I was conscious of some terrible unknown impending danger.  I had experienced the same feeling before on waking from a nightmare, but I knew that the danger now was real.  I felt a shrinking horror, a terrible and nameless fear, and for the life of me I could not move hand or foot.  I was lying on my side, and could distinctly hear the thumping of my heart.  A cold sweat broke out behind my ears and over my neck and chest.  I could analyse my every feeling, and I knew there was some PRESENCE in the tent, and that I was in instant and imminent peril.  Suddenly in the distance a pariah dog gave a prolonged melancholy howl.  As if this had broken the spell which had hitherto bound me, I opened my eyes, and within ten inches of my face, there was a handsome leopardess gazing steadily at me.  Our eyes met, and how long we confronted each other I know not.  It must have been some minutes.  Her eyes contracted and expanded, the pupil elongated and then opened out into a round lustrous globe.  I could see the lithe tail oscillating at its extreme tip, with a gentle waving motion, like that of a cat when hunting birds in the garden.  I seemed to possess no will.  I believe I was under a species of fascination, but we continued our steady stare at each other.

Just then, there was a movement by some of the horses.  The leopard slowly turned her head, and I grasped the revolver which lay under my pillow.  The beautiful spotted monster turned her head for an instant, and shewed her teeth, and then with one bound went through the open side of the tent.  I fired two shots, which were answered with a roar.  The din that followed would have frightened the devil.  It was a beautiful clear night, with a moon at the full, and everything shewed as plainly as at noonday.  The servants uttered exclamations of terror.  The terriers went into an agony of yelps and barks.  The horses snorted, and tried to get loose, and my chowkeydar, who had been asleep on his watch, thinking a band of dacoits were on us, began laying round him with his staff, shouting, Chor, Chor! lagga, lagga, lagga! that is, ‘thief, thief! lay on, lay on, lay on!’

The leopard was hit, and evidently in a terrible temper.  She halted not thirty paces from the tent, beside a jhamun tree, and seemed undecided whether to go on or return and wreak her vengeance on me.  That moment decided her fate.  I snatched down my Express rifle, which was hanging in two loops above my bed, and shot her right through the heart.

I never understood how she could have made her way past dogs, servants, horses, and watchman, right into the tent, without raising some alarm.  It must have been more from curiosity than any hostile design.  I know that my nerves were very rudely shaken, but I became the hero of the Purindaha villagers.  I believe that my night adventure with the leopardess did more to bring them round to a settlement than all my eloquence and figures.