"Whether it did or not, I distinctly saw him cringe at _my_ shot," hotly said another. "There's always a peculiar look a tiger has when he gets his death-wound: it's unmistakable when you once know it." "And I'll engage to eat him," interjected a third, "if I didn't blow off the whole side of his face with my smooth-bore when he stuck his muzzle up into my howdah." "Gentlemen," said our leader, a cool and model old hunter, "the shortest way to settle who is the owner of this tiger-skin is to examine the perforations in it." Which we all accordingly fell to doing. "B----, I'm afraid you've a heavy meal ahead of you: his muzzle is as guiltless of harm as a baby's," said one of the claimants. "Well," retorted B----, "but I don't see any sign of that big bore of yours, either." "By Jove!" said the leader in some astonishment as our search proceeded unsuccessfully, "has _anybody_ hit him? Maybe he died of fright." At this moment Bhima Gandharva calmly advanced, lifted up the great fore leg of the tiger and showed us a small blue hole just underneath it: at the same time he felt along the tiger's skin on the opposite side to the hole, rolled the bullet about under the cuticle where it had lodged after passing through the animal, and deftly making an incision with his knife drew it forth betwixt his thumb and finger. He handed it to the gentleman whose guests we were, and to whom the rifle belonged which had been placed in our howdah, and then modestly withdrew from the circle. "There isn't another rifle in camp that carries so small a bullet," said our host, holding up the ball, "and there can't be the least doubt that the Hindu is the man who killed him." Not another bullet-hole was to be found. "When _did_ you do it?" I asked of Bhima. "I knew not that you had fired at all." "When he made his first leap from the thicket," he said quietly. "I feared he was going to land directly on you. The shot turned him." At this the three discomfited claimants of the tiger-skin (which belongs to him who kills) with the heartiest English good-nature burst into roars of laughter, each at himself as well as the others, and warmly shook Bhima's hand amid a general outbreak of applause from the whole company. Then amid a thousand jokes the tiffin-baskets were brought out, and we had a royal lunch while the tiger was "padded"--i.e., placed on one of the unoccupied elephants; and finally we got us back to camp, where the rest of the day was devoted to dinner and cheroots. From the tiger to the town, from the cries of jackals to those of street-venders,--this is an easy transition in India; and it was only the late afternoon of the second day after the tiger-hunt when my companion and I were strolling along the magnificent Esplanade of Calcutta, having cut across the mountains, elephant-back, early in the morning to a station where we caught the down-train. [Illustration: BENGALESE OF LOW CASTE.]