The next day, an hour or two before sunset, I arrived on the scene, and found all ready for me. My shikari was evidently an artist; the whole thing had a most realistic appearance, and the entrance might have been the mouth of a jackal's burrow. I crawled inside; the goat was secured a few feet from the entrance, and my shikari and his men withdrew to their village, saying they would return at night and lie out in the fields, awaiting the report of my rifle to join me. Thus left to my reflections I stretched myself out as far from the entrance hole as possible, having my feet toward it, and very soon began to feel as if I had been condemned to pass a night in my grave, and a night, too, that was going to be endless, for the weary hours ahead weighed upon my soul. However, regrets were useless. I would see it out this time, and I vowed it would be my last nightshooting. To console myself I sucked quietly at a bottle of Bass and munched sandwiches, lengthening out my meal as long as possible; but this distraction soon came to an end, and I wondered at myself for not having brought more. My view was limited; there were the logs above my head, through which the

earth trickled pleasantly into my eyes and ears, the earthen sides of my grave, and enframed in the entrance-hole was a portion of the goat, and beyond a bit of the crest-line of the hill and some swaying tree-tops against a blue patch of sky. Slowly and very slowly the day faded out-sky, hill-top, and trees grew from gray to black. Now was a likely time for the panther's arrival, and I sat up, rifle across my knees, all ready for him-but he did not come.

As the time passed the outlines of hill and tree-tops again stood out clear against a luminous sky, for it was a full moon that night, and I could see the moonlight play on the broad leaves of the bastard-teak trees as the night breeze rustled by. The jungle seemed absolutely silent, the only noise that reached me came from the goat as he nibbled the grass, and occasionally stamped the ground. Wearily the hours dragged on- fully an eternity it seemed to me, I had lain there and must have been on the point of falling asleep when, all suddenly, there came a dull, heavy thud outside and a stifled bleat that sent the blood racing through me and my heart thumping against my ribs. I became intensely wide awake

on the instant. The goat's down! My heavens, it is the panther at last! The goat's body was now no longer visible in the outlook, and I could see nothing of the panther either, but there was a slight gasping sound outside once or twice that told of his bloodthirsty presence. Very softly I drew myself up into a sitting position, brought my rifle across my knees, and with my heart in my mouth cocked my right trigger. I dared not risk cocking the left, the faint click seeming so terribly loud in the utter stillness. Then, while the goat still gave a choking gasp or two (it all happened in a tenth of the time it takes to tell of it) I worked myself forward with the utmost silence until my face was within two feet of the hole. Now I could see the body of the goat, lying down, with its head held up in a rather peculiar manner, it seemed to me; but where was the panther? Just by the goat's neck there was a palish yellow something, indistinct in the silvery shimmer outside. What was it? I rubbed my eyes and stared hard. I saw the whole body of the goat move-yet not of itself, it appeared to me, and then I made out that pale yellow something to be the top of the panther's head with its ears lying back. I understood the position now. The panther lay close

behind the goat's body with his jaws buried in its throat, and aided by the indistinct moonlight was invisible but for the top of his head. In anxious hesitation I wondered whether I should fire at it, for in the vague light I feared a miss even at that distance, when suddenly the panther dropped the goat's throat, and there, not six feet from me, was his round, yellow head and blazing eyes, staring in seeming astonishment down into mine. Quick as thought my rifle was up and flashed out into him. Then everything was lost in smoke-my grave was thick with it, for my muzzles had been inside when I fired. I cocked my left and wondered. "What has happened?" I preferred not to put my head out to see, lest perchance furious paws might close upon it. If wounded will he come in? I hoped not. No sound from outside came to tell me whether I had hit or missed. At last the smoke thinned and I cautiously put my head outside. There he lay, on his side, where he had crouched behind the goat's body. A faint gasping snarl told that he was mortally hit, but I took the precaution to retire into my hole for another cartridge for my right barrel and then crawled out. Full in the moonlight lay the panther, dying, his glossy yellow coat in strong contrast

to the black, shaggy hair of his victim, whose relaxing limbs still gave a kick or two, when the panther lay still. My bullet had pierced his chest and heart. It was half-past one by my watch. After I had sat awhile with my mind divided in admiration between the splendor of the panther's skin and the witching beauty of the night, I made my way out of the jungle into the fields to seek my men, where I found them stretched out asleep in the moonlight, their heads carefully wrapped in clothes, presumably to assist them in hearing my shot. Stout poles were cut down, upon which the panther

was slung, belly uppermost, and hoisted on the shoulders of four men, and thus we emerged from the jungle out into the open moonlit fields, and along the beaten tracks into the sleeping village. And so on to the roadside, where my horse was picketed, and where I stretched myself out on a blanket, and stared up at the glorious starry canopy above me until sleep came. But the dawn soon reddened the sky, and the creak and rumble of the bullock-carts slowly toiling along the road told of another long Indian day begun, and warned me it was time to start back for camp.