"I congratulate you on
your pluck. The highest compliment I can pay you is to say that I forgot
you were there. Not many men would have sat as quiet as you did when the
cartridge missed fire and the brute sprang."
The girl's eyes sparkled and she blushed. His praise was very dear to her.
In a lighter tone he continued:
"As a reward and a souvenir you shall have the skin. I'll get the
villagers to take it off. Now stay on Badshah, please, while I slip down
and have a look at the tiger's little nest."
With rifle at the ready, lest the dead animal should have had a mate,
he climbed down into the _nullah_. He had not gone ten yards before his
foot struck against something hard. In the pressed-down weeds was the
half-gnawed skull of a man. The skin and flesh of the face were fairly
intact. He took the head up in his hands. On the forehead were painted
three white horizontal strokes. The tiger's last prey had been a
Brahmin. A thought flashed across Dermot's mind. He searched about.
A few bones, parts of the hands and feet, some rags of clothing--and
a long flat narrow leather case. He tore this open and hastily took
out the papers it contained; and as he skimmed through them his eyes
glistened with delight.
He sprang up out of the _nullah_ and ran towards Badshah. When the
elephant's trunk had swung him up on to the massive head he said:
"We must go back at once.
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