e, and of all the
hideous possibilities the presence of this brute created, I took my
rifle and went out to search for it. In the evenings, when the dark
clouds from the mountains descended and the wind hissed through the
jungle grass, I plodded along with no other companion than my Winchester
repeater--searching, always searching for the damned tiger. I found it,
O'Donnell, came upon it just as it was in the midst of a meal--dining
off a native--and I shot it twice before it recovered from its
astonishment at seeing me. The second shot took effect--I can swear to
that, for I took particular note of the red splash of blood on its
forehead where the bullet entered, and I went right up to it to make
sure. As God is above us, no animal was more dead.

"'The curse won't come now, Cushai,' I said, laughing. 'I've killed the
white tiger.'

"'Killed the white tiger, sahib! Allah bless you for that!' Cushai
replied.

"'But don't laugh too soon. Nahra was a clever man, wonderfully clever;
he did not speak empty words,' and as his eyes wandered to the dark
hills again I fancied a shadow darted along the sky, and the curse came
back to my ears.

"I was superintending the line one afternoon; the backs of the niggers
were bending double under the burden of the great iron rods when I heard
a terrible cry.

"'The white tiger! the white tiger!' Rods fell with a crash, spades
followed suit, a chorus of shrieks filled the air, and legs scampered
off in all directions. I was fifty yards from my rifle, and a huge
creature was slowly approaching between it and me.

"I could hardly believe my eyes--the white tiger, the tiger I knew I had
killed! Here it was! Here before me! The same in every detail, and yet
in some strange, indefinable manner not the same. On it came, a huge
patch of luminous white, noiselessly, stealthily--the mark of the bullet
plainly visible on its big, flat forehead. Step by step it approached
me, its paws no longer with the colouring of health, but dull and worn.
And as it came, the cold shadow of desolation seemed to fall around it.
Nothing stirred; there was no noise whatever, not even the sound of its
feet crushing the loosened soil. On, on, on nearer, nearer and nearer.

"Shunned by all, avoided by its fellow-creatures of the jungle, a blight
to all and everything, it drew in a line with me. Not once did its eyes
meet mine, O'Donnell; not once did it glare at the natives who were
hiding on the banks of the