Ghost Tiger Tells of Husband’s Doom

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 974, 17 May 1930, Page 18

Ghost Tiger Tells of Husband’s Doom

‘‘As / Shrieked, the Tiger Sprang 1 ’

•r*SW!|9WLIE woman's husband occupied a responsible tf position in India. He " as violent - tempered and years of service on the hot plains had rendered him a difficult companion. His one recreation was big-game hunting, and as he grew older, all household affairs were subordinated to his work and to his passion for the jungle, the hunter’s tent, and his gun. One year, the wife was sent home to England alone, by the doctor’s orders. They advised this immediate change from the trying climate of the Central Provinces, where her husband was stationed. She was to stay for a year in England, where she led a quiet life amid peaceful surroundings, sometimes In London with her relatives, sometimes at the seaside, '

But the year’s relief soon came -to an end. In a few weeks she would rejoin her husband. She regarded the prospect of reunion with mixed feelings. Though she had an unshaken conviction that if he were back in England’s temperate atmosphere, his temper would become milder, and she would rediscover the happy, good-natured soldier who had wooed and won her years ago, she viewed the next two years on the small Indian station with misgivings. Anxious to Return At the end of that period his retirement on pension was due. The wife, one of the stoical school, was resigned to return to her duty, and as the day for her sailing approached, she made her preparations and bade farewell to her friends,

She says that all this time she experienced an odd feeling that the unexpected was about to happen, and it made her uneasy and anxious for the hour of departure. Despite her husband’s erratic and trying temperament, she entertained a good deal of affection for him. She was staying at the time at an hotel in Bournemouth—one of those quiet establishments which cater extensively for the Anglo-Indian Service men and their wives. The Tiger Springs A week before the date of sailing she woke up earlier than usual. She did not know what had awakened her. The light of early morning was filtering through the windows, with their prim, Victorian,lace curtains, and she heard all the familiar sounds that heralded early morning activities—the maids bringing hot-water cans and the “boots” on his pilgrimage along' the hotel corridor. It was then she saw the tiger. The beast seemed part of the lace-curtains at first. She sat up in her big, four-poster bed with a cry of horror. A mist appeared to lift, and she saw her husband with upraised gun. All this was against a confused jungle background, and she even seemed to hear the cries of two panic-stricken native beaters. Even as she herself shrieked, the tiger sprang. When she came down to breakfast, her fellow-guests remarked on her pallor, and inquired the cause. To one or two women she told her extraordinary experience. An hour later came a cable confirming her early morning vision. Her husband had gone on a shooting expedition, and had been killed by a man-eating tiger which he had been .stalking for several days.