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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17567-8.txt b/17567-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cb9688f --- /dev/null +++ b/17567-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9755 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Way of the Wild, by F. St. Mars + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Way of the Wild + +Author: F. St. Mars + +Illustrator: Harry Rountree + +Release Date: January 21, 2006 [EBook #17567] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAY OF THE WILD *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: "Jaws, monstrous and wet, grabbing at him in enraged +confusion"] + + + + + + +THE WAY OF THE WILD + + +BY + +F. ST. MARS + + + +WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS BY HARRY ROUNTREE + + + + + + +NEW YORK + +FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY + +PUBLISHERS + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY + +PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND UNDER THE TITLE "PINION AND PAW" + + +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + + + +CONTENTS + + I GULO THE INDOMITABLE + II BLACKIE AND CO. + III UNDER THE YELLOW FLAG + IV NINE POINTS OF THE LAW + V PHARAOH + VI THE CRIPPLE + VII "SET A THIEF"---- + VIII THE WHERE IS IT? + IX LAWLESS LITTLE LOVE + X THE KING'S SON + XI THE HIGHWAYMAN OF THE MARSH + XII THE FURTIVE FEUD + XIII THE STORM PIRATE + XIV WHEN NIGHTS WERE COLD + XV FATE AND THE FEARFUL + XVI THE EAGLES OF LOCH ROYAL + XVII RATEL, V.C. + XVIII THE DAY + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"Jaws, monstrous and wet, grabbing at him in enraged confusion" . . . +_Frontispiece_ + +"The owl had lost a foot on the turn + +"A shrew-mouse, thirsting for blood, but who got poison instead" + +"This one had simply streaked out of the night from nowhere" + +"Landed full upon the dumbfounded water-vole--splash!" + +"A 'silver tabby' floated among the twigs, looking for him" + +"An angry eagle-owl" + +"Turning over and over, in one long, sickening dive back to earth" + +"That little black-headed fellow doing the stalking act upon that +python was great" + +"Shooting straight upwards on the top of what appeared to have been a +submarine mine in a mild form" + +"He clutched, and tore, and gulped, and gorged" + +"All allowed that he was the pluckiest beast on earth" + + + + + + + +THE WAY OF THE WILD + + +I + +GULO THE INDOMITABLE + +If his father had been a brown bear and his mother a badger, the result +in outward appearance would have been Gulo, or something very much like +him. But not all the crossing in the world could have accounted for +his character; that came straight from the Devil, his master. Gulo, +however, was not a cross. He was himself, Gulo, the wolverine, _alias_ +glutton, _alias_ carcajou, _alias_ quick-hatch, _alias_ fjeldfras in +the vernacular, or, officially, _Gulo luscus_. But, by whatever name +you called him, he did not smell sweet; and his character, too, was of +a bad odor. A great man once said that he was like a bear cub with a +superadded tail; but that great man cannot have seen his face. If he +had, he would have looked for his double among the fiends on the top of +Notre Dame. There was, in fact, nothing like him on this earth, only +in a very hot place not on the earth. + +He was, in short, a beast with brains that only man, and no beast, +ought to be trusted with; and he had no soul. God alone knows if love, +which softens most creatures, had ever come to Gulo; his behavior +seemed to show that it had not. Perhaps love was afraid of him. And, +upon my soul, I don't wonder. + +It was not, however, a hot, but a very cold, place in the pine-forest +where Gulo stood, and the unpitying moon cast a dainty tracery through +the tasseled roof upon the new and glistening snow around him--the snow +that comes early to those parts--and the north-east wind cut like +several razors. But Gulo did not seem to care. Wrapped up in his +ragged, long, untidy, uncleanly-looking, brown-black cloak--just his +gray-sided, black fiend's face poking out--he seemed warm enough. When +he lifted one paw to scratch, one saw that the murderous, scraping, +long claws of him were nearly white; and as he set his lips in a +devilish grin, his fangs glistened white in the moonlight, too. + +Verily, this was no beast--he would have taped four feet and a quarter +from tip to tip, if you had worn chain-mail and dared to measure +him--no beast, I say, to handle with white-kid ball gloves. Things +were possible from him, one felt, that were not possible of any other +living creature--awful things. + +Suddenly he looked up. The branches above him had stirred uneasily, as +if an army were asleep there. And an army was--of wood-pigeons. +Thousands upon thousands of wood-pigeons were asleep above his head, +come from Heaven knows where, going to--who could tell in the end? + +All at once one fell. Without apparent reason or cause, it fell. And +the wolverine, with his quick, intelligent eyes, watched it fall, from +branch to branch, turning over and over--oh! so softly--to the ground. +When he had poked his way to it--walking flat-footed, like a bear or a +railway porter--it was dead. Slain in a breath! Without a flutter, +killed! By what? By disease--diphtheria. But not here would the +terrible drama be worked out. This was but an isolated victim, first +of the thousands that would presently succumb to the fell disease far, +far over there, to the westward, hundreds of miles away, in England and +Wales, perhaps, whither they were probably bound. + +But the poor starved corpse, choked to death in the end maybe, was of +no use to the wolverine. As he sniffed it he found that out. The +thing was wasted to the bones even. And turning away from it--he +suddenly "froze" in his tracks where he stood. + +One of those little wandering eddies which seem to meander about a +forest in an aimless sort of way, coming from and going now hither, as +if the breeze itself were lost among the still aisles, had touched his +wet muzzle; and its touch spelt--"Man!" + +If it had been the taint of ten thousand deaths it could not have +affected him more. He became a beast cast in