These men, perched
as they are on the elephant's neck, carry their lives in their hand,
for should the tiger be wounded only, he will certainly make a spring
for the elephant's head, and then the mahout is a dead man.
Incidentally the "gun" in the howdah will not fare much better in that
case. The mahout, should he have but small confidence in his
passenger's marksmanship, will make the elephant fidget so that it
becomes impossible to fire.
Two days later we were beating a patch of jungle, when, through the
thick undergrowth, I could just see four legs, moving very, very
slowly amongst the reeds, the body above them being invisible. "Bagh"
(tiger), whispered the mahout, turning round. I was so excited that I
snatched up the heavy elephant-rifle instead of the Express, and fired
just above those slow-slouching legs. The big rifle went off with a
noise like an air-raid, and knocked me with mangled shoulder-blades
into the seat of the howdah. I was sure that I had missed altogether,
and thought no more about it, but when the beat came up half an hour
later, a huge tiger was lying there stone dead. That, of course, was
an absolute piece of luck, a mere fluke, as I had never even seen the
brute. As soon as the Maharajah and his men had examined the big
tiger's teeth they at once pronounced him a man-eater, and there was
great rejoicing, for a man-eating tiger had been taking toll of the
villagers in one of the jungle clearings.
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