“It was terrible. I could do it. There were three cubs. I could get them, but—

“‘But,’ I said to the doctor, ‘the big cats, the father and mother, must first be killed.’

“‘Yes,’ he smiled. And that was all he said.

“I went into the jungle again that night and, as I watched the splendor of the great cats, I said, ‘No, I will never do it! Never! Never!’ And yet I was going to do that very thing. I was going to take a rifle with me, and lie there in that wonderful moonlight to wait for them to come back; sooner than I thought, too.

“It was that night, for the first time, that the old tiger left his mate and the three cubs while I watched them and went away to hunt by himself. Then I was glad, for I always had wished to watch him as he hunted down the blue deer, the buffalo, wild goat or wild pig. So I followed. Creeping after him through the moonlight I lost him many times, for his yellow stripes were like the moonbeams, and the dark ones like wavering shadows. But I always found him again, as he rose to leap along some path or across an open spot in the forest.

“At last I knew that we were nearing the village. ‘Ah!’ I said to myself, ‘so that is your game. You will pick a calf or a fat young pig for your dinner. Perhaps you may not fare as well as that,’ for I decided that I must use my charm to drive him from the village if he went to rob there.

“But, before I had expected it, he began to circle. By that I knew he had scented some prey. Narrower and narrower his circle grew. Greater and greater became my curiosity, for I wondered what kind of prey he could find so near the village and yet not safe in its pen.

“Finally I climbed upon the trunk of a dead tree, and then I saw. My blood ran cold. Out of the village had wandered a child, a little girl of four or five years. She had crept from her bed while others were asleep, and there she was, the pale moonlight glistening from her body, and the tiger not four springs away. Then it was that I saw, saw clear as midday how it was; that all big cats were men’s enemies, and were but to be killed.

“Yet, I could not kill. I had not as much as a knife. I could do but one thing. I had my charm. I must stand between the beast and the child.

“Three leaps brought me in his path. Then I turned and faced him. It was a great and terrible moment. My charm; would it work? He was terribly angry. Lashing his tail, he leaped to 

 Prev. P 64/98 next