old, old bronze, and as +hard as bronze; and when he moved, it was stiffly, and all bristly, and +on end. + +Animals have no counting of time. In the wild, things happen as +swiftly as a flash of light; or, perhaps, nothing happens at all for a +night, or a day, or half a week. Therefore I do not know exactly how +long that wolverine was encircling that scent, and pinning it down to a +certain spot--himself unseen. All animals, almost, can do that, but +none, not even the lynx or the wild cat, so well as the wolverine. He +is the one mammal that, in the wild, is a name only--a name to conjure +with. + +He found, in the end, that there was no man; but there _had_ been. He +found--showing himself again now--that a man--a hunter, a trapper, one +after fur--had made himself here a _cache_, a store under the earth; +and--well, the wolverine's great, bear-like claws seemed made for +digging. + +He dug--and, be sure, if there had been any danger there he would have +known it. He dug like a North-Country miner, with swiftness and +precision, stopping every now and again to sit back on his haunches, +and, with humped shoulders, stare--scowl, I mean--round in his +lowering, low-browed fashion. + +Once a bull-elk, nearly a six-footer, but he loomed large as an +elephant, came clacking past between the ranked tree-boles, stopping a +moment to straddle a sapling and browse; while the wolverine, sitting +motionless and wide-legged, watched him. Once a lynx, with its +eternal, set grin, floated by, half-seen, half-guessed, as if a wisp of +wood mist had broken loose and was floating about. Once a fox, +somewhere in the utter silence of the forest depths, barked a hoarse, +sharp, malicious sound; and once, hoarser still and very hollowly, a +great horned owl hooted with disconcerting suddenness. (The scream of +a rabbit followed these two, but whether fox or owl had been in at that +killing the wolverine never knew.) Twice a wood-hare turning now to +match the whiteness of its surroundings, finicked up one of the still, +silent forest lanes towards him, stopped, faced half-round, sat +"frozen" for a fraction, and vanished as if it were a puff of +wind-caught snow. (And, really, one had no idea till now that the +always apparently lifeless forest could have been so full of life in +the dark hours.) + +But all these things made no difference to the wolverine, to Gulo, +though he "froze" with habitual care to watch them--for your wild +creature rarely takes chances. Details must never be overlooked in the +wild. He dug on, and in digging came right to the _cache_, roofed and +anchored all down, safe beyond any invasion, with tree-trunks. +And--and, mark you, not being able to pull tree-trunks out of the +ground, and being too large to squeeze between them, he gnawed through +one! Gnawed through it, he did, and came down to the bazaar below. + +So far, he had been only beast. Now we see why I said he had more +brains than were good for any animal except man. + +He bit through the canvas, or whatever it was that protected the +_cached_ articles. He got his head inside. He felt about +purposefully, and backed out, dragging a trap with him. With it he +removed into the inky shadows, and it was never found again. + +He returned. He thrust his head in a second time, got hold of +something, and backed out. It was another trap, and with it he +vanished also; and it, too, was never found. He returned, and went, +and a third trap went with him. + +The fourth investigation revealed an ax. It he partly buried. The +fifth yielded a bag of flour, which he tore up and scattered all over +the place. The sixth inroad produced a haunch of venison, off which he +dined. The seventh showed another haunch, and this he buried somewhere +unseen in the shades. The eighth overhaul gave up some rope, in which +he nearly got himself entangled, and which he finally carried away, +bitten and frayed past use. The ninth search rewarded him with tea, +which he scattered, and bacon, which he buried. + +What he could not drag out, he scattered. What he failed to remove, he +defiled. And, at last, when he had made of the place, not an orderly +_cache_, but a third-rate _débâcle_, he sauntered, always slouching, +always grossly untidy, hump-backed, stooping, low-headed, and +droop-tailed, shabbily unrespectable, out into the night, and the +darkness of the night, under the trees. + +By the time day dawned he was as if he never had been--a memory, no +more. Heaven knows where he was! + +Gulo appeared quite suddenly and very early, for him, next afternoon, +beside some tangled brush on the edge of a clearing. He was sitting +up, almost bolt-upright, and he was shading his eyes with his forepaws. +A man could not have done more. And, in fact, he did not look like an +animal at all, but like some diabolically uncouth dwarf of the woods. + +A squirrel was telling him, from a branch near by, just what everybody +thought of his disgraceful appearance; and two willow-grouse were +clucking at him from some hazel-tops; whilst a raven, black as coal +against the white of the woods, jabbed in gruff and very rude remarks +from time to time. + +But Gulo was taking no notice of them. He was used to attentions of +that kind; it was a little compliment--of hate--they all paid him. He +was looking persistently down the ranked, narrowing perspective of the +buttressed forest glade to where it faded in the blue-gray mist, +southward, as if he expected something to come from there. Something +was coming from there now; and there had been a faint, uneasy sort of +whisper in that direction for some time. Now it was unmistakable. + +A cow-elk, first of the wary ones to move on alarm, came trotting by, +her Roman nose held well out; a red-deer hind, galloping lightly like +some gigantic hare, her big ears turned astern; a wolf, head up, +hackles alift, alternately loping and pivoting, to listen and look +back, a wild reindeer, trotting heavily, but far more quickly than he +seemed to be--all these passed, now on one side, now on the other, +often only glimpses between the tree-boles, while the wolverine sat up +and shaded his eyes with his paws. Something was moving those beasts, +those haunters of the forest, and no little thing either. Something? +What? + + Very