ce and had spent hours in the
wonderful temples and ruins, the Maharajah announced with considerable
pride at breakfast one morning that he had got up a tiger-hunt in our
special honour.

Lord Southminster rubbed his hands.

'Ha, that's right, Maharaj,' he said, briskly. 'I do love big game. To
tell yah the truth, old man, that's just what I came heah for.'

'You do me too much honour,' the Hindoo answered, with quiet sarcasm.
'My town and palace may have little to offer that is worth your
attention; but I am glad that my big game, at least, has been lucky
enough to attract you.'

The remark was thrown away on the pea-green young man. He had described
his host to me as 'a black boundah.' Out of his own mouth I condemned
him--he supplied the very word--he was himself nothing more than a born
bounder.

[Illustration: A TIGER-HUNT IS NOT A THING TO BE GOT UP LIGHTLY.]

During the next few days, the preparations for the tiger-hunt occupied
all the Maharajah's energies. 'You know, Miss Cayley,' he said to me, as
we stood upon the big stairs, looking down on the Hindoo city, 'a
tiger-hunt is not a thing to be got up lightly. Our people themselves
don't like killing a tiger. They reverence it too much. They're afraid
its spirit might haunt them afterwards and bring them bad luck. That's
one of our superstitions.'

'You do not share it yourself, then?' I asked.

He drew himself up and opened his palms, with a twinkling of pendant
emeralds. 'I am royal,' he answered, with naive dignity, 'and the tiger
is a royal beast. Kings know the ways of kings. If a king kills what is
kingly, it owes him no grudge for it. But if a common man or a low caste
man were to kill a tiger--who can say what might happen?'

I saw he was not himself quite free from the superstition.

'Our peasants,' he went on, fixing me with his great black eyes, 'won't
even mention the tiger by name, for fear of offending him: they believe
him to be the dwelling-place of a powerful spirit. If they wish to speak
of him, they say, "the great beast," or "my lord, the striped one." Some
think the spirit is immortal except at the hands of a king. But they
have no objection to see him destroyed by others. They will even point
out his whereabouts, and rejoice over his death; for it relieves the
village of a serious enemy, and they believe the spirit will only haunt
the huts of those who actually kill him.'

'Then you know where each tiger lives?' I asked.

'A