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of a bit of jungle, on the other side of which lay as pretty a bungalow as one could wish to see. A man-servant who had heard the wheels, was ready at the gate to receive the reins, while under the verandah stood a pretty little woman to receive the visitors. Beside her was a black nurse with a white baby.

“Here we are, Flinn,” said Redpath, leaping to the ground. “All well, eh?”

“Sure we’re niver anything else here, sor,” replied Flinn, with a modest smile.

“I’ve just been relating your electrical experiences to my friends,” said the master.

“Ah! now, it’s drawin’ the long bow you’ve been,” returned the man; “I see it in their face.”

“I have rather diluted the dose than otherwise,” returned Redpath. “Let me introduce Mr Slagg. He wishes to see Indian life in the ‘servants’-hall.’ Let him see it, and treat him well.”

“Yours to command,” said Flinn, with a nod as he led the horses away. “This way, Mr Slug.”

“Slagg, if you please, Mr Flinn,” said Jim. “The difference between a a an’ a u ain’t much, but the results is powerful sometimes.”

While Slagg was led away to the region of the bungalow appropriated to the domestics, his friends were introduced to pretty little Mrs Redpath, and immediately found themselves thoroughly at home under the powerful influence of Indian hospitality.

Although, being in the immediate neighbourhood of a veritable Indian jungle, it was natural that both Sam and Robin should wish to see a little sport among large game, their professional enthusiasm rose superior to their sporting tendencies, and they decided next day to accompany their host on a short trip of inspection to a neighbouring telegraph station. Letta being made over to the care of the hostess, was forthwith installed as assistant nurse to the white baby, whom she already regarded as a delicious doll—so readily does female nature adapt itself to its appropriate channels.

Not less readily did Jim Slagg adapt himself to one of the peculiar channels of man’s nature. Sport was one of Slagg’s weaknesses, though he had enjoyed very little of it, poor fellow, in the course of his life. To shoot a lion, a tiger, or an elephant, was, in Slagg’s estimation, the highest possible summit of earthly felicity. He was young, you see, at that time, and moderately foolish! But although he had often dreamed of such bliss, he had never before expected to be within reach of it. His knowledge of sport, moreover, was entirely theoretic. He knew indeed how to load a rifle and pull the trigger, but nothing more.

“You haven’t got many tigers in these parts, I suppose?” he said to Flinn as they sauntered towards the house after seeing the electrical party off. He asked the question with hesitation, being impressed with a strange disbelief in tigers, except in a menagerie, and feeling nearly as much ashamed as if he had asked whether they kept elephants in the sugar-basin. To his relief Flinn did not laugh, but replied quite gravely—“Och! yes, we’ve got a few, but they don’t often come nigh the house. We have to thravel a bit into the jungle, and camp out, whin we wants wan. I heard master say he’d have a try at ’em to-morrow, so you’ll see the fun, for we’ve all got to turn out whin we go after tigers. If you’re fond o’ sport in a small way, howiver, I can give ye a turn among the birds an’ small game to-day.”

“There’s nothing I’d like better,” said Slagg, jumping at the offer like a hungry trout at a fly.

“Come along, then,” returned the groom heartily; “we’ll take shot-guns, an’ a spalpeen of a black boy to carry a spare rifle an’ the bag.”

In a few minutes the two men, with fowling-pieces on their shoulders, and a remarkably attenuated black boy at their heels carrying a large bore rifle, entered the jungle behind the electrician’s bungalow.

Chapter Twenty Five. A Great Field-day, in which Slagg distinguishes himself.

Now, although we have said that Jim Slagg knew how to pull a trigger, it does not follow that he knew how to avoid pulling that important little piece of metal. He was aware, of course, that the keeping of his forefinger off the trigger was a point of importance, but how to keep it off when in a state of nervous expectation, he knew not, because his memory and the forefinger of his right hand appeared to get disconnected at such times, and it did not occur to him, just at first, that there was such an arrangement in gun-locks as half-cock.

Flinn reminded him of the fact, however, when, soon after entering the jungle, his straw hat was blown off his head by an accidental discharge of Slagg’s gun.

“Niver mention it,” said Flinn, picking up his riven headpiece, while poor Slagg overwhelmed him with protestations and apologies, and the black boy stood behind exposing his teeth, and gums and the whites of his eyes freely; “niver mention it, Mr Slagg; accidents will happen, you know, in the best regulated families. As for me beaver, it’s better riddled than whole in this warm weather. Maybe you’d as well carry your gun at what sodgers call ‘the showlder,’ wid the muzzle pintin’ at the moon—so; that’s it. Don’t blame yoursilf, Mr Slagg. Sure, it’s worse than that I was when I begood, for the nasty thing I carried wint off somehow of its own accord, an’ I shot me mother’s finest pig—wan barrel into the tail, an’ the other into the hid. You see, they both wint off a’most at the same moment. We must learn by exparience, av coorse. You’ve not had much shootin’ yet, I suppose?”

Poor, self-condemned Slagg admitted that he had not, and humbly attended to Flinn’s instructions, after which they proceeded on their way; but it might have been observed that Flinn kept a corner of his eye steadily on his new friend during the remainder of that day, while the attenuated black kept so close to Slagg’s elbow as to render the pointing of the muzzle of his gun at him an impossibility.