softly down the glade runs a waiting, watching shade, + And the whisper spreads and widens far and near; + And the sweat is on thy brow, for he passes even now-- + He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear. + + +Down came Gulo in that grim silence which was, except for his domestic +arguments, characteristic of the beast, and trotted to a pool hard by. +The pool was spring-fed, and covered, as to every dead leaf and stone, +with fine green moss of incomparable softness. He drank swiftly and +long, then flung about with a half-insolent, half-aggressive wave of +his tail, and set off at a rolling, clumsy, shuffling shamble. + +At ordinary times that deceiving gait would have left nearly everything +behind, but this afternoon it was different. Gulo had barely shed the +shelter of the dotted thickets before he realized, and one saw, the +fact. He broke his trot. He began to plunge. Nevertheless, he got +along. There was pace, of a sort. Certainly there was much effort. +He would have outdistanced you or me easily in no time, but it was not +you or I that came, and who could tell how fast that something might +travel? + +The trouble was the snow--that was the rub, and a very big and serious +rub, too, for him. Now, if the snow had been a little less it would +not have mattered--a little more, and he could have run easily along +the hard crust of it; but it was as it was, only about two feet, just +enough to retard him, and no more. And it is then, when the snow is +like that, just above a couple of feet deep, that man can overtake +friend wolverine--if he knows the way. Most men don't. On that he +trusted. At any other time--but this was not any other time. + +Sound carries a long way in those still parts, and as he hurried Gulo +heard, far, far behind in the forest, the faint, distant whir of a +cock-capercailzie--the feathered giant of the woods--rising. It was +only a whisper, almost indistinguishable to our ears, but enough, quite +enough, for him. Taken in conjunction with the mysterious shifting of +the elk and the red deer and the reindeer and the wolf, it was more +than enough. He increased his pace, and for the first time fear shone +in his eyes--it was for the first time, too, in his life, I think. + +A lynx passed him, bounding along on enormous, furry legs. It looked +all legs, and as it turned its grinning countenance to look at him he +cursed it fluently, with a sudden savage growl, envious, perhaps, of +its long, springing hindlegs. Something, too--the same something--must +have moved the lynx, and Gulo shifted the faster for the knowledge. + +Half-an-hour passed, an hour slid by, and all the time Gulo kicked the +miles behind him, with that dogged persistency that was part of his +character. Nothing had passed him for quite a while, and he was all +alone in the utterly still, silent forest and the snow, pad-pad-padding +along like a moving, squat machine rather than a beast. + +At last he stopped, and, spinning round, sat up. A gray-blue haze, +like the color on a wood-pigeon, was creeping over everything, except +in the west, where the sky held a faint, luminous, pinky tinge that +foretold frost. It was very cold, and the snow, which had never quite +left off, was falling now only in single, big, wandering flakes. The +silence was almost terrifying. + +Then, as Gulo sat up, from far away, but not quite so far away, his +rounded ears, almost buried in fur, caught faintly--very, very +faintly--a sound that brought him down on all fours, and sent him away +again at a gallop with a strange new light burning in his little, +wide-set eyes. It was the unmistakable sound of a horse +sneezing--once. Gulo did not wait to hear if it sneezed twice. He was +gone in an instant. Man, it seemed, had not been long in answering +that challenge of the _cache_ escapade. + +After that there was no such thing as time at all, only an everlasting +succession of iron-hard tree-trunks sliding by, and shadows--they ran +when they saw him, some of them, or gathered to stare with eyes that +glinted--dancing past. The moon came and hung itself up in the +heavens, mocking him with a pitiless, stark glare. (He would have +given his right forepaw for a black night and a blinding snowstorm.) +It almost seemed as if they were all laughing at him, Gulo the dreaded, +the hated hater, because it was his turn at last, who had so freely +dealt in it, to know fear. + +Hours passed certainly, hours upon hours, and still, his breath coming +quickly and less easily now with every mile, Gulo stuck to the job of +putting the landscape behind him with that grim pertinacity of his that +was almost fine. + +At last the trees stopped abruptly, and he was heading, straighter than +crows fly, across a plain. The plain undulated a little, like a sea, a +dead sea, of spotless white, with nothing alive upon it--only his +hunched, slouching, untidy, squat form and his shadow, "pacing" him. +At the top of the highest undulation he stopped, and glowered back +along the trail. + +Ahead, the forest, starting again, showed as a black band a quarter of +an inch high. Behind, the forest he had already left lay dwarfed in a +ruled, serried line. But that was not all. Something was moving out +upon the spotless plain of snow, something which appeared to be no more +than crawling, ant-like, but was really traveling very fast. It looked +like a smudged dot, nothing more; but it was a horse, really, galloping +hard, with a light sleigh, and a man in it, behind. The horse had no +bells, and it was not a reindeer as usual. Pace was wanted here, and +the snow was not deep enough to impede the horse, who possessed the +required speed under such conditions. + +The horse had been trotting along the trail, till it came to the place +where Gulo had looked back and heard the sneeze, and knew he was being +followed. Then it had started to gallop, and, with ears back and teeth +showing, had never ceased to gallop. This, apparently, was not the +first wolverine that horse had trailed. It seemed to have a personal +grudge against the whole fell clan of wolverine, and to be bent upon +trampling Gulo to death. + +Gulo watched it for about one quarter of a second. Then he quitted, +and the speed he had put