I well deserved his uncomplimentary epithet; for, had the first animal sprung up the low bank on which I stood we would have met face to face. I hurriedly scrambled up again and sat with my rifle ready, until I saw first one man, then another and another, appear in the _nullah_; and finally the whole line of beaters reached us. There had been a tigress in the drive as well; but she had broken out to one side. She passed a tree in which a man had been placed as a "stop"; but, although he flung his _puggri_ in her face, she was not to be turned, and escaped out over the fields. I climbed down again and cautiously approached the tiger, keeping my rifle ready lest there might be some life in him still. I have known a sportsman to walk up to an apparently dead tiger and pull its tail, to be laid low the next moment by a blow from the animal's paw. Some of our coolies threw stones at the body; and as these elicited no response I walked up to the beast and found it dead. As the natives try to steal the whiskers, which they believe to have a certain magical power, I mounted guard until a litter had been made from cut branches to convey the tiger to the village for skinning. Arrived there the local flayers were set to work. The dead brute looked the embodiment of strength; and I marvelled at the masses of muscle the knives disclosed in the thick limbs. The first bullet had struck behind the shoulder; and when the carcass was cut open we found a hole the size of a florin right through the heart. Yet even with this wound the animal had been able to dash across the _nullah_ and spring up the bank. It showed that a tiger shot through the heart could reach and kill a man before falling dead itself. The other wounds were in the foreleg and ribs. The natives did not leave a scrap of flesh on the bones. For it and certain parts of the tiger are supposed to endow anyone who eats them with courage and vigour; and crowds of women came to carry off their husbands' share of the meat. The fat--such layers of it, white and firm, on the well-fed cattle thief--is boiled down for oil, which is considered a sovereign remedy for rheumatism. The skin was pegged out, hair downwards, on the ground and scraped clean, then covered with wood ashes. And the last stage of the proceedings consisted in the beaters being assembled and paid their wages--fourpence a man. Had the drive been unsuccessful, they would have only received twopence each. It seems little reward for disturbing a sleeping tiger; but the coolies were quite satisfied.