engaged the attention of the first tiger which came to drink, and
discharged arrow after arrow into its body with unfailing power and
precision. So entrancing, indeed, had the pursuit become that the next
seven days lengthened out into the apparent period of as many moons,
in such a leisurely manner did they rise and fall. On the appointed
day, without waiting for the evening to arrive, the youth set out with
the first appearance of light, and penetrated into the most
inaccessible jungles, crying aloud words of taunt-laden challenge to
all the beasts therein, and accusing the ancestors of their race of
every imaginable variety of evil behaviour. Yet so great had become
the renown of the one who stood forth, and so widely had the warning
voice been passed from tree to tree, preparing all who dwelt in the
forest against his anger, that not even the fiercest replied openly,
though low growls and mutterings proceeded from every cave within a
bow-shot's distance around. Wearying quickly of such feeble and
timorous demonstrations, the youth rushed into the cave from which the
loudest murmurs proceeded, and there discovered a tiger of unnatural
size, surrounded by the bones of innumerable ones whom it had
devoured; for from time to time its ravages became so great and
unbearable, that armies were raised in the neighbouring villages and
sent to destroy it, but more than a few stragglers never returned.
Plainly recognizing that a just and inevitable vengeance had overtaken
it, the tiger made only a very inferior exhibition of resistance, and
the youth, having first stunned it with a blow of his closed hand,
seized it by the middle, and repeatedly dashed its head against the
rocky sides of its retreat. He then performed for the third time the
ceremony enjoined by the Mandarin, and having cast upon the cringing
and despicable forms concealed in the surrounding woods and caves a
look of dignified and ineffable contempt, set out upon his homeward
journey, and in the space of three days' time reached the town of the