up previously was nothing to that which he +showed now--uselessly. And, far behind him, the man in the sleigh drew +out his rifle from under the fur rugs. He judged that the time had +about come. The end was very near. + +But he judged wrong. Gulo made the wood at length. With eyes of dull +red, and breath coming in short, rending sobs, he got in among the +trees. He did it, though the feat seemed impossible, for the trees had +been so very far away. Got in among the trees--yes, but dead-beat, +and--to what end? To be "treed" ignominiously and calmly shot down, +picked off like a squirrel on a larch-pole. That was all. And that +was the orthodox end, the end the man took for granted. + +In a few minutes the horse was in the forest too, was close behind +Gulo. In spite of the muffling effect of snow, his expectant ears +could hear the quadruple thud of the galloping hoofs, and-- + +Hup! Whuff! Biff-biff! Grrrrrr! Grr-ur-ururrh! Grrrr-urr! + +It had all happened quick as a flash of light. A huge, furry, reeking +mass rising right in the wolverine's path from behind a tree, towering +over him, almost mountainous to his eyes, like the very shape of doom! +Himself hurling sideways, and rolling over and over, snarling, to +prevent the crowning disaster of collision with this terrible portent! +A blow, two blows, with enormous paws whose claws gleamed like skewers, +whistling half-an-inch above his ducked head! Jaws, monstrous and wet, +grabbing at him in enraged confusion, and rumblings deep down in the +inside of the thing that ran cold lightning-sparks all up his spine. +That was what Gulo saw and heard. + +The wolverine rolled, clawing and biting, three times, and without a +pause sprang to his feet again, and leapt madly clear, stumbled on a +hidden tree-root, rolled over again twice, and up, and hurled, +literally with his last gasp and effort, headlong through the air +behind a tree-bole, where he remained all asprawl and motionless, +except for his heaving sides, too utterly done at last for _any_ terror +to move him. + +There followed instantly a horse's wild snort; another; a shout; the +crack of a rifle cutting the silence as a knife cuts a taut string; +another crack; an awful, hoarse growl; the furious thudding of horse's +hoofs stampeding and growing fainter and fainter; and an appalling +series of receding, short, coughing, terrifying, grunting roars. Then +silence and utter stillness only, and the cold, calm moon staring down +over all. + +Gulo picked himself up after a bit, and slouched round the tree to +investigate. He found tracks there, and blood; and the tracks were the +biggest footprints of a bear--a brown bear--that he had ever come +across, and I suppose that he must have sniffed at a few in his time. + +Presumably the man had fired at the bear when the startled horse shied. +Presumably, too, the bear was hit. He had gone straight away in the +track of horse and man, anyway, and--he had saved the wolverine's life, +after, with paw and teeth, doing his best to end it. Possibly he had +been disturbed in the process of making his winter home. + +Gulo lay low, or hunted very furtively, after that for some time, until +it was little less dark in the east than it had been, and the gaunt +tree-trunks were standing out a fraction from the general gloom. The +moon had apparently nearly burnt itself out. Still, it yet appeared to +be night. + +Gulo was a long way out of his own hunting-district, and guessed that +it was about time for him to get himself out of sight. He had a +passionate hatred of the day, by the way, even beyond most night +hunters. + +On the way he smelt out and dug up a grouse beneath the snow. + +Dawn found him, or, rather, failed to find him, hidden under a tangled +mass that was part windfall, part brush-wood, and part snow. The place +had belonged to a fox the night before, and that red worthy returned +soon after dawn. He thrust an inquiring sharp muzzle inside, took one +sniff, and, with every hair alift, retired in haste, without waiting to +hear the villainous growl that followed him. The smell was enough for +him--a most calamitous stink. + +It snowed all that day, and things grew quieter and quieter, except in +the tree-tops, where the wind spoke viciously between its teeth. When +Gulo came out that evening, he had to dig part of the way, and he +viewed a still and silent, white world, under a sky like the lid of a +lead box, very low down. He stood higher against the tree-trunks than +he had done the night before, and, though he did not know it, was safe +from any horse, for the snow was quite deep. The cold was awful, but +it did not seem to trouble him, as he slouched slowly southward. + +There appeared to be nothing alive at all throughout this white land, +but you must never trust to that in the wild. Things there are very +rarely what they seem. For instance, Gulo came into a clearing, dim +under the night sky, though it would never be dark that night. To the +ear and the eye that clearing was as empty as a swept room. To Gulo's +nose it was not, and he was just about to crouch and execute a stalk, +when half the snow seemed to get up and run away. The runners were +wood-hares. They had "frozen" stiff on the alarm from their sentries. +But it was not Gulo who had caused them to depart. Him, behind a tree, +they had not spotted. Something remained--something that moved. And +Gulo saw it when it moved--not before. It was an ermine, a stoat in +winter dress, white as driven snow. Then it caught sight of Gulo, or, +more likely, the gleam of his eyes, and departed also. + +Gulo slouched on, head down, back humped, tail low, a most +dejected-looking, out-at-heels tramp of the wilderness. + +Once he came upon a wild cat laying scientific siege to a party of +grouse. The grouse were nowhere to be seen; nor was the wild cat, +after Gulo announced his intention to break his neutrality. Gulo knew +where the grouse were. He dug down into the snow, and came upon a +tunnel. He dug farther, and came upon other tunnels, round and clean, +in the snow. All the tunnels smelt of grouse, but devil a grouse could +he find. He had come a bit early. It was as yet barely night, and he +should have waited till later, when they would be more