The air was rent with jubilant shouts as the natives emerged from their hiding-places in the grass and ran towards the prostrate beast. They started back in affright when it made a last convulsive effort to rise. John put it out of pain with another shot, and the natives surrounded it and immediately set about cutting it up. "Thanks, old man," said Ferrier, coming up. "That’s the second time." "I say, what’s the penalty for shooting a rhino without a licence?" cried John, to cover his embarrassment. "The same as if you shot an armed burglar breaking into your house: the thanks of every honest man for ridding the world of a villain." Said Mohammed, who had watched the incident from a safe distance, wondered that two young men should talk so strangely at a time when they ought to have been overcome with emotion. That is the English way. John had once seen M. Perrichon in the play fling his arms round his preserver’s neck and weep with gratitude. "What sickening rot!" he had said. "Come and have an ice." While the natives were cutting up the rhinoceros, the others marched on. They had no need to shoot more for the larder; there was at least a ton of meat on the huge carcase, which would last for several days. It was now a question of finding the track of lions. John went ahead with Bill, Ferrier walking with Said Mohammed a few yards behind. The Bengali was talking, and his high-pitched voice carried well in the crisp, clear air. John heard him say-- "In my humble opinion, sir, backed by inestimable experience in the Sunderbunds, it was deplorable error of judgment to bunk. My uncle, sir, on that never-to-be-forgotten occasion when I shed the light of my countenance on his tiger-hunt, he put the tiger to dumbfounder and flight--how, sir? By standing firm as a rock, ’without or life or motion,’ as the poet Coleridge beautifully says, and staring with unflinching gaze into the opposing optics. Moreover and in addition, he recited with unfaltering lips the words of a charm he had learnt from some old cock of a jogi--you have no word for that in your lovely lingo, sir, but, without disrespect, I might say parson. Tableau! Exit tiger. Triumph of mind over matter. ’He held him with his glittering eye,’ et cetera." "’The man recovered from the bite, The dog it was that died,’" quoted Ferrier. "Oliver Goldsmith, sir," cried the Bengali delightedly, "who wrote like an angel but talked like poor Poll. I esteem it a glorious privilege to hold communion, even in humble capacity of cook and bottle-washer, with gentleman of literary taste and elegant extracts."