A Tiger's Tale

Chapter 6

Shikharna, Kharn and Broken Ear were completely starving! If you listen really carefully you can hear the rumbling inside their empty stomachs. Shikharna suddenly became weary of her surroundings, she was groaning and kicking her paws against the ground and she slowly backed away from the river. The cubs followed her as she cautiously took shaky steps back.

"What do you think's wrong?" Syeed asked me.

"I am not exactly sure. Maybe there's something dangerous in the lake because it seems to me that Shikharna's instincts are acting up," I replied to Syeed. Showing a concerned face.

Shikharna and her cubs started to get all worked up all of a sudden, they ran away from the river. It was just Syeed and me. Syeed bent over the river to get a closer view of what had been upsetting Shikharna and her cubs. Shikharna was watching us, she grunted and groaned it was like she was trying to tell us to step away from the river.

"I think we should go back to the family," I was beginning to get quite anxious, there was obviously something wrong. Everything was quiet. I could only hear the breathing of me and Syeed....

Syeed spotted something bobbing up and down in the river. Up and down, up and down and up and down. It disappeared. The Tiger's had hidden themselves. Everything went quiet. Then out of nowhere a crocodile leaped towards us! His teeth showing, his eyes looked like they had fire burning inside them and his body movements shown that he meant business and that he was in the mood for a snack. Syeed and I legged it, we ran so fast that it looked like we had super speed! We ran and ran and ran as fast as our feet could carry us, I didn't look back, I could feel the crocodile's eyes piercing through me! As Syeed and I were running we couldn't hear the growl of a hungry crocodile no longer I turned around and was shocked. Behind us Shikharna was wrestling the crocodile, I never thought I'd live to see the day when a tiger would save my life. I hid behind a rock with Syeed and allowed my eyes to see the thing which was happening in front of me. There was ripping and tearing, clawing and shredding and biting and blood. The fight lasted for ages! Until the crocodile had given up and shuffled back in embarrassment. Shikharna had a deep cut across her right front paw and a huge scar piercing a deep cut down the back of her left back leg. If Shikharna could talk I bet she'd be so proud of herself.

Shikharna's cuts and scars were oozing out blood so when Shikharna and her cubs settled down in a safe and secure place to have a nap to regain their energy and to calm down I had remembered that I packed loads of bandages in my bag in case Syeed or I had received a nasty injury. And this was an extremely serious injury. So I knelt down and very carefully wrapped a bandage around Shikharna's wounds. Syeed checked the cubs to make sure they hadn't received a serious injury too. Thankfully they didn't. I was really surprised that Shikharna would risk her life just to save me. Me! Syeed too of course. I wonder if all my friends and family will believe that a tiger saved my life when I show them my journal. Well, I guess we won't know until the day I return back to England.