asleep. +However, he dug on along the tunnels, driving the grouse before him. +And then a strange thing happened. About three yards ahead of him the +snow burst--burst, I say, like a six-inch shell, upwards. There was a +terrific commotion, a wild, whirring, whirling smother, a cloud of +white, and away went five birds, upon heavily beating wings, into the +gathering gloom. Gulo went away, too, growling deep down inside of, +and to, himself. + +He was hungry, was Gulo. Indeed, there did not seem to be many times +when he was not hungry. Also, being angry--not even a wild animal +likes failure--he was seeking a sacrifice; but he had crossed the +plain, which the night before had been as a nightmare desert to him, +and the moon was up before his chance came. + +He crossed the trail of the reindeer. He did not know anything about +those reindeer, mark you, whether they were wild or semi-tame; and _I_ +do not know, though _he_ may have done, how old the trail was. It was +sufficient for him that they _were_ reindeer, and that they had +traveled in the general direction that he wanted to go. For the +rest--he had the patience, perhaps more than the patience, of a cat, +the determination of a bulldog, and the nose of a bloodhound. He +trailed those reindeer the better part of that night, and most of the +time it snowed, and part of the time it snowed hard. + +By the time a pale, frozen dawn crept weakly over the forest tree-tops +Gulo must have been well up on the trail of that herd, and he had +certainly traveled an astonishing way. He had dug up one lemming--a +sort of square-ended relation of the rat, with an abbreviated tail--and +pounced upon one pigmy owl, scarce as large as a thrush, which he did +not seem to relish much--perhaps owl is an acquired taste--before he +turned a wild cat out of its lair--to the accompaniment of a whole +young riot of spitting and swearing--and curled up for the day. + +He was hungry when he went to sleep. Also, it was snowing then. When +he woke up it was almost dark, and snowing worse than ever. If it +could have been colder, it was. + +While he cleaned himself Gulo took stock of the outside prospect, so +far as the white curtain allowed to sight, and by scent a good deal +that it did not. This without appearing outside the den, you +understand. And if there had been any enemy in hiding, waiting for him +outside, he would have discovered the fact then. He had many enemies, +and no friends, had Gulo. All that he received from all whom he met +was hate, but he gave back more than he got. In the lucid terms of the +vernacular, he "was a hard un, if you like." + +Nothing and nobody saw the wolverine leave that lair that was not his. +He must have chosen one blinding squall of snow for the purpose, and +was half a mile away, still on the track of the reindeer, before he +showed himself--shuffling along as usual, a ragged, hard-bitten +ruffian. And three hours later he came up with his prey. + +Gulo knew it, but nobody else could have done. There were just the +straight trees ahead, and all around the eternal white, frozen silence, +and the snow falling softly over everything; but Gulo was as certain +that there was the herd close ahead as he was that he was ravenous. +And thereafter Gulo got to work, the peculiar work, a special devilish +genius for which appears to be given to the wolverine. + +He ceased to exist. At least, nothing of him was seen, not a tail, not +an eye-gleam. Yet during the next two hours he learnt everything, +private and public, there was to be learnt. Also, he had been over the +surroundings almost to a yard. Nothing could have escaped him. No +detail of risk and danger, of the chance of being seen even, had been +overlooked; for he was a master at his craft, the greatest master in +the wild, perhaps. The wolf? My dear sirs, the wolf was an innocent +suckling cub beside Gulo, look you, and his brain and his cunning were +not the brain and the cunning of a beast at all, but of a devil. + +When, after a very long time, he reappeared upon his original track, it +was as a dark blotch, indistinguishable from a dozen other dark blots +of moon-shadow, creeping forward belly-flat in the snow. This +belly-creep, hugging always every available inch of cover, he kept up +till he came to a big clearing, and--there were the reindeer. At +least, there was one reindeer, a doe, standing with her back towards +him--a quite young doe. The rest were half-hidden in the snow, which +they had trampled into a maze of paths in and out about the clearing, +which was, in fact, what is called their "yard." + +A minute of tense silence followed after Gulo had got as close as he +could without being seen. Then he rushed. + +The reindeer swung half-round, gave one snort, and a great bound. But +Gulo had covered half the intervening space before she knew, and when +she bounded it was with him hanging on to her. + +Followed instantly a wild upspringing of snorting beasts, and a mad, +senseless stampede of floundering deer all round and about the +clearing--a fearful mix-up, somewhere in the midst of which, +half-hidden by flying, finely powdered snow, Gulo did his prey horribly +to death. + +There was something ghastly about this murder, for the deer was so big, +and Gulo comparatively small. The fearful work of his jaws and his +immense strength seemed wrong somehow, and out of all proportion to his +size. This remarkable power of his jaws had that sinister +disproportion only paralleled by the power of the jaws of a hyena; +indeed, his teeth very much resembled a hyena's teeth. + +With the deer rushing all around him, Gulo fed, ravenously and +horribly, but not for long. A new light smoldered in his eyes now as +he lifted his carmine snout, and one saw that, for the moment, the +beast was mad, crazed with the lust of killing, seeing red, and blinded +by blood. + +Then the massacre began. It was not a hunt, because each deer, +thinking only of itself, feared to break from the trodden mazy path of +the "yard," and risk the slow, helpless, plunging progress necessary in +the deep snow. Wherefore panic took them all over again, and they +dashed, often colliding, generally hindering each other, hither and +thither, up and down the paths of the "yard" with the