Wilson and Richards were helped up into the tree, and took their places upon two boughs which sprang from the trunk close to each other at a height of some twelve feet from the ground.

The shikari who was to wait with them crawled out, and with a hatchet chopped off some of the small boughs and foliage so as to give them a clear view of the ground for some distance round the cage, which was erected in the center of a patch of brushwood, the lower portion of which had been cleared out so that the Doctor should have an uninterrupted view round.

The boughs and leaves were gathered up by the villagers, and carried away by them, and the watch began.
"Confound it," Richards whispered to his companion after night fell, "it is getting as dark as pitch; I can scarcely make out the clump where the cage is.

I should hardly see an elephant if it were to come, much less a brute like a tiger." "We shall get accustomed to it presently," Wilson replied; "at any rate make quite sure of the direction in which the cage is in; it is better to let twenty tigers go than to run the risk of hitting the Doctor." In another hour their eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, and they could not only see the clump in which the cage was clearly, but could make out the outline of the bush all round the open space in which it stood.

Both started as a loud and dismal wail rose suddenly in the air, followed by a violent crying.
"By Jove, how that woman made me jump!" Wilson said; "it sounded quite awful, and she must have pinched that poor little beggar of hers pretty sharply to make him yell like that." A low "hush!" from the shikari at his elbow warned Wilson that he was speaking too loudly.