uncanny feeling, the sportsmen watched these serpents uncoil themselves
from each other and glide away and disappear through the grass.

Once, after a long and fruitless day in the jungles, the Maharajah
decided he would try his luck stalking some deer that he spied on the
opposite side of a narrow strip of jungle. He accordingly left his
elephant and began to creep through the long dry bramble-choked grass
with his rifle in his hand. As he pushed his way through the thick
jungle he fancied he heard an animal breathing and then something
crackled. Intent on the deer before him, he concluded that he had
broken a twig or a branch with the end of his rifle and pushed on. As
he emerged from the thicket on the opposite side from where he had
entered, he came face to face with a group of shepherds. They stared
at him in amazement and then, recognising him as their Maharajah, fell
at his feet in rapturous joy. Accustomed as he was to demonstrations
from his people, their abandon struck him as something unusual, and he
was about to question them when they exclamed: "Hoozoor, Dharmabatar,
(Your Honor, Royal Master,) how did you come in safety through that
jungle?" He smiled at their wonderment and was about to chide them
gently when they continued: "An immense tiger has just slain one of
our cows and dragged it into that very jungle from which Your Honor has
emerged." The Maharajah now understood that the sound he had heard as
he pushed his way through the jungle was the tiger enjoying a feed of
his kill, and he felt thankful that he had not stumbled directly upon
it. Like the keen sportsman he was, he signalled his elephant and,
mounting it, secured the feasting tiger with an easy shot.

One cold season, the Viceroy was enjoying a shoot on the Maharajah's
estates. One evening, as they were dressing for dinner, there came
through the stillness of the restful air the "twitter" of a tiger. Do