“I have always,” muttered Nigel, “believed myself to be a man of ordinary courage, but now—­I shall write myself a coward, if not an ass!”

He attempted to laugh at this pleasantry, but the laugh was hollow and seemed to freeze in his gullet as the wail broke forth again, ten times more hideous than at first.  After a time the wail became more continuous, and the watcher began to get used to it.  Then a happy thought flashed into his mind—­this was, perhaps, some sort of mourning for the dead!  He was right.  The duty of the father of the poor youth who had been killed was, for several days after the funeral, to sit alone in his house and chant from sunset till daybreak a death-dirge, or, as it is called, the Tjerita bari.  It was not till next day that this was told to him, but meanwhile the surmise afforded him instantaneous relief.

As if nature sympathised with his feelings, the moon arose at the same time and dispelled the thick darkness, though it was not till much later that, sailing across a clear sky, she poured her bright beams through the tree-tops and finally rested on the dead man’s grave.

By that time Nigel had quite recovered his equanimity, and mentally blotted out the writing of “coward” and “ass” which he had written against himself.  But another trouble now assailed him.  He became sleepy!  Half-a-dozen times at least within half-an-hour he started wide awake under the impression that he was falling off the tree.

“This will never do,” he exclaimed, rising to his feet, resting his rifle in a position of safety, and then stretching himself to his utmost extent so that he became thoroughly awake.  After this “rouser,” as he called it, he sat down again, and almost immediately fell fast asleep.

How long he sat in this condition it is impossible to say, but he opened his eyes at length with an indescribable sensation that something required attention, and the first thing they rested on (for daylight was dawning) was an enormous tiger not forty yards away from him, gliding like a shadow and with cat-like stealth towards the opening of the enclosure.  The sight was so sudden and so unexpected that, for the moment, he was paralysed.  Perhaps he thought it was a dream.  Before he could recover presence of mind to seize his rifle, the breast of the animal had touched the fatal line; the trigger was drawn; the stout bamboo straightened with a booming sound, and the spear—­or, rather, the giant arrow—­was shot straight through the tiger’s side!

Then occurred a scene which might well have induced Nigel to imagine that he dreamt, for the transfixed creature bounded into the enclosure with a terrific roar that rang fearfully through the arches of the hitherto silent forest.  Rushing across the grave, it sprang with one tremendous bound right over the high fence, carrying the spear along with it into the jungle beyond.

By that time Nigel was himself again, with rifle in hand, but too late to fire.  The moment he heard the thud of the tiger’s descent, he slid down the tree, and, forgetful or regardless of danger, went crashing into the jungle, while the yells and shouts of hundreds of aroused natives suggested the peopling of the region with an army of fiends.