[Illustration:  BENGAL WATER-CARRIERS.]

On the next day, after a leisurely breakfast at eight—­the hunt was to begin at midday—­my kind host assigned me an elephant, and his servants proceeded to equip me for the hunt, placing in my howdah brandy, cold tea, cheroots, a rifle, a smooth-bore, ammunition, an umbrella, and finally a blanket.

“And what is the blanket for?” I asked.

“For the wild-bees; and if your elephant happens to stir up a nest of them, the very best thing in the world you can do is to throw it incontinently over your head,” added my host, laughing.

The tiger had been marked down in a spot some three miles from camp, and when our battle-array, which had at first taken up the line of march in a very cozy and gentleman-militia sort of independence, had arrived within a mile of our destination the leader who had been selected to direct our movements caused us all to assume more systematic dispositions, issued orders forbidding a shot to be fired at any sort of game, no matter how tempting, less than the royal object of our chase, and then led the way down the glade, which now began to spread out into lower and wetter ground covered by tall grasses and thickets.  The hunt now began in earnest.  Hot, flushed, scratched as to the face by the tall reeds, rolling on my ungainly animal’s back as if I were hunting in an open boat on a chopping sea, I had the additional nervous distraction of seeing many sorts of game—­deer, wild-hogs, peafowl, partridges—­careering about in the most exasperating manner immediately under my gun-muzzle.  To add to my dissatisfaction, presently I saw a wild-hog dash out of a thicket with her young litter immediately across our path, and as my elephant stepped excitedly along one of his big fore feet crunched directly down on a beautiful little pig, bringing a quickly-smothered squeak which made me quite cower before the eye of Bhima Gandharva as he stood looking calmly forward beside me.  So we tramped on through the thickets and grasses.  An hour passed; the deployed huntsmen had again drawn in together, somewhat bored; we were all red-faced and twig-tattooed; no tiger was to be found; we gathered into a sort of circle and were looking at each other with that half-foolish, half-mad disconsolateness which men’s faces show when they are unsuccessfully engaged in a matter which does not amount to much even after it is successfully achieved,—­when suddenly my elephant flourished his trunk, uttered a shrill trumpeting sound, and dashed violently to one side, just as I saw a grand tiger, whose coat seemed to be all alive with throbbing spots, flying through the air past me to the haunches of the less wary elephant beside which mine had been walking.  Instantly the whole party was in commotion. “Bagh! bagh!” yelled the mahauts and attendants:  the elephants trumpeted and charged hither and thither.  The tiger seemed to become fairly insane under the fusillade which greeted him; he leapt so desperately