particular spot was full of a long sort of reed that grows in swampy ground, so that the people could not see far before them, and, to make a long story short, it seems that the tiger bided his time, sprang suddenly into the party, and gave one of them a fatal bite in the loins.  The moment I heard the three roars, I expected that something disagreeable must have occurred, and, on arrival at the scene of events, I found a fine young fellow of the Lingayet caste lying bathed in blood, and my people vainly endeavouring to stanch the wounds.  He was half swooning away from loss of blood, and I offered him some wine to keep up his strength.  This, however, he refused to take, unless the head man of his village, who happened to be present, would consent.  The head man, evidently wishing to shirk the responsibility, shook his head doubtfully; but the members of his caste all called out—­“It’s no matter; let him drink;” and he drank accordingly.  While this was going on, I had a rough stretcher made, and, doing up his wounds as well as we could, sent him off on the way to his village.  While we were attending to the wounded man, rather an amusing incident occurred.  It appears that when the tiger charged, one of the party, a toddy-drawer, at once climbed up a tree, and when the party retreated, carrying off the wounded, he was afraid to come down.  His absence had not been remarked, and when we were engaged in doing up the wounded man, the toddyman, who had taken heart and come down, slunk quietly out of the jungle, and startled some of the party not a little, as they thought that it was perhaps the tiger coming down on them again.  However, this toddyman reported that the tiger was still almost in the same spot where he had been lying when he made his attack:  and I then proposed we should go into the jungle, and see how we liked the look of him.  But the tiger had given such indications of temper that the main body of the people seemed to have no desire to see him again, and I think that only ten (and those mostly my own people) accompanied me.  As I was, Europeanly speaking, single-handed, this may have seemed an imprudent course, and no doubt it was not altogether unattended with danger; but it luckily turned out that the tiger was stone dead, though he was lying in such a natural position that we had some doubts as to whether he might not be shamming, even when we got within fifteen yards of him.  As we were skinning the tiger, the wounded man (who had by that time only been carried a few hundred yards) expired:  so, observing that it was “written on his forehead,"[45] we took up our man and our skin, and went home.