The day of the tiger-hunt was at last close at hand. A vast deal of communication and counter communication had taken place with the sultan, whose people were making great preparations for the event. The sultan was constantly sending messengers, and asking that stores might be given him with plenty of ammunition. Not, though, in any mean begging spirit, for whenever a couple of his chiefs came with some request, they were accompanied by a train of followers bearing presents--food, supplies of the finest rice, sugar-cane, and fruit; buffaloes and poultry; slabs of tin, little bags of gold dust, specimens of the native work; an abundance, in short, of useful and valuable things, all of which were accepted; though there was a grim feeling in the mind of Mr Linton that pretty well everything had been taken by force, from some of the sultan's miserable subjects. Still the policy was, to be on the best of terms with the sultan, and to hope to introduce reforms in his rule by degrees. The resident took the old school copy-book moral into consideration, that example was better than precept, and knowing full well that any sweeping code of rules and regulations would produce distaste, certain hatred, and perhaps a rising against the English rule, he determined to introduce little improvements by degrees, each to be, he hoped, tiny seeds from which would grow grand and substantial trees. The tiger-hunt was being prepared for evidently with childlike delight, and instead of its being a few hours' expedition, it proved that it was to be an affair of a week. Tents were to be taken, huts to be formed, and quite a large district swept of the dangerous beasts. For as the sultan informed the English officers, the tigers had been unmolested for quite two years, and saving one or two taken in pitfalls, they had escaped almost scot free. The consequence of this was, that several poor Malays had been carried off from their rice-fields, and at least a dozen unfortunate Chinamen from the neighbourhood of some tin mines a few miles away. "I never meant to enter into such an extensive affair, gentlemen," said the resident to Major Sandars and Captain Horton after dinner one day, when they had all been entertained at the mess-room. "I almost think we ought to draw back before it is too late." "Well, I don't know," said Major Sandars. "It will please the sultan if we take a lot of men, and this is rather a stagnating life. I frankly tell you I should be very glad of the outing, and I am sure it would do good to the men." "I quite agree with you, Sandars," said Captain Horton; and Bob Roberts and Tom Long, who were opposite one another at the bottom of the table, exchanged glances. "I want a change, and I should be glad to give my lads a turn up the country. Drill's all very well, but it gets wearisome. What do you say, Smithers?"