up again. "I shall enter the drain this time and rouse the animal
myself!"

So he really did. He went in, holding the bamboo in front of him, and
pausing at each step. The farther in he went, the more his
self-confidence failed him. The drain was high enough to allow of his
standing in it with his back and head bent down; wherefore, if an
encounter with the spotted fiend were to take place, the retreat of the
man would not be an easy matter.

"Master must think me very brave," he was soliloquising on his
subterranean march, when he received a sudden shock that nearly stopped
his heart and froze the blood in his veins. He had actually touched
something soft with the end of his bamboo, and not only that, but he
fancied he heard a growl.

He quickly turned round to escape, when a violent push knocked him down,
and he fell almost senseless and bleeding all over.

"Bang!" went the rifle outside just as the screams of: "Master, aahi,
aahi, kill, kill, kill," were echoing in the drain; and the leopard with
a broken hind leg rolled over on the ground groaning fiercely, by-and-by
trying to retrace its steps to its domicile. The poor Corean lay
perplexed, looking at the scene, all lighted up by the beautiful
moonlight; and his heart bounded with joy, when, after the second or
third report of the gun, he saw shot dead the animal that had already
reached the opening of the drain.

As his master appeared, rifle in hand, and touched the dead beast, his
valiant qualities returned to him in full, and he got out of the drain.