t of a peacock, and the rest
the deepest toned thunder. Stones and gravel rattled just behind the hut
on the path by which we came, and went, and a heavy step passed and
descended the slope into the nullah. I heard the sand crunching under
his weight before I dared to look. A little peep. Oh, heavens! looming
in the moonlight, there he stood, long, sleek as satin, and lashing his
tail--he stood stationary, smelling the slaughtered cow. No longer the
cautious, creeping tiger, I felt how awful a brute he was to offend. I
remembered how he had worried a strong cow in half a minute, and that,
with his weight alone, my poor rickety little citadel would fall to
pieces. As if the excitement of the moment was insufficient, the
monster, gazing down the dry watercourse, caught sight of his
companion, who, advancing up the bed of the nullah, stood irresolutely
about twenty yards off. The bully, who was evidently the male, after
smelling at the head, came round the carcass, making a sort of
complaisant purring--"humming a kind of animal song," and to it he went
tooth and nail.

As he stood with his two fore feet on the haunch, while he tugged and
tore out a beef-steak, I once more grasped old "Sam Nock," and ran the
muzzle out of the little port. The white linen band marked a line behind
his shoulders, and rather low, but, from the continued motion of his
body, it was some moments before eye and finger agreed to pull
trigger--bang! A shower of sand rattled on the dry leaves, and a roar of
rage and pain satisfied me, even before the white smoke, which hung in
the still air, had cleared away, to show the huge monster writhing and
plunging where he had fallen. Either directed by the fire, or by some
slight noise made in the agitation of the moment, he saw me, and, with a
hideous yell, scrambled up: the roaring thunder of his voice filled the
valley, and the echoes among the hills answered it, with the hootings of
tribes of monkeys, who, scared out of sleep, sought the highest
branches, at the sound of the well-known voice of the tyrant of the
jungle. I immediately perceived, to my great joy, that his hind quarters
were paralyzed and useless, and that all danger was out of the
question. He sank down again on his elbows, and as he rested his now
powerless limbs, I saw the blood welling out of a wound in the loins, as
it shone in the moonlight, and trickled off his sleek-painted hide, like
globules of quicksilver. As I looked into his co