It looked down at its paws, where the
cruel claws glittered, and they seemed to afford it keen
satisfaction--it was a tigress and vain--then it lowered its head, and
the leper shrieked. I watched it pick him up as if he were one of its
cubs; saw the blood trickle down its soft white throat into the dusty
road, and then it trotted gracefully away, and was lost in the darkness
of the jungle. There was a deathlike silence after this. I waited a few
minutes, and then I got up. "I had only a short distance to go, and I no longer feared the presence
of man-eaters--there was not likely to be another. Hours afterwards,
O'Donnell, when I lay in my hammock as safe as a fortress, I fancied I
heard the dead man's cry, fancied I heard his curse. No one was more
devoted to a wife than I was to mine. Ours had been purely a love match,
and it was against my wish that she had accompanied me to such an
out-of-the-way place as Seconee. I told her about my adventure,
suppressing the leper's curse; and I was glad I did so, as she was
greatly distressed. "'Thank goodness you escaped, Charlie,' she said. 'I am so sorry for the
poor leper. I suppose you couldn't have helped him.' "'I might have fetched my rifle,' I replied, 'and tried to rescue him,
of course. But I fear it wouldn't have been of much avail, as he would
have been badly mauled by then.' "My wife sighed. 'Ah, well,' she said, 'love is selfish! It makes one
forget others. Still, I wouldn't have it otherwise.' "'I wish this railway job here was over,' I murmured, sitting with my
elbows on my knees and looking over the flat ground, sun-baked and
barren, away towards the dark jungles and the still darker mountains
towering above them; and as I gazed a shadow seemed to blur my vision
and a voice to whisper in my ears, 'Beware of my curse.' "I took Cushai, one of the native servants, into confidence. "'Now, Cushai,' I said, 'you know all the superstitions of the
country--the evil eye and the rest of them. Tell me, what can the dying
curse of a leper do?' "Cushai turned pale under his skin. "'Not of Nahra!' he stuttered, swinging the knife with which he had been
cutting maize in his hand, 'not of Nahra, the leper of Futtebah. Sahib,
if you were cursed by him, beware. He was learned in the black arts; he
could heal ulcers by repeating a prayer, he could bring on fever.' "At this, O'Donnell, I turned cold. I had lived long in India. I had
seen their so-called juggling, had experienced also strange cases of
telepathy, and knew quite sufficient of their intimacy with the
supernatural elements to be afraid. "'You must keep the young sahib safe,' Cushai said, 'and the white lady. I wish it hadn't been Nahra.' "I took his advice. My boy, Eric, was more closely supervised than ever,
and as to my wife, I begged and entreated her not to move from the house
until the tiger was dead, and I searched for it everywhere. "The dry season passed, the wet came, and my work still kept me in
Seconee. At times there came to us rumours of the man-eater--of another
victim--but it never visited our bungalow, where the bright rifle leaned
against the wall waiting for it. "I certainly did meet with slight misfortunes, which the more timid
might have put down to the working of the curse. "My little finger was squashed in the laying down of a rail, and Eric
had several bouts of sickness. "It was nearly a year after the leper's death that alarming rumours of a
man-eater having been at work again were spread about us. Several
niggers were carried off or badly bitten, and the wounded showed
symptoms of the loathsome disease so well known and feared by us
all--leprosy. "I knew from that it must be the same tiger. "'The tiger is near,' someone would cry out, and a stampede among the
native workmen would ensue. "'Why the white tiger?' I asked Cushai. "'Because, sahib,' he replied, 'the leprosy has made it so! Tigers, like
men, and all other animals, go white even to their hair. I have not told
them the story, sahib; they only know it must have caught the leprosy. To them Nahra is still living.' "Then, O'Donnell, when I thought of what was at stake, and of all the
hideous possibilities the presence of this brute created, I took my
rifle and went out to search for it. In the evenings, when the dark
clouds from the mountains descended and the wind hissed through the
jungle grass, I plodded along with no other companion than my Winchester
repeater--searching, always searching for the damned tiger. I found it,
O'Donnell, came upon it just as it was in the midst of a meal--dining
off a native--and I shot it twice before it recovered from its
astonishment at seeing me. The second shot took effect--I can swear to
that, for I took particular note of the red splash of blood on its
forehead where the bullet entered, and I went right up to it to make
sure. As God is above us, no animal was more dead. "'The curse won't come now, Cushai,' I said, laughing. 'I've killed the
white tiger.' "'Killed the white tiger, sahib! Allah bless you for that!' Cushai
replied. "'But don't laugh too soon. Nahra was a clever man, wonderfully clever;
he did not speak empty words,' and as his eyes wandered to the dark
hills again I fancied a shadow darted along the sky, and the curse came
back to my ears. "I was superintending the line one afternoon; the backs of the niggers
were bending double under the burden of the great iron rods when I heard
a terrible cry. "'The white tiger! the white tiger!' Rods fell with a crash, spades
followed suit, a chorus of shrieks filled the air, and legs scampered
off in all directions. I was fifty yards from my rifle, and a huge
creature was slowly approaching between it and me. "I could hardly believe my eyes--the white tiger, the tiger I knew I had
killed! Here it was! Here before me! The same in every detail, and yet
in some strange, indefinable manner not the same. On it came, a huge
patch of luminous white, noiselessly, stealthily--the mark of the bullet
plainly visible on its big, flat forehead. Step by step it approached
me, its paws no longer with the colouring of health, but dull and worn. And as it came, the cold shadow of desolation seemed to fall around it. Nothing stirred; there was no noise whatever, not even the sound of its
feet crushing the loosened soil. On, on, on nearer, nearer and nearer. "Shunned by all, avoided by its fellow-creatures of the jungle, a blight
to all and everything, it drew in a line with me. Not once did its eyes
meet mine, O'Donnell; not once did it glare at the natives who were
hiding on the banks of the cutting; but it stole silently on its way
with a something in its movements that left no doubt but that it was
engaged in no casual venture. I remembered, O'Donnell, that my wife had
promised to come with Eric to meet me along the cutting, as she was sure
no tiger would be there. I ran as fast as I could, and yet somehow my
feet seemed weighted down. I cursed my folly for not forbidding my wife
to come.