Presently there was heard among the bushes a whirring of wings, and up flew a covey of large birds of the turkey species. Flinn stepped briskly aside, saying, “Now thin, let drive!” while the attenuated black fell cautiously in rear.

Bang! bang! went Slagg’s gun.

“Oh!” he cried, conscience-stricken; “there, if I haven’t done it again!”

“Done it! av coorse ye have!” cried Flinn, picking up an enormous bird; “it cudn’t have bin nater done by a sportin’ lord.”

“Then it ain’t a tame one?” asked Slagg eagerly.

“No more a tame wan than yoursilf, an’ the best of aitin’ too,” said. Flinn.

Jim Slagg went on quietly loading his gun, and did not think it necessary to explain that he had supposed the birds to be tame turkeys, that his piece had a second time gone off by accident, and that he had taken no aim at all!

After that, however, he managed to subdue his feelings a little, and accidentally bagged a few more birds of strange form and beautiful plumage, by the simple process of shutting his eyes and firing into the middle of flocks, to the immense satisfaction of Flinn, who applauded all his successes and explained away all his failures in the most amiable manner.

If the frequent expanding of the mouth from ear to ear, the exposure of white teeth and red gums, and the shutting up of glittering eyes, indicated enjoyment, the attenuated boy must have been in a blissful condition that day.

“Why don’t ye shoot yerself, Mister Flinn?” asked Slagg on one occasion while reloading.

“Bekaise it shuits me better to look on,” answered the self-denying man. “You see, I’m used to it; besides, I’m a marciful man, and don’t care to shoot only for divarshion.”

“What’s that?” cried Slagg, suddenly pointing his gun straight upwards at two brilliant black eyes which were gazing straight down at him.

“Howld on—och! don’t—”

Flinn thrust the gun aside, but he was too late to prevent the explosion, which was followed by a lamentable cry, as a huge monkey fell into Slagg’s arms, knocked him over with the shock, and bounded off his breast into its native woods, shrieking.

“Arrah! he’s niver a bit the worse,” cried Flinn, laughing, in spite of his native politeness, “it was the fright knocked him off the branch. If you’d only given him wan shot he might have stud it, but two was too much for him. But plaise, Mister Slagg, don’t fire at monkeys again. I niver do it mesilf, an’ can’t stand by to see it. It’s so like murther, an’ the only wan I iver shot in me life was so like me own owld gran’mother that I’ve niver quite got over it.”

Slagg willingly promised never again to fire at monkeys, and they proceeded on their way.

They had not gone far, when another whirring of wings was heard, but this time the noise was greater than on other occasions.

“What is it?” asked Slagg eagerly, preparing for action.

“Sure it’s a pay-cock,” said Flinn.

“A what-cock?” asked Slagg, who afterwards described the noise to be like the flapping of a mainsail.

“A pay-cock. Splendid aitin’. Fire, avic!”

“What! fire at that?” cried Slagg, as a creature of enormous size and gorgeous plumage rose above the bushes. “Ye must be jokin’. I couldn’t fire at that.”

“Faix, an’ ye naidn’t fire at it now,” returned Flinn with a quiet smile, “for it’s a mile out o’ range by this time. Better luck—och! if there isn’t another. Now, thin, don’t be in a hurry. Be aisy. Whatever ye do, be aisy.”

While he spoke another huge bird appeared, and as Slagg beheld its size and spreading wings and tail, he took aim with the feelings of a cold-blooded murderer. That is to say, he shut both eyes and pulled both triggers. This double action had become a confirmed habit by that time, and Flinn commended it on the principle that there was “nothin’ like makin’ cocksure of everything!”

Re-opening his eyes and lowering his gun, Slagg beheld the peacock sailing away in the far distance.

“Sure ye’ve missed it, but after all it’s a most awkward bird to hit—specially when ye don’t pint the gun quite straight. An’ the tail, too, is apt to throw even a crack-shot out—so it is. Niver mind; there’s plenty more where that wan came from.”

Thus encouraged, our sportsman reloaded and continued his progress.

It is said that fortune favours the brave, and on that occasion the proverb was verified. There can be no question that our friend Jim Slagg was brave. All Irishmen are courageous, therefore it is equally certain that Flinn was brave, and the attenuated black could not have been otherwise than brave, else he would not have continued to enjoy himself in the dangerous neighbourhood of Slagg’s gun. As a consequence, therefore, fortune did favour the sportsmen that day, for it brought them unexpectedly into the presence of the king of India’s forests—a royal Bengal tiger—tawny skin, round face, glaring eyes, and black stripes complete from nose to tail!

There was no doubt in Flinn’s mind about it, as his actions proved, but there were considerable doubts in Slagg’s mind, as was evinced by his immediate petrifaction—not with fear, of course, but with something or other remarkably similar.

Slagg chanced to be walking in advance at the time, making his way with some trouble through a rather dense bit of jungle. He had by that time recovered his self-possession so much that he was able to let his mind wander to other subjects besides sport.

At the moment when the rencontre occurred he chanced to be wandering in spirit among the groves of Pirate Island. On turning sharp round a bend in the track, he found himself face to face with the tiger, which crouched instantly for a spring. As we have said, the sportsman was instantly petrified. He could not believe his eyes! He must have believed something, however, else he would not have

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