“Ugly, isn’t it?” he went on; “and to think I have been doctoring up these fellows for the last thirty years--saving their lives, sir, by wholesale. If I had known what had been coming I would have dosed them with arsenic with as little remorse as I should feel in shooting a tiger’s whelp. Well, there is one satisfaction, the Major has already done something towards turning the courthouse into a fortress, and I fancy a good many of the scoundrels will go down before they take it, that is, if they don’t fall on us unawares. I have been a noncombatant all my life, but if I can shoot a tiger on the spring I fancy I can hit a Sepoy. By Jove, Bathurst, that juggler’s picture you told me of is likely to come true after all!” “I wish to Heaven it was!” Bathurst said gloomily; “I could look without dread at whatever is coming as far as I am concerned, if I could believe it possible that I should be fighting as I saw myself there.” “Pooh, nonsense, lad!” the Doctor said. “Knowing what I know of you, I have no doubt that, though you may feel nervous at first, you will get over it in time.” Bathurst shook his head. “I know myself too well, Doctor, to indulge in any such hopes. Now you see we are going out tiger hunting. At present, now, as far as I am concerned, I should feel much less nervous if I knew I was going to enter the jungle on foot with only this spear, than I do at the thought that you are going to fire that rifle a few paces from me.” “You will scarcely notice it in the excitement,” the Doctor said. “In cold blood I admit you might feel it, but I don’t think you will when you see the tiger spring out from the jungle at us. But here we are. That is the nullah in which they say the tiger retires at night. I expect the beaters are lying all round in readiness, and as soon as we have taken up our station at its mouth they will begin.” A shikari came up as they approached the spot. “The tiger went out last night, sahib, and finished the cow; he came back before daylight, and the beaters are all in readiness to begin.” The elephants were soon in position at the mouth of the ravine, which was some thirty yards across. At about the same distance in front of them the jungle of high, coarse grass and thick bush began. “If you were going to shoot, Bathurst, we would take post one each side, but as you are not going to I will place myself nearly in the center, and if you are between me and the rocks the tiger is pretty certain to go on the other side, as it will seem the most open to him. Now we are ready,” he said to the shikari. The latter waved a white rag on the top of a long stick, and at the signal a tremendous hubbub of gongs and tom toms, mingled with the shouts of numbers of the men, arose. The Doctor looked across at his companion. His face was white and set, his muscles twitched convulsively; he was looking straight in front of him, his teeth set hard.