The candle burned more dimly, but the Hindu's eye grew more bright, while his face and that of my brother-officer darkened in the shade. Now and then the wretched light flickered and danced, and as the little flame played about, the smile upon the old man's lips grew more ghastly, till it broadened into a laugh that sent a shiver through me. The light grew more dim and the shadows deeper, then darker still, and rapidly darker, till the room was quite black, and the old Hindu's face was completely blotted out, but I knew he was creeping nearer and nearer, and felt that he had by slow degrees reached the side of Brace's charpoy, and was bending himself down, till his fingers, now spread out like the long ugly talons of some horrible bird of prey, were within a few inches of poor Brace's throat, then nearer and nearer till he seized his prey, and as a dull, low sound of painful breathing rose in the dark room, I knew that it was time to swing my arm round, snatching the sword from the scabbard, and laying the horrible old miscreant lifeless upon the floor. The time had come, my right arm was across my chest, my hand tightly holding my sword-hilt, but that arm was now heavy as lead, and I tried in vain as I lay there upon my back to drag out that blade. But it was impossible. I was as if turned to stone, and the horrible gurgling breathing went on, heard quite plainly as I lay in that terrible state. How I tried to struggle, and how helpless I felt, while the mental agony was terrible, as I seemed to see the old wretch's features distorted with a horrible joy at his success, and I knew that as soon as poor Brace was dead, he would come over and find me an easy victim, and then I should never see the light of another day; I should never meet father, mother, sister again out on the hot plains of India; and the guns would never be recaptured; and yet they seemed so near, with the wheels sinking deeper, and ploughing those deep ruts which I was walking in with one foot, so as to keep to the track, for poor Brace was so set upon recovering them; and now he was dead, it was ten times my duty to keep on and get them, if the old Hindu would only spare my life. Poor old Brace! and I had thought him a coward, and yet how brave and determined he was, but yet how helpless now that the tiger had crept up closely and sprung into the howdah to force him back and plant its talons in his throat. No, it was not the tiger, it was the Hindu, the old old-looking man with the bony fingers. No, the tiger, and it was not Brace who was making a horrible, strangling noise, but the elephant snorting and gurgling and moving its trunk in the air, instead of snatching out its bright sword and with one stroke cutting off the tiger's--the Hindu's--the tiger's head, because it had left its sword in its quarters when it went out shooting that morning, and it had all grown so dark, and its arm was as heavy as lead, because I was turned