“I was superintending the line one afternoon; the backs of the niggers were bending double under the burden of the great iron rods when I heard a terrible cry.

“‘The white tiger! the white tiger!’ Rods fell with a crash, spades followed suit, a chorus of shrieks filled the air, and legs scampered off in all directions.  I was fifty yards from my rifle, and a huge creature was slowly approaching between it and me.

“I could hardly believe my eyes—­the white tiger, the tiger I knew I had killed!  Here it was!  Here before me!  The same in every detail, and yet in some strange, indefinable manner not the same.  On it came, a huge patch of luminous white, noiselessly, stealthily—­the mark of the bullet plainly visible on its big, flat forehead.  Step by step it approached me, its paws no longer with the colouring of health, but dull and worn.  And as it came, the cold shadow of desolation seemed to fall around it.  Nothing stirred; there was no noise whatever, not even the sound of its feet crushing the loosened soil.  On, on, on nearer, nearer and nearer.

“Shunned by all, avoided by its fellow-creatures of the jungle, a blight to all and everything, it drew in a line with me.  Not once did its eyes meet mine, O’Donnell; not once did it glare at the natives who were hiding on the banks of the cutting; but it stole silently on its way with a something in its movements that left no doubt but that it was engaged in no casual venture.  I remembered, O’Donnell, that my wife had promised to come with Eric to meet me along the cutting, as she was sure no tiger would be there.  I ran as fast as I could, and yet somehow my feet seemed weighted down.  I cursed my folly for not forbidding my wife to come.

“It was uphill till I got to the bend, and it might have been a mountain, it seemed so steep.  I knew if the thing I had seen met them a little farther on, they would be cornered, as the cutting narrowed very much, leaving not more than twenty yards, and that was a generous estimate.  At last, after what seemed an eternity, I reached the summit of the slope; the tiger was a mere speck along the line.  I rushed after it as fast as I could go, stumbling, half falling, pulling myself together, and tearing on, and the faster I went the quicker moved the great white figure.  A feeling of despair seized me; all my fondness for my wife became intensified tenfold, and was revealed to me then in its true nature; she was the one great tie that made life dear to me.  Even my love for Eric paled away before the blinding affection I bore her.  I tore madly on, shouting at the same time, anything to make the white tiger aware of my presence, to keep it from seeing her.  Another bend in the road hid it from view.  The same hideous fears gripped me hard and fast, as I strained every muscle in the mad pursuit.  At last I ran round the curve, and saw before me the tableau I had dreaded.  The tiger was crouching, ready to spring on the group of three—­Eva, Eric