What was our surprise next morning to see the sheykh and all the able men, accompanied by many children, set off up the mountain armed with staves and scimitars, and all the antique armament the village boasted! It had been our purpose to depart that day, but we remained to watch the outcome of that wondrous hunting.
The villagers spread out and 'beat' the mountain.

All day long we heard their shouts far off among the upper heights.

If any tiger had been there they must assuredly have roused him.

But they returned at evening empty-handed, and as truly crestfallen as if they had indeed expected to bring home a bag of fifty tigers.

One man presented me with a dead owl--the same, I think, which we had startled on the day before, as if to show that their display had not been quite in vain.
'No tigers!' sighed the sheykh, as though his heart were broken.