from one side to the other as to appear for a few moments almost ubiquitous, while at every discharge the frantic natives screamed “Lugga! lugga!” without in the least knowing whether he was hit (lugga) or not, till presently, when I supposed he must have received at least forty shots in his body, he fell back from a desperate attempt to scale the back of the rajah’s elephant, and lay quite still.

[Illustration:  BRAHMANS OF BENGAL.]

“I thought that last shot of mine would finish him,” said one of the English civil officials as we all crowded around the magnificent beast.

“Whether it did or not, I distinctly saw him cringe at my shot,” hotly said another.  “There’s always a peculiar look a tiger has when he gets his death-wound:  it’s unmistakable when you once know it.”

“And I’ll engage to eat him,” interjected a third, “if I didn’t blow off the whole side of his face with my smooth-bore when he stuck his muzzle up into my howdah.”

“Gentlemen,” said our leader, a cool and model old hunter, “the shortest way to settle who is the owner of this tiger-skin is to examine the perforations in it.”

Which we all accordingly fell to doing.

“B——­, I’m afraid you’ve a heavy meal ahead of you:  his muzzle is as guiltless of harm as a baby’s,” said one of the claimants.

“Well,” retorted B——­, “but I don’t see any sign of that big bore of yours, either.”

“By Jove!” said the leader in some astonishment as our search proceeded unsuccessfully, “has anybody hit him?  Maybe he died of fright.”

At this moment Bhima Gandharva calmly advanced, lifted up the great fore leg of the tiger and showed us a small blue hole just underneath it:  at the same time he felt along the tiger’s skin on the opposite side to the hole, rolled the bullet about under the cuticle where it had lodged after passing through the animal, and deftly making an incision with his knife drew it forth betwixt his thumb and finger.  He handed it to the gentleman whose guests we were, and to whom the rifle belonged which had been placed in our howdah, and then modestly withdrew from the circle.

“There isn’t another rifle in camp that carries so small a bullet,” said our host, holding up the ball, “and there can’t be the least doubt that the Hindu is the man who killed him.”

Not another bullet-hole was to be found.

“When did you do it?” I asked of Bhima.  “I knew not that you had fired at all.”

“When he made his first leap from the thicket,” he said quietly.  “I feared he was going to land directly on you.  The shot turned him.”

At this the three discomfited claimants of the tiger-skin (which belongs to him who kills) with the heartiest English good-nature burst into roars of laughter, each at himself as well as the others, and warmly shook Bhima’s hand amid a general outbreak of applause from the whole company.