"
"You can't give us any particulars, then, Mr. Bathurst?"
"The note was a very short one, and was partly made up of unconfirmed
rumors. As I only saw it in my capacity of a messenger, I don't
think I am at liberty to say more than that."
"What a trouble the Sepoys are," Mary Hunter said pettishly; "it
is too bad our losing a tiger hunt when we may never have another
chance to see one!"
"That is a very minor trouble, Mary."
"I don't think so," the girl said; "just at present it seems to me
to be very serious."
At this moment the Doctor put his head out of the tent.
"Will you come in, Bathurst?"
"We have settled, Bathurst," the Major said, when he entered, "that
we must, of course, go back at once. The Doctor, however, is of
opinion that if, after all the preparations were made, we were to
put the tiger hunt off altogether, it would set the natives talking,
and the report would go through the country like wildfire that
some great disaster had happened. We must go back at once, and Mr.
Hunter, having a wife and daughter there, is anxious to get back,
too; but the Doctor urges that he should go out and kill this
tiger. As it is known that you have just arrived, he says that if
you are willing to go with him, it will be thought that you had
come here to join the hunt, and if that comes off, and the tiger
is killed, it does not matter whether two or sixty of us went out."
"I shall be quite willing to do so," said Bathurst, "and I really
think that the Doctor's advice is good.
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