hopeless, +helpless, senseless, blind abandon of sheep. The result was a shambles. + +This part we skip. Probably--nay, certainly--Nature knows best, and is +quite well aware what she is up to, and it is perhaps not meant that we +should put her in the limelight in her grisly moods. Suffice it to say +that Gulo seemed to stop at length, simply because even he could not +"see red" forever, and with exhaustion returned sense, and with +sense--in his case--in-born caution. He removed, leaving a certain +number of reindeer bleeding upon the ground. Some of them were dead. + +In an hour dawn would be conspiring to show him up before the world, +and he was not a beast sweet to look upon at that moment--indeed, at +any moment, but less so now. + +Now, it is surprising how far a wolverine can shift his clumsy-looking +body over snow in an hour, especially if he has reasons. This one had +good reasons, and he was no fool. He knew quite well the kind of +little hell he had made for himself behind there, and he did not stay +to let the snow cover him. He traveled as if he were a machine and +knew no fatigue; and the end of that journey was a hole in a hollow +among rocks. + +Dawn was throwing a wan light upon all things when he thrust his short, +sharp muzzle inside that hole, to be met by a positively hair-raising +volley of rasping, vicious growls. + +He promptly ripped out a string of ferocious, dry, harsh growls in +return, and for half-a-minute the air became full of growls, horrible +and blood-curdling, each answering each. + +Then he lurched in over the threshold, and coolly dodged a thick paw, +with tearing white claws, that whipped at him with a round-arm stroke +out of the pitch-darkness. The stroke was repeated, scraping, but in +nowise hurting his matted coat, as he rose on his hindlegs and threw +himself upon the striker. + +Followed a hectic thirty seconds of simply diabolical noises, while the +two rolled upon the ground, grappling fiendishly in the darkness. Then +they parted, got up, growled one final roll of fury at each other, fang +to fang, and, curling up, went to sleep. But it was nothing, only the +quite usual greeting between Gulo and his wife. They were a sweet +couple. + +There appeared to be no movement, or any least sign of awakening, on +the part of either of the couple between that moment and sometime in +the afternoon, when, so far as one could see, Gulo suddenly rolled +straight from deep sleep out on to the snow, and away without a sound, +at his indescribable shamble and at top speed. + +Mrs. Gulo executed precisely the same amazing maneuver, and at exactly +the same moment, as far as could be seen, on the other side, and +shuffled off into the forest. They gave no explanation for so doing. +They said never a word--nothing. One moment they were curled up, +asleep; the next they had gone, scampered, apparently into the land of +the spirits, and were no more. Nor did there seem to be any reason for +this extraordinary conduct except--except---- Well, it is true that a +willow-grouse, white as the snowy branch he sat upon, _did_ start +clucking somewhere in the dim tree regiments, a snipe did come +whistling sadly over the tree-tops, and a raven, jet against the white, +did flap up, barking sharply, above the pointed pine-tops; but that was +nothing--to us. To the wolverines it was everything, a whole wireless +message in the universal code of the wild, and they had read it _in +their sleep_. Through their slumbers it had spelt into their brains, +and instantly snapped into action that wonderful, faultless machinery +that moved them to speed as if automatically. + +Then the chase began, grim, steady, relentless, dogged--the chase of +death, the battle of endurance. + +A pause followed after the vanishing of the hated wolverines. A crow +lifted on rounded vans, marking their departure, and it was seen. A +blackcock launched from a high tree with a whir and a bluster like an +aeroplane, showing their course, and it was noted. An eagle climbed +heavily and ponderously over the low curtain of the snow mist, pointing +their way, and it was followed. All the wild, all the world, seemed to +be against the wolverines. The brigands were afoot by day. The scouts +were marking their trail. + +Then a lynx, moving with great bounds on his huge swathed paws, shot +past between the iron-hard tree-boles; a fox followed, scudding like +the wind on the frozen crest; a hare, white as a waste wraith, flashed +by, swift as a racing white cloud-shadow; a goshawk screamed, and drew +a straight streaking line across a glade. And then came the men, side +by side, deadly dumb, with set faces, the pale sun glinting coldly +cruel upon the snaky, lean barrels of their slung rifles, moving with +steady, fleet, giant strides on their immense spidery ski that were +eleven feet long, which whispered ghostily among the silent aisles of +Nature's cathedral of a thousand columns. The Brothers were on the +death-trail of Gulo at last; the terrible, dreaded Brothers, who could +overtake a full-grown wolf in under thirty minutes on ski, and whose +single bullet spelt certain death. Now for it; now for the fight. Now +for the great test of the "star" wild outlaw against the "star" human +hunters--at last. The reindeer were to be avenged. + +Then Time took the bit of silence between his teeth and seconds became +hours, and minutes generations. + +No sound made the wolverines as they rolled along in Indian file, +except for the soft whisper of the snow underfoot. + +No noise encompassed the Brothers as they sped swiftly side by side +over the glittering white carpet, save for the slither of the snow +under their weight. + +All the wild seemed to be standing still, holding its breath, looking +on, spell-bound; and save for the occasional crash of a collapsing +snow-laden branch, sounding magnified as in a cave, all the forest +about there was as still as death. + +Half-an-hour passed, and Gulo flung his head around, glancing over his +shoulder a little uneasily, but with never a trace of fear in his +bloodshot eyes. Then he grunted, and the two fell apart silently and +instantly, gradually getting farther and farther from each other on a +diverging course, till his wife faded out among the