"Well, Swinton, if you'll ride back and get Gilfain--what guns have you?"
"I've a Certus Cordite and my old .450 Express."
"Well, use them; we'll be pretty close, and you'll want a stopping bullet if the old chap charges. What's Gilfain got?"
"A battery--a little of everything, from a .22 Mannlicher up to a double-barrel, ten-bore Paradox."
"Tell him to bring the Paradox--it won't take as much sighting as the rifle; Gilfain has probably done considerable grouse shooting. He's almost sure to miss his first tiger; nerves go to pieces generally. I'll get two elephants--you and Lord Victor in one howdah, and I'll take Mahadua in the other."
"If you've got a bullet-proof howdah I'd use it, major; I've seen that young man do some bally fool things."
"I wish I could take Burra Moti," Finnerty said regretfully; "she's a good hunting elephant, but without her bell I couldn't depend on her."
"Why not? It will be under your eye all the time. You can take it off at night and put it in your box. Besides, nobody will suspect that there's another sapphire in the bell."
"I won't have time to have a goldsmith beat the bell into shape to-day."
Swinton drove back to get Lord Victor. When his two elephants were ready, Finnerty, with the Banjara marching at his side, took the road that, halfway to Darpore City, forked off into a wide stretch of dusty plain that was cut here and there by small streams and backwaters; these latter places growing a heavy rush grass that made good cover for both the tiger and his prey--swamp deer and pig.
Swinton and Lord Victor were at the fork in the road, the latter attired in a wondrous Bond Street outfit. "Awfully good of you, old chap," he bubbled. "Devilish quick work, I call it; I'll feel like cabling the governor in the morning if I bag that man-killer."
"If I had Burra Moti under me, I'd think that we as good as had the tiger padded," the major declared; "but I don't know anything about my mount to-day. I don't know whether he'll stand a charge or bolt. Keep your feet under those iron straps; they're the stirrups, Lord Victor."
They went down off the hill, with its big rhododendron trees, and out onto the wide plain, directed by the Banjara. In an hour they came to a small stream fringed by green rushes; along this for half a mile, and the Banjara pointed with his bamboo to a heavy, oval clump of grass, saying: "The outcast of the jungle is in that cover, sahib."