"
At this moment, there was a loud knocking at the door. On the peasant
opening it, a group of soldiers demanded to see the men who had
entered.
"We are here," Surajah said, coming forward. "What do you want?"
"We want to know who you are, and where you come from."
"Any one in the village could have told you that," Surajah said. "We
are shikarees, and have come here to destroy tigers. We were
arranging, with this old man, to find us guides who can point out the
tracks of the one which has, for some time, been preying on their
animals."
"Yes, and our children," the old man put in; "for three of them were
carried off, from the street here, within the last month."
The soldiers looked doubtful, but one of them said:
"This is for our officer to inquire about. The men are strangers to
the village, and he will want to question them."
"We are quite ready to be questioned," Surajah said. "Our host, here,
will bear me out in what I say, and there are others in the village
who will tell you that we have been arranging, with them, to kill
tigers in this neighbourhood; though as yet we have not settled what
they will pay us for each beast we destroy."
Accompanied by the peasant, they went with the soldiers to the guard
house, with which each of the frontier villages was provided.
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