The herald., 1893-08-15

From Their Homes by the Ferocious Dar-
ing of Bold and Bloodtl,irsty Ruler Of
the Jungles.
AS the party of sahib one Indian even
ing came down the hillside by the widen
ing path to the jungle village, no sound
whatever arose from its few and humble
habitations Nobody came out to make
salutation or to offer supplies. No cat
tie were perceived wandering about, no
children, no birds, except indeed many
vultures upon the tree in the square and
upon the temple roof The pots in the
grain dealers shop were empty and over
turned; piece of cloth just begun was
left with broken threads upon the loom
IN the next hut. On the other side of the
way the chatties at potter's were tum-
bled and broken, and q sheet of copper
lay at the blacksmith's forge half bent to
make some vessel. but precipitately aban-
donod. Wherever one gazed there were
signs of a hasty fight on the part Of the
inhabitants, who did not seem to have
left anybody to represent them.
Yes, there was one silent and melan-
choly representative, and the sudden ap-
pearance Of her would have startled the
party very much more than it did but
for discovery made by the sahib's
ghorawallah--the groom-close by the
silent and empty temple. There was q
muddy patch there in the square, from
which the last of the rainwater had but
recently dried up, and in the black slime
SO left were deeply imprinted the ''puds"
of an evidently immense tiger. It was
of course evident now to the English
man and those with him that the striped
terror which left those footmarks had
given the villagers notice to quit and
was somewhere or other near at hand
in practical possession of the fee simple
of the village
Desolate beyond expression was the
little unpeopled place" Of the hamlet,
and the look Of the helpless red god
staring from his poptico upon the huts
that he could not protect, and the ex-
citement Of the horrible vultures perched
on the cotton trees, aware, no doubt, of
the deadly secret of the place, for round
the corner, by the dver's shop, where
two or three newly stained turban cloths
still hung upon walls to dry, they came
upon that secret. Across the threshold
of a mud hut. evidently dragged off
from the broken charpoy on the earthen
floor. lay the body Of a woman, torn ON
the delicate brown neck and along the
shoulders and breast with long red claw
marks A dead infant, also mangled by
a savage bite, lay half concealed under
the corpse. the appearance of tho bodies
showing that they had only been lately
killed. No one could doubt what had
killed tljeIa. The sign manual upon
their bodies was surely that of the royal
beast who often in this way disputes the
right of hishuman rival in India and roars
to scorn the illusion that man is master
of created things.
The sahib's party was badly equipped
for tiger shooting and passed not with
out anxiety and 10 closing up of the
three or four Sc, .nts and coolies through
the outskirts of the evicted village. at
any moment her ladyship the tigress or
his lordship the tiger, who had taken
possession of the place, might emerge
from grain store or COW pen, or even
from some milk bush or jowari patch, to-
ask the travellers what business they had
upon the royal property The English
man hastily put bullets into both barrels
of his shotgun and walked his horse as
quickly as his men could follow out Of
the i'll fated gaum.
At IT'S outskirts they were astonished
to hear voice high above their heads
which came, as they afterward found,
from young Hindoo low caste man sit
ting concealed in the branches-o of large
mango tree from which could be seen
both entrances Of the village. He had
made rude platform in a fork Of the
tree and watched on it with the long
barrel Of matchbox protruding and by
his side an earthen jar of water. They
invited him to come down and to tell
them the meaning of the extraordinary
spectacle they had witnessed He de-
scended and informed them that for
months pasthis village had been infested
and prosecuted by q tigress which, after
killing cattle and goats, had slain and
partly eaten three or four children out
side the hamlet and had taken during
the past eight or nine days to entering
the village at night and carrying off
somebody or other sleeping, as the Hin
docs do, outside their ,huts under the
verandas. The woman slain that morn
ing with her baby was the wife of the
poor matchbox man, and he had perched
himself in the tree hoping to avenge her
death when the sahib's party passed.
1t was too serious case not to be>re-
ported in the proper quarters, and an
expedition of practiced tiger shooters
was equipped among the officers at the
nearest station. The beast was tracked
and was killed after receiving II buh
let's, and then it turned out that she
had nalf grown cub which had lost
limb, and thus the maternal affection of
the ferocious parent had driven it to
these desperate ways Indeed Cue spec
tacle of that village was full of philo-
sophical suggestiveness. The dead hu-
man mother had been slain by reason Of
the very same instinct which had made
her seek in vain to preserve her child
from the attack of the tigress, driven to
its wits ends to find food for its own
helpless offspring. The tigress was in
her way as tender parent as the low
ing mother whom she murdered, and
then besides there was the whole VII
lage depopulated to make one wonder
what sort of world it would have been