On the contrary, he prefers, as a rule, to enjoy life rather than die heroically. When death is inevitable he is always heroic, or even when danger presses him too closely. But, if he can, he avoids the unequal contest between brute courage and explosive shells, and makes off at once for more sequestered woodlands, where he can reign supreme and be at ease. It is indeed a splendid life that this autocrat of the jungle leads. The day commences for him as the sun begins to set, and he then stalks from his lair to drink at the neighboring pool, after which, his thirst slaked, he creeps out towards the glade where the deer are feeding. The vigilant, restless herd has need now for all its acuteness of ear and nostril, but it will certainly be unavailing, for the tiger is hungry, and, his prey once sighted, there is no gainsaying him. Using all the craft of his kind , the great cat steals upon his victims with consummate patience, and in such silence that even the deer have no suspicion how swiftly that stealthy death is approaching. It is like being killed by a shadow or a ghost, for not a sound of moving leaf or breaking twig has given them warning; and yet, all on a sudden, right in their midst it may be, there is an instant’s swaying of the grass, and lo! the tiger.
The next instant he is flying through the air in a terrific bound, and as the herd sweeps away down the glade, one of their number is left behind, and is already dead.
The tyrant eats what he wants, and then strolls back into the jungle indolently and, so to speak, in good humor with all the world. We can then imagine him stalking a company of sambhur in fun, and afterwards see him standing up alone in the open space, laughing
