Life — April 12, 1883 — page 11: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

- LIFE: 177 “* What givest thou me?"’ said Jacobs ; ‘my card was the Ace of Diamonds.” But he turned white to the lips, and leaned for support against the front leg of his elephant. ** Now, wilt thou go ?” asked Fol-de-Rol, triumphantly. “I will—I must. This day is to decide between me and him,” and he pointed to Lord Fitzflaherty, who sat a few rods away on his beast. ** Peace be with you,” murmured Fol-de-Rol, bending his head submissively, and directly he vanished into thin air. “And with you be—— Gad ! he is gone,” muttered Jacobs, as he mounted the ladder and took his seat in the howdah, And now, with the beating of tom-toms, the blare of fish-horns and the shrill cries of the dea/ahs who ran on before in a swarm, the procession moved forward, and entered the jungle. I am rather blaséon these big battues. 1 got heartily tired of them when Wales was in the country. He would insist on my accompany- ing him every time, and the thing got to be a great bore. For myself I prefer the petit comité—three or four nice little elephants and half a dozen deafahs. Then there is some spice of danger. These monstrous tiger hunts are rapidly spoiling the noble sport and destroying the game. Fifty a day, What a wasteful extrav- agance! Soon there will be not a man-eater in India. I there- fore took out my Kant and began to examine his proof of the possibility of synthetic cognitions @ priori, 1 read on from syllogism to syllogism, from enthymeme to enthymeme, detecting here an undistributed middle, and there an illicit process of the major, and again a disjunctive hypothetical with the minor false Mighty philosopher! Sublime skeptic! I love to sharpen my reasoning powers on the subtle sophistries of the man who would have destroyed my religion—and might perhaps have done so, had not my still subtler intellect exposed his fallacies. I was disturbed in my reading by the voice of Muligatawney Supe, who rode the next elephant, calling : “Come, Priggs, shut up your book. You Kant come that dodge here, you know. Ha, ha, ha!" and the merry old fellow laughed until he nearly tumbled from his howdah. I closed the book but continued to repeat mechanically : “All X is Y and, if all Y isn't X, Y isn’t it?” Suddenly a couple of riffle shots in quick succession aroused me. A beautiful young tiger sprang forty feet into the air from a group of lofty banyansa few rods away, and after turning a dozen somersaults, descended with a crash at the very feet of Miss Jug- gernaut’s elephant, “Oh, how jolly nice !"" exclaimed the young lady. “ But is he quite dead ?” “ My tigers,” said her uncle, severely, “ never live an instant after they are shot. I always go for a vital spot.” “Your tiger!” exclaimed the Huggermugger of Chungapore, from the extreme left of the procession. “ A/y tiger, I think.” “ Save the ears,” called out Lord Fit It was too late. A lithe young xiggah, darting forward with his knife, whipped those valued features from the dead tiger in a trice, and then disappeared in the jungle. - “ It's always so,” explained Jacobs; “they consider them as a charm of wonderful potency. You will never see either niggah or ears again,” ‘How nasty of him!" complained Miss Juggernaut. “I do 40 want a pair of ears.” “You shall have them, if I have to cut off my own,” said Jacobs, hoarsely. In the brain of the victim two bullets were found, reposing side by side ; one having entered the right eye, and the other the left, The former had upon it the mark of the nabob of Bramapootra; the latter, the mark of the Hugger- mugger of Chungapore. The next tiger fell to the lot of Fitz, who put him up in a bed of of reeds and carried off his left car in the first shot, not being so perfect in his aim as the older sportsmemof the party. Infuriated by the pain, the great cat sprang upon the head of the elephant and snarled ‘in Fitzflaher- ty's face. The latter behaved splendidly. It was the first tiger that he had ever seen, or indeed heard of ; for, though a fine fellow, his lordship’s education in natural history had been sadly neglect- ed, and he knew only two or three languages. But, puffing his cigarette smoke coolly in the creature's face, he languidly drew a revolver from his belt, and, with a nonchalant yawn, fired a bullet into the monster's head, killing it instantly. BOUQUET DE CORSAGE. WHY, DIDN'T HF SEE YOU, CLARA! WELL, LEAVE HALF OF THE ROSE-BUSH AT HOME TO-MORROW AND GIVE HIM ANOTHER CHANCE. “I regret exceedingly, Miss Juggernaut,” said the young hero, “that my tiger also has no ears. One of them I unfortunately took off by a clumsy shot, and the other seems to have been gnawed off long ago—perhaps by his mate in a moment of conjugal infelicity.” “Don't mention it,” said Miss Juggernaut, politely. Never- theless, I could see that Lord Fitz noticed her disappointment, and was deeply mortified. A search was made by the natives in the jungle for the missing ear, but without success, and we again moved on. We had not gone far when the line of skir- mishers was driven in, followed by a gigantic man-eater, twenty feet in length, which emerged from a banana swamp just in front of Jacob's elephunt. The elephant, which was young and un- trained, reared on its hind legs; the howdah, loosened by the motion, slid to one side, and its occupant fell to the ground, amid loud cries of *' Dakmett! dahmett !” from the natives, who had taken to the trees like monkeys. ‘* Howdakh you {eel now ?” shouted Muligatawney Supe. This atrocious jest shed a gloom over the landscape, which added to the natural darkness of ‘the jangle. But through the latter we could see the gleam of Jacobs’ magnificent eyes, as drawing from his sash a Sheffield razor, with a handle of curious- ly carved ivory, enchased with quicksilver, he advanced upon the colossal animal and took him firmly by the throat with his left hand. The tiger struggled in his iron grasp in vain. With two rapid slashes of the knife he severed the cars from the head, and then, locsing his hold upon his victim’s throat, he retired a pace or two, and fixed his wondrous eyes upon the eyes of the mutilat- ed tiger. The latter withstood not long, but, trembling in every joint, turned, and with a low growl, trotted off into the jungle. “Will Miss Juggernaut do me the favor of accepting this trifle?" asked Jacobs, as he coolly wiped the blood from his trophies with the leaf of a pease palm. ‘I believe they are rather large,” he added.‘ The animal was what is called in Hin- doostan a bustah,” He tossed the huge, hairy things up to the young lady with an air of easy indifference, touched his hat with high-bred courtesy, and, turning away, vaulted lightly on the back of his elephant. “Oh, thanks, very much,” said Miss Juggernaut, as she stooped from the howdah, and caught them on the fly. “* Pretty Reed for Jacobs,” exclaimed her uncle. “Fitz, my boy, better luck next time. Time for tiffin. Well, three taggers in an hour ain't bad. "Bout face !" The fish-horns sounded a recall : the tom-toms beat a flourish of victory: the hunt was over. comicbooks.com