But even the royal tiger never forgets some small measure of its caution.  She did not charge at once.  The game looked so easy that it was in some way suggestive of a trap.  She crept forward, a few feet at a time.  The wild blood began to leap through the great veins.  The hair went stiff on the neck muscles.

But Warwick shouted; and the sound for an instant appalled her.  She lurked in the shadows.  And then, as she made a false step, Warwick heard her for the first time.

Again she crept forward, to pause when Warwick raised his voice the second time.  The man knew enough to call at intervals rather than continuously.  A long, continued outcry would very likely stretch the tiger’s nerves to a breaking point and hurl her into a frenzy that would probably result in a death-dealing charge.  Every few seconds he called again.  In the intervals between the tiger crept forward.  Her excitement grew upon her.  She crouched lower.  Her sinewy tail had whipped softly at first; now it was lashing almost to her sides.  And finally it began to have a slight vertical movement that Warwick, fortunately for his spirit, could not see.

Then the little light that the moon poured down was suddenly reflected in Nahara’s eyes.  All at once they burned out of the dusk; two blue-green circles of fire fifty feet distant in the darkness.  At that Warwick gasped—­for the first time.  In another moment the great cat would be in range—­and he had not yet found the knife.  Nothing remained to believe but that it was lost in the mud of the ford, fifty feet distant, and that the last dread avenue of escape was cut off.

But at that instant the gasp gave way to a whispered oath of wonder.  Some living creature was running lightly down the trail toward him—­soft, light feet that came with amazing swiftness.  For once in his life Warwick did not know where he stood.  For once he was the chief figure of a situation he did not entirely understand.  He tried to probe into the darkness with his tired eyes.

“Here I am!” he called.  The tiger, starting to creep forward once more, halted at the voice.  A small straight figure sped like an arrow out of the thickets and halted at his side.

It was such an astounding appearance as for an instant completely paralyzes the mental faculties.  Warwick’s first emotion was simply a great and hopeless astonishment.  Long inured to the mystery of the jungle, he thought he had passed the point where any earthly happening could actually bewilder him.  But in spite of it, in spite of the fire-eyed peril in the darkness, he was quite himself when he spoke.  The voice that came out of the silence was wholly steady—­a kindly, almost amused voice of one who knows life as it is and who has mastered his own destiny.

“Who in the world?” he asked in the vernacular.

“It is I—­Little Shikara,” a tremulous voice answered.  Except for the tremor he could not keep from his tone, he spoke as one man to another.