed that afternoon and, well pleased with his
day's sport, Charlie returned to the hunting camp.

The next day, Hossein begged that he might be allowed to accompany
Charlie in Tim's place; and as the Irishman was perfectly willing to
surrender it, the change was agreed upon. The march was a longer one
than it had been, on the previous morning. A notorious man-eating
tiger was known to have taken up his abode, in a large patch of
jungle, at the foot of an almost perpendicular wall of rock, about ten
miles from the place where the camp was pitched. The patch of jungle
stood upon a steep terrace, whose slopes were formed of boulders,