them; and as I gazed a shadow seemed to blur my vision
and a voice to whisper in my ears, 'Beware of my curse.'

"I took Cushai, one of the native servants, into confidence.

"'Now, Cushai,' I said, 'you know all the superstitions of the
country--the evil eye and the rest of them. Tell me, what can the dying
curse of a leper do?'

"Cushai turned pale under his skin.

"'Not of Nahra!' he stuttered, swinging the knife with which he had been
cutting maize in his hand, 'not of Nahra, the leper of Futtebah. Sahib,
if you were cursed by him, beware. He was learned in the black arts; he
could heal ulcers by repeating a prayer, he could bring on fever.'

"At this, O'Donnell, I turned cold. I had lived long in India. I had
seen their so-called juggling, had experienced also strange cases of
telepathy, and knew quite sufficient of their intimacy with the
supernatural elements to be afraid.

"'You must keep the young sahib safe,' Cushai said, 'and the white lady.
I wish it hadn't been Nahra.'

"I took his advice. My boy, Eric, was more closely supervised than ever,
and as to my wife, I begged and entreated her not to move from the house
until the tiger was dead, and I searched for it everywhere.

"The dry season passed, the wet came, and my work still kept me in
Seconee. At times there came to us rumours of the man-eater--of another
victim--but it never visited our bungalow, where the bright rifle leaned
against the wall waiting for it.

"I certainly did meet with slight misfortunes, which the more timid
might have put down to the working of the curse.

"My little finger was squashed in the laying down of a rail, and Eric
had several bouts of sickness.

"It was nearly a year after the leper's death that alarming rumours of a
man-eater having been at work again were spread about us. Several
niggers were carried off or badly bitten, and the wounded showed
symptoms of the loathsome disease so well known and feared by us
all--leprosy.

"I knew from that it must be the same tiger.

"'The tiger is near,' someone would cry out, and a stampede among the
native workmen would ensue.

"'Why the white tiger?' I asked Cushai.

"'Because, sahib,' he replied, 'the leprosy has made it so! Tigers, like
men, and all other animals, go white even to their hair. I have not told
them the story, sahib; they only know it must have caught the leprosy.
To them Nahra is still living.'

"Then, O'Donnell, when I thought of what was at stak