trees. But never +for an instant did either of them check that tireless, deceptive, +clumsy, rolling slouch, that slid the trees behind, as telegraph-poles +slide behind the express carriage window. + +Half-an-hour passed, and one of the Brothers, peering up and along the +trail a little anxiously, saw the forking of the line ahead. Then he +grunted, and the two promptly separated without a word, gradually +increasing the distance between them on the widening fork till they +were lost to each other among the marshaled trunks. But never for an +instant did they relax that swift, ghostly glide on the wonderful ski, +that slid the snow underfoot as a racing motor spins over the ruts. + +An hour passed. Sweat was breaking out in beads upon the faces of the +Brothers, now miles apart, but both going in the same general direction +over the endless wastes of snow, and upon their faces was beginning to +creep the look of that pain that strong men unbeaten feel who see a +beating in sight; but never for a moment did they slacken their swift, +mysterious glide. + +An hour passed. Foam began to fleck the evilly up-lifted lips +glistening back to the glistening fangs of the wolverines, now miles +apart, but still heading in the same general line, and upon their faces +began to set a look of fiends under torture; but never for a moment did +they check their indescribable shuffling slouch. + +After that all was a nightmare, blurred and horrible, in which endless +processions of trees passed dimly, interspersed with aching blanks of +dazzling white that blinded the starting eyes, and man and beast +stumbled more than once as they sobbed along, forcing each leg forward +by sheer will alone. + +At last, on the summit of a hog-backed, bristling ridge, Gulo stopped +and looked back, scowling and peering under his low brows. Beneath +him, far away, the valley lay like a white tablecloth, all dotted with +green pawns, and the pawns were trees. But he was not looking for +them. His keen eyes were searching for movement, and he saw it after a +bit, a dot that crept, and crept, and crept, and--_stopped_! + +Gulo sat up, shading his eyes against the watery sun with his forepaws, +watching as perhaps he had never watched in his life before. + +For a long, long while, it seemed to him, that dot remained there +motionless, far, far away down in the valley, and then at length, +slowly, so slowly that at first the movement was not perceptible, it +turned about and began to creep away--creep, creep, creep away by the +trail it had come. + +Gulo watched it till it was out of sight, fading round a bend of the +hills into a dark, dotted blur that was woods. Then he dropped on all +fours, and breathed one great, big, long, deep breath. That dot was +the one of the Brothers that had been hunting him. + +And almost at the same moment, five miles away, his wife had just +succeeded in swimming a swift and ice-choked river. She was standing +on the bank, watching another dot emerge into the lone landscape, and +that dot was the other one of the Brothers. + +They had failed to avenge the reindeer, and the wolverines were safe. +Safe? Bah! Wild creatures are never safe. Nature knows better than +that, since by safety comes degeneration. + +There was a warning--an instant's rustling hissing in the air +above--less than an instant's. But that was all, and for the first +time in his life--perhaps because he was tired, fagged--Gulo failed to +take it. And you must never fail to take a warning if you are a wild +creature, you know! There are no excuses in Nature. + +Retribution was swift. Gulo yelled aloud--and he was a dumb beast, +too, as a rule, but I guess the pain was excruciating--as a hooked +stiletto, it appeared, stabbed through fur, through skin, deep down +through flesh, right into his back, clutching, gripping vise-like. +Another stiletto, hooked, too, worse than the first one, beat at his +skull, tore at his scalp, madly tried to rip out his eyes. Vast +overshadowing pinions--as if they were the wings of Azrael--hammered in +his face, smothering him, beating him down. + +Ah, but I have seen some fights, yet never such a fight as that; and +never again do I want to see such a fight as the one between Gulo and +the golden eagle that made a mistake in his pride of power. + +All the awful, cruel, diabolical, clever, devilish, and yet almost +human fury that was in that old brute of a Gulo flamed out in him at +that moment, and he fought as they fight who go down to hell. It was +frightful. It was terrifying. Heaven alone knows what the eagle +thought he had got his claws into. It was like taking hold of a flash +of forked lightning by the point. It was--great! + +Still, flight _is_ flight, and lifting-power is lifting-power. Gulo, +even Gulo, could not get over that. He could not stop those vast vans +from flapping; and as they flapped they rose, the eagle rose, +he--though it was like the skinning of his back alive--rose too, +wriggling ignominiously, raging, foaming, snapping, kicking, but--he +rose. + +Slowly, very slowly, the great bird lifted his terrible prey up and +up--ten, twenty, thirty, forty feet, but no higher. That was the limit +of his lift, the utmost of his strength; and at that height parallel +with the ridge, he began to carry the wolverine along, the wolverine +that was going mad with rage in his grasp. + +It was a mistake, of course--a mistake for the wolverine to be out on +the open ridge in stark daylight; another mistake for the eagle, +presuming on his fine, lustful pride of strength, to attack him. + +And then suddenly Gulo got his chance. It hit him bang in the face, +nearly blinding him as it passed--the tree-top. Like lightning Gulo's +jaws clashed shut upon it, his claws gripped, and--he thought his back +was going to come off whole. But he stuck it. He was not called Gulo +the Indomitable for nothing. And the eagle stopped too. He had to, +for he would not let go; nor would Gulo. + +An awful struggle followed, in the middle of which the pine-top broke, +gave way, and, before either seemed to know quite what was happening, +down they both came, crashing from branch to branch, to earth. + +The fall broke the king of the birds' hold, but not the fighting fury +of the most hated of