There was a considerable difficulty in getting anyone to consent to sit by the Doctor, but at last the widow of one of the men who had been killed agreed for the sum of twenty-five rupees to pass the night there, accompanied by her child four years old.
The Doctor's skill with his rifle was notorious, and it was rather the desire of seeing her husband's death avenged than for the sake of the money that she consented to keep watch.

There was but one tree suitable for the watchers; it stood some forty yards to the right of the cage, and it was arranged that both the subalterns should take their station in it.
"Now look here, lads," the Doctor said, "before we start on this business, it must be quite settled that you do not fire till you hear my rifle.

That is the first thing; the second is that you only fire when the brute is a fair distance from the cage.

If you get excited and blaze away anyhow, you are quite as likely to hit me as you are the tiger.
Now, I object to take any risk whatever on that score.

You will have a native shikari in the tree with you to point out the tiger, for it is twenty to one against your making him out for yourselves.