A PROBLEM FOR THE TIGER.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 466, 18 May 1912, Page 3

A PROBLEM FOR THE TIGER.

It is nearly ten years ago that the following incident occurred. Two salvage divers, Loscn and Carl Nobel, were engaged to rescue a scow load of valuable ore which had been sunk in the cast channel of the Indus Delta.

It proved necessary to haul up the ore in buckets —a tedious task, which occupied them three weeks. On the thirteenth day Losen Nobel, wh 0 had been down at work for an hour or two in the wreck, came up and climbed out upon a float moored close to the the jungle bank. He did not take off his diver's suit of thick rubber, nor the big headpiece, but sat down in them. His "tender" unscrewed the pipe, through which air is pumped into the helmet, to make some trifling repairs, and found it necessary to cross over for a wrench to the scow, anchored a little way out in the stream.

Losen Nobel sat breathing through the pipe hole. He heard no sound from the bank behind. In fact, he could not have heard well with his head inside the helmet. The first intimation he had of danger was a violent shock and feeling himself hurled forward into the water.

With the airpipe detached, that meant death by drowning— no rnan can swim in a diver's suit. Water gushed into the headpiece ; the clumsy rubber suit was filling. But immediately Nobel felt that, something was gripping him savagely through the rubber, bearing him through the water by spasmodic jerks. An instant later he was lifted bodily out of the river, and dragged up the bank below the float. The water which had come into the helmet now ran away, and through the bull's eyes he caught an indistinct glimpse of his surroundings. He was in high grass, and some large, shadowy object stood over him. Suddenly he was gripped again and again, by what he felt sure were teeth, and he heard an ugly growl. He knew then what had happened. A tiger had sprung upon him from the bank. It was the tiger, too, that had dragged him out of the river, after knocking him in. The tiger had dropped him in the high grass. It was clearly puzzled by the looks and smell of its strange prey. The brute drew back and eyed the diver with disfavovr. Perhaps the taste of rubber had got in its mouth.

But the big, striped beast was plainly hungry. Suddenly it flew at its quarry again. Nobel felt and heard its teeth grate horribly m the metal of the helmet. It mauled him about with its paws, grappled him again, and carried him on a, few yards, then turned him over and over with a constant suppressed

growling. Still unable to make him out, the beast sat down and looked at him., as if to say, "Well, you arc a disappointment !" Nobel lay quiet. Although eonfused by the rough usage, he was not seriously injured. The tiger's teeth had not penetrated his armour. Out at the scow he no;; heard shouts—his brother and their assistants—then a shot. Thereupon the tiger laid hold of him again, and this time carried him for as much as fifty yards, at ■-, great pare. It also treated him to another slmking-up, but evidmtly could obtain no satisfaction, and with a final petulant sough of its breath bounded away. A few moments later Nobel's friends appeared on the srcn\ and called out to him in great ahum. He was able to reply jocosely, and in fact was not badly hurt. On his arms ami legs there were many blue marks, where the tiger's teeth hac pinched him through the rubber. Otherwise Ins diver's sv.ir. hac served him as well in jungle as r-i the river bottom. 1;-.".!,