all the beasts. He rose up, half-blind, almost +senseless, but mad with rage beyond any conception of fury, did old +Gulo, and he hurled himself upon that eagle. + +What happened then no man can say. There was just one furious mix-up +of whirling, powdered snow, that hung in the air like a mist, out of +which a great pinion, a clawing paw, a snapping beak, a flash of fangs, +a skinny leg and clutching, talons, a circling bushy tail appeared and +vanished in flashes, to the accompaniment of stupendous flappings and +abominably wicked growls. + + * * * * * * + +That night the lone wolf, scouting along the ridge-top, stopped to +sniff intelligently at the scattered, torn eagle's feathers lying about +in the trampled snow, at the blood, at the one skinny, mailed, mightily +taloned claw still clutching brown-black, rusty fur and red skin; at +the unmistakable flat-footed trail of Gulo, the wolverine, leading away +to the frowning, threatening blackness of the woods. He could +understand it all, that wolf. Indeed, it was written there quite +plainly for such as could read. He read, and he passed on. He did not +follow Gulo's bloody trail. No--oh, dear, no! Probably, quite +probably, he had met Gulo the Indomitable before, and--was not that +enough? + + + + +II + +BLACKIE AND CO. + +Blackie flung himself into the fight like a fiery fiend cut from coal. +He did not know what the riot was about--and cared less. He only knew +that the neutrality of his kingdom was broken. Some one was fighting +over his borders; and when fighting once begins, you never know where +it may end! (This is an axiom.) Therefore he set himself to stop it +at once, lest worse should befall. + +He found two thrushes apparently in the worst stage of d.t.'s. One was +on his back; the other was on the other's chest. Both were in a +laurel-bush, half-way up, and apparently they kept there, and did not +fall, through a special dispensation of Providence. Both fought like +ten devils, _and both sang_. That was the stupefying part, the song. +It was choked, one owns; it was inarticulate, half-strangled with rage, +but still it _was_ song. + +A cock-chaffinch and a hen-chaffinch were perched on two twigs higher +up, and were peering down at the grappling maniacs. Also two blue +titmice had just arrived to see what was up, and a sparrow and one +great tit were hurrying to the spot--all on Blackie's "beat," on +Blackie's very own hunting-ground. Apparently a trouble of that kind +concerned everybody, or everybody thought it did. + +Blackie arrived upon the back of the upper and, presumably, winning +thrush with a bang that removed that worthy to the ground quite +quickly, and in a heap. The second thrush fetched up on a lower +branch, and by the time the first had ceased to see stars he had +apparently regained his sanity. He beheld Blackie above him, and fled. +Perhaps he had met Blackie, professionally, before, I don't know. He +fled, anyway, and Blackie helped him to flee faster than he bargained +for. + +By the time Blackie had got back, the first thrush was sitting on a +branch in a dazed and silly condition, like a fowl that has been waked +up in the night. Blackie presented him with a dig gratis from his +orange dagger, and he nearly fell in fluttering to another branch. And +Blackie flew away, chuckling. He knew that, so far as that thrush was +concerned, there would be no desire to see any more fighting for some +time. + +But, all the same, Blackie was not pleased. He was worked off his feet +providing rations for three ugly youngsters in a magnificently designed +and exquisitely worked and interwoven edifice, interlined with rigid +cement of mud, which we, in an off-hand manner, simply dismiss as "A +nest." The young were his children; they might have been +white-feathered angels with golden wings, by the value he put on them. +The thrush episode was only a portent, and not the first. He had no +trouble with the other feathered people he tolerated on his beat. + +Blackie went straight to the lawn. (Jet and orange against deep green +was the picture.) + +Now, if you and I had searched that dry lawn with magnifying-glasses, +in the heat of the sun, there and then, we should not have found a +single worm, not the hint or the ghost of one; yet that bird took three +long, low hops, made some quick motion with his beak--I swear it never +seemed to touch the ground, even, let alone dig---executed a kind of +jump in the air--some say he used his legs in the air--and there he was +with a great, big, writhing horror of a worm as big as a snake (some +snakes). + +Thrushes bang their worms about to make them see sense and give in; +they do it many times. Blackie banged his giant only a little once or +twice, and then not savagely, like a thrush. Also, again, he may or +may not have used his feet. Moreover, he gave up two intervals to +surveying the world against any likely or unlikely stalking death. Yet +that worm shut up meekly in most unworm-like fashion, and Blackie cut +it up into pieces. The whole operation took nicely under sixty seconds. + +Blackie gave no immediate explanation why he had reduced his worm to +sections. It did not seem usual. Instead, he eyed the hedge, eyed the +sky, eyed the surroundings. Nothing seemed immediately threatening, +and he hopped straight away about three yards, where instantly, he +conjured another and a smaller worm out of nowhere. With this +unfortunate horror he hopped back to the unnice scene of the first +worm's decease, and carved that second worm up in like manner. Then he +peeked up all the sections of both worms, packing them into his beak +somehow, and flew off. And the robin who was watching him didn't even +trouble to fly down to the spot and see if he had left a joint behind. +He knew his blackbird, it seemed. + +Blackie flew away to his nest, but not to a nest in a hedge. To dwell +in a hedge was a rule of his clan, but the devil a rule did he obey. +Nests in hedges for other blackbirds, perhaps. He, or his wife, had +different notions. Wherefore flew he away out into the grass field +behind the garden. Men had been making excavations there, for what mad +man-purpose troubled him not--digging a drain or something. No matter. + +Into the excavation he slipped---very