drop, he fired his second shot hurriedly. The first shot had
hit exactly in the centre of the face but just an inch too
low. It knocked the tiger's right eye out and smashed all
the teeth of that side of the jaw. The second shot struck
the tiger in the chest, but too low. What happened then Mr.
Fraser does not exactly know, but he next found himself
lying in front of the tiger, one claw of the beast's right
foot being hooked into his left leg, in this way trying to
draw Mr. Fraser towards him; the other paw was on his right
leg. Mr. Fraser's chin and coat were covered with foam from
the beast's mouth. He tried hard to draw himself out of the
tiger's clutches. Fortunately the beast was not able to see
him, as Mr. Fraser was a little to one side on the animal's
blind side and the tiger's head was up. Suddenly seeing Mr.
Fraser's orderly bolting, he jumped up and went for the man,
and catching him he killed him on the spot. Mr. Fraser had
lost his hat, rifle, and all his cartridges, which had
tumbled out of his pocket. He jumped up, however, and ran to
the man who had his second gun, and to do so had to go
within eight paces of the spot where the tiger was crouching
over his orderly. He heard, in fact, the crunching of the
man's bones and saw the tiger biting the back of the head.
He now took the gun from his man. The latter said that he
had fired both barrels into the tiger--one when he was
crouching over Mr. Fraser, and the other when he was over
the prostrate body of the orderly. The man had fired well
and true, but just too far back, in his anxiety not to hit
the man he would save, instead of the tiger. When afterwards
asked if he was not afraid to hit the Sahib, 'I was very
much afraid indeed,' he replied, 'but dil mazbut karke