grasses and thickets. The hunt now began in earnest. Hot, flushed,
scratched as to the face by the tall reeds, rolling on my ungainly
animal's back as if I were hunting in an open boat on a chopping
sea, I had the additional nervous distraction of seeing many sorts
of game--deer, wild-hogs, peafowl, partridges--careering about in the
most exasperating manner immediately under my gun-muzzle. To add to my
dissatisfaction, presently I saw a wild-hog dash out of a thicket
with her young litter immediately across our path, and as my elephant
stepped excitedly along one of his big fore feet crunched directly
down on a beautiful little pig, bringing a quickly-smothered squeak
which made me quite cower before the eye of Bhima Gandharva as he
stood looking calmly forward beside me. So we tramped on through the
thickets and grasses. An hour passed; the deployed huntsmen had
again drawn in together, somewhat bored; we were all red-faced and
twig-tattooed; no tiger was to be found; we gathered into a sort of
circle and were looking at each other with that half-foolish, half-mad
disconsolateness which men's faces show when they are unsuccessfully
engaged in a matter which does not amount to much even after it _is_
successfully achieved,--when suddenly my elephant flourished his
trunk, uttered a shrill trumpeting sound, and dashed violently to one
side, just as I saw a grand tiger, whose coat seemed to be all alive
with throbbing spots, flying through the air past me to the haunches
of the less wary elephant beside which mine had been walking.
Instantly the whole party was in commotion. "_Bagh! bagh!_" yelled the
mahauts and attendants: the elephants trumpeted and charged hither and
thither. The tiger seemed to become fairly insane under the fusillade
which greeted him; he leapt so desperately from one side to the other
as to appear for a few moments almost ubiquitous, while at every
discharge the frantic natives screamed "_Lugga! lugga!_" without
in the least knowing whether he _was_ hit (_lugga_) or not, till