"
"We will think of it," Surajah replied. "We did not intend to stop in
one village, but proposed to travel about in the jungle-covered
district; and wherever we hear complaints of a tiger committing
depredations, we will stop and do our best to kill the evil beast. We
mean, first, to find out where they are most troublesome, and then we
shall work back again. We hear that the sultan gives good prices, for
those taken alive."
"I have heard so," the old man said, "but none have been caught alive
here, or by anyone in the villages round. The sultan generally gets
them from the royal forests, where none are allowed to shoot, save
with his permission. Sometimes, when there is a lack of them there,
his hunters come into these districts, and catch them in pitfalls, and
have nets and ropes with which the tigers are bound and taken away."
A little crowd had, by this time, collected round them; and the women,
when they heard that the strangers were shikarees, who had come up
with the intention of killing tigers, brought them bowls of milk,
cakes and other presents.
"I suppose, now that the sultan is away at war," Dick said, "his
hunters do not come here for tigers?"
"We know nothing of his wars," a woman said.
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