ut giving me notice, and without putting oil in my lamp, I'll have
him fed to the tiger before he's brought into my room? Just tell him
that quietly, will you? Say it slowly so that it sinks in. Thanks."

Straight-faced as Cunningham himself, the Risaldar tongue-lashed
the servant with harsh, tooth-rasping words that brought him up to
attention. Whether he interpreted or not the exact meaning of what
Cunningham had said, he at least produced the desired effect;
the servant mumbled apologetic nothings and slunk off the veranda
backward--to go away and hold his sides with laughter at the back of the
dak-bungalow. There Mahommed Gunga found him afterward and administered
a thrashing--not, as he was careful to explain, for disobedience, but
for having dared to be amused at the Risaldar's discomfiture.

But there was still one point that weighed heavily on Mahommed Gunga's
mind as the servant shuffled off and left him alone face to face with
Cunningham. There is as a very general rule not more than one man-eating
tiger in a neighborhood, and not even the greenest specimen of subaltern
new brought from home would be likely to mistake one for the other kind.
The man-eater was dead, and there was an engagement to shoot one that
very morning. He hesitated--said nothing for the moment--and wondered
whether his best course would be to go ahead and pretend to beat out the
jungle and tell some lie or other about the tiger having got away. But
Ralph Cunningham, with serious gray eyes fixed full on his, saved him
the trouble of deciding.

"If it's all one to you, Mahommed Gunga," he said, the corner of his
mouth just flickering, "we'll move on from here at once. This is a
beastly old bungalow to sleep in, and shooting tigers don't seem so
terribly exciting to me. Besides, the climate here must be rotten for
the horses."

"As you wish, sahib."

"Very well--if the choice rests with me, I wish it. It might--ah--save
the villagers a lot of hard work beating through the jungle, mightn't
it--besides, there'll be other tigers on the road."

"Innumerable tigers, sahib."

"Good. Will you order a start then?"

The Risaldar departed round the corner of the bungalow, and a minute or
two later Cunningham's ears caught the sound of a riding-switch, lustily
applied, and of muffled groans. He suspected readily enough what was
going on, particularly since his servant was not in evidence, but he
dared not laugh on the veranda. He went inside,