When the tiger made his spring upon the prostrate horse and rider, the cool old soldier, unarmed and helpless as he was, did not give himself up for lost even then, shrewdly guessing that between a large and well-fed horse and a lean dried-up man, the monster's choice would be soon made.
And so it proved. One crunch of the destroyer's mighty jaws broke the poor beast's neck, and in a moment more the tiger was rending the yet quivering carcass with tooth and claw.
And now, could the colonel have lain still where he was, all might yet have gone well. The tiger, when gorged, would probably have gone off without troubling itself about him; nay, it might perhaps have dragged away the dead horse to serve it for a second meal, and thus have freed the imprisoned man from the weight that kept him down.
But it was not to be. The pain of that heavy pressure on his hurt limb made him impatient; and his hitherto unyielding nerves were sorely shaken (as, in truth, they might well be) by thus hearing, close to his very face, the tearing of his favourite horse piecemeal by the cruel fangs that might at any moment be buried in his own flesh. Feeling the pressure of the dead beast lightened for an instant as the tiger tugged at it and rocked it to and fro, he imprudently attempted to drag himself out from beneath it.
It was a fatal error. The moment he stirred, the tiger was upon him!
For one instant, while his thick military cloak hampered the monster's teeth, he saw the fierce yellow eyes glare into his, and felt the hot, foul, rank breath steaming on his face. Instinctively he uttered one last cry for help—and then—!
There was a trample of hurrying feet—a hoarse shout—the crackle of three shots fired in quick succession—and the terror of the jungle lay dead over his victim's body, just as a native patrol, alarmed by the noise, came racing up to the spot.
Hardman was promptly freed, and, to his son's vast relief, proved to have escaped with unbroken bones, though sorely bruised and shaken; for the tiger's fangs had not reached him, and the trench into which he had fallen had saved him from the full weight of the horse's body.
The lights carried by the patrol, as well as the cloudless splendour of the rising moon, made the whole scene as clear as day; and Colonel Hardman at once recognised his three rescuers, who, seeing that he knew them, and cut off from escape by the coming-up of the native soldiers, stood waiting in sullen silence to hear what he would say.
"I don't ask who you are, and I don't want to know," said the colonel to them, with a peculiar emphasis which all three fully understood. "I can see that you are Englishmen, and that you have been down on your luck; and, at all events, I owe you a good turn for saving my life. You look like the sort of fellows that I should like to have as recruits for my new regiment—what do you say?"