Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1894-06-09

from Thear Homes by the Fer0Ct0us OAR
Ing Of Bold aad Bloodthirsty Ruler Of
the Jansles.
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 sheet of copper
lay at the blacksmith's forge half bent to
make some vessel, but precipitately aban-
doned. Wherever one gazed there were
signs of 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 sp-
pearance Of her would have startled the
party very much more than it did but
for a discovery made by the sahib's
ghorawallah-the groom-close by the
silent and empty temple. There was
muddy patch there in the square, from
which the last of the rainwater had but
recently dried mp. and in the black slime
so left were deeply imprinted the .puds"
of an evidently immense tiger. 1t was
of course evident now to the English
man and those with him that the striped
terror which left those footrnarks had
given the villagers notice to quit and
was somewhere or other near ut 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 portico 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 dyer's shop, where
two or three newly stained turban cloths
still hung upon walls to dry, they came
of mud hut, evidently dragged off
from the broken charpoy on the earthen
floor. lay the body of woman, torn on
the delicate brown neck and along the
shoulders and breast with long red claw
marks. A dead infant, also mangled by
q savage bite, lay half concealed under
the corpse. the appearance of the bodies
showing that they had only been lately
killed. No one could doubt what had
| killed them. The sign manual upon
their bodies was surely that of the royal
beast who often in this way disputes the
| right of his human 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 the closing up of the
three or four servants 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 ill fated gaum.
At its 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 tine branches of a large
mango tree from which could be seen
both entrances of the village. He had
made rude platform in fork Of the
tree and watched on it with the long
barrel of a 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-
scendcd and informed them that for
months past his village had been infested
and prosecuted by a 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 bull
lets, and then it turned out that she
had half grown cub which had lost q
limb, and thus the maternal affection Of
the ferocious parent had driven it to
these desperate ways. Indeed the 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