“Good gracious, is that so?”

“Yes, I could tell you even more extraordinary things about his power over elephants; but some day when you’re in the jungle with him you may see it for yourself.  Oh, isn’t it hot?  I do wish we were home.”

Arrived at the dak bungalow the tiger’s carcase was lowered to the ground and given over to the knives of the flayers summoned from the bazaar of Madpur Duar a mile away.  As soon as the news was known in the small town crowds of Hindu women streamed to the bungalow compound, where with their saris (shawls) pulled modestly across their brown faces by rounded arms tinkling with glass bangles they squatted on the ground and waited patiently until the skin was drawn clear off the raw red carcase.  Then they crowded around a couple of the older mahouts who, first cutting off all the firm white fat of the well-fed cattle thief to be melted down for oil (esteemed to be a sovereign remedy for rheumatism), hacked the flesh into chunks which they threw into the eager hands of the women.  These took the meat home to cook for their husbands to eat to instil into them the spirit and vigour of a tiger.  The skin, spread out and pegged to the ground, was covered with wood ashes and left to dry.  Little of the animal was left but the bones, to the disappointment of the wheeling, whistling kites waiting on soaring wings in the sky above.

After tea the two officers took their leave with many expressions of gratitude from the younger man to the girl for her kindness in arranging the beat for him.  Hours afterwards, as they halted in the forest for a rest in the middle of the night, Colonel Dermot said: 

“You told me once that you’d like a job like mine, Wargrave.  Would you care for frontier political work here?”

“I’d love it, sir,” exclaimed the subaltern enthusiastically.  “Would it be possible to get it?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking for some time of applying to the Government of India for an assistant political officer who would help me and take over if I went on leave, but I’d want to train my own man and not merely accept any youngster who was pitchforked into the Department just because he had a father or an uncle with a pull at Simla.  Now, if you like I’ll apply for you, on condition that you’ll work at Bhutanese and the frontier dialects.  I’ll teach them to you.”

“I’d like nothing better, sir.  I’m not bad at languages.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that your Hindustani is very good and idiomatic.  I’ve been watching you and I like your manner with natives.  One must be sympathetic, kind and just, but also firm with them.  Well, I’ll try you.  The rainy season will be on us very soon, and then all outdoor work and sport will be impossible.  One dare not go into the jungle—­it’s too full of malaria and blackwater fever.  The planters and Forest Officers have to cage themselves in wire gauze ‘mosquito houses.’  During the rains you’ll have plenty of time to work at the languages.”