It was Kildare; he had met his first tiger, and the first also of the hunt.

He had put up the animal not five paces in front of him, stealing along in the cool grass and hoping to escape between the elephants, in the cunning way they often do.

He had fired a snap shot too quickly, inflicting a wound in the flank which only served to rouse the tiger to madness.

With a leap that seemed to raise its body perpendicularly from the ground, the gorgeous creature flew into the air and settled right on the head of Kildare's elephant, while the terrified _mahout_ wound himself round the howdah.

It would have been a trying position for the oldest sportsman, but to be brought into such terrific encounter at arm's length, almost, at one's very first experience of the chase, was a terrible test of nerve.