A fearful sight revealed itself. There was the tigress, hardly eight feet away and extended on her belly, in the act of creeping down the sloping rock towards me. As our eyes met in surprise, we acted simultaneously, the tigress to spring with a nerve-shattering roar, while I ducked down again, at the same moment contracting my trigger finger.

The heavy blast of the rifle, level with and only a few inches from my ears, mingled with that demoniacal roar to create a sound which often till this day haunts me in my dreams and causes me to awaken, shivering with fear.

The brute had not anticipated the presence of the ledge behind which I sheltered, while the blast and blinding flash of the rifle full in her face evidently disconcerted her, deflecting her aim and deviating her purpose from slaughter to escape. She leapt right over my head, and in passing her hind foot caught the muzzle of the rifle a raking blow, so that it was torn from my grasp and went slithering, butt first, down the sloping rock, to fall dully on the soft sand below, where it lay beside the half-eaten corpse. Quicker than the rifle, the tigress herself reached the nullah-bed, and in two bounds and another coughing roar was lost to

view in the thickets of the opposite bank.

Shocked and hardly aware of what had happened, I realised I was unarmed and helpless, and that should the tigress return on her tracks, there was just nothing I could do. At the same time, to descend after the rifle would undoubtedly single me out for attack, if the animal were lying wounded in the bushes of the opposite bank. But anything seemed preferable to indecision and helplessness, and I dived down the slope to retrieve the rifle and scramble back, expecting at each second to hear the awful roar of the attacking killer. But nothing happened, and in less time than it takes to tell I was back at the ledge.

A quick examination revealed that no harm had come to the weapon in its fall, the stock having absorbed the shock. Replacing the spent cartridge, I fell to wondering whether I had hit the tigress at all, or if I had missed her at ridiculously close range. Then I noticed something black and white on the ledge behind me and barely two feet away. Picking it up, I found it was the major portion of the tigress' ear, which had been torn off by my bullet at that close range. It was still warm to my touch, and being mostly of skin and hair, hardly bled along its torn edge. To say that I was disappointed and chagrined could not

describe one-tenth of my emotions. I had failed to kill the man-eater at a point-blank range, failed even to wound her in the true sense. The tearing-off of her ear would hardly

inconvenience her, beyond causing slight local pain for a few days. On the other hand, my foolish miss would teach her never to return to a kill the second time. This would make her all the more cunning, all the more dangerous and all the more destructive, because now she would have to eat when she killed, and then kill again when she felt hungry, increasing her killings beyond what would have been normally necessary. She might even alter her sphere of activities and remove herself to some other part of the country, where the people would not be aware of the arrival of a man-eater and so fall still easier prey. I cursed myself throughout that night, hoping against hope that the tigress might show up again, but all to no purpose. Morning, and the return of my men, found me chilled to the

marrow, disconsolate and disappointed beyond expression. The hot tea and sandwiches they brought, after my long fast since the previous forenoon, followed by a pipeful of

strong tobacco, somewhat restored my spirits and caused me to take a slightly less critical view of the situation which, after all, might have been far worse. Had it not been for my sixth sense, I would undoubtedly have been lying a partially devoured corpse beside that of the previous day's unfortunate victim. I had something to be really thankful for.

Approaching the spot into which the tigress had leapt, we cast about for blood-spoor, but, as I had expected, found none, beyond a very occasional smear from the damaged

ear against the leaves of bushes, as the tigress had retreated from what had turned out for her a very surprising situation. Even these we eventually lost some distance away, so

that it was an unhappy party of persons that returned to the hamlet and Anchetty, and eventually Gundalam, to report complete failure. I remained at Gundalam for a further ten days, persistently tying out my buffalo baits each day, although I had little hope of success. On the eleventh day I left Gundalam and returned to my home at Bangalore.

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