He leaped from the bed, with his rifle out in front of him—­ white-nightshirted and unexpected—­sudden enough to scare the wits out of anything that had them.  He was met by a snarl.  The two eyes narrowed, and then blazed.  They lowered, as though their owner gathered up his weight to spring.  He fired between them.  The flash and the smoke blinded him; the burst of the discharge within four echoing walls deadened his cars, and he was aware of nothing but a voice beside him that said quietly:  “Well done, bahadur!  Thou art thy father’s son!”

He dropped his rifle butt to the floor, and some one struck a light.  Even then it was thirty seconds before his strained eyes grew accustomed to the flare and he could see the tiger at his feet, less than a yard away—­dead, bleeding, wide-eyed, obviously taken by surprise and shot as he prepared to spring.  Beside him, within a yard, Mahommed Gunga stood, with a drawn sabre in his right hand and a pistol in his left, and there were three other men standing like statues by the walls.

“How long have you been here?” demanded Cunningham.

“A half-hour, sahib.”

“Why?”

“In case of need, sahib.  That tiger killed a woman yesterday at dawn and was driven off his kill; he was not likely to be an easy mark for an untried hunter.”

“Why did you enter without knocking?”

The ex-risaldar said nothing.

“I see that you have shoes on.”

“The scorpions, sahib—­”

“Would you be pleased, Mahommed Gunga, if I entered your house with my hat on and without knocking or without permission?”

“Sahib, I—­”

“Be good enough to have that brute’s carcass dragged out and skinned, and—­ah—­leave me to sleep, will you?”

Mahommed Gunga bowed, and growled an order; another man passed the order on, and the tom-tom thundering began again as a dozen villagers pattered in to take away the tiger.

“Tell them, please,” commanded Cunningham, “that that racket is to cease.  I want to sleep.”

Again Mahommed Gunga bowed, without a smile or a tremor on his face; again a growled order was echoed and re-echoed through the dark.  The drumming stopped.

“Is there oil in the bahadur’s lamp?” asked Mahommed Gunga.

“Probably not,” said Cunningham.

“I will command that—­”

“You needn’t trouble, thank you, risaldar-sahib.  I sleep better in the dark.  I’ll be glad to see you after breakfast as usual—­ah—­ without your shoes, unless you come in uniform.  Good night.”

The Rajput signed to the others and withdrew with dignity.  Cunningham reloaded his rifle in the dark and lay down.  Within five minutes the swinging of the punka and the squeaking of the rope resumed, but regularly this time; Mahommed Gunga had apparently unearthed a man who understood the business.  Reaction, the intermittent coolth, as the mat fan swung above his face, the steady, evenly timed squeak and movement —­not least, the calm of well-asserted dignity—­all joined to have one way, and Chota-Cunnigan-bahadur slept, to dream of fire-eyed tigers dancing on tombstones laid on the roof of hell, and of a grandfather in full general’s uniform, who said:  “Well done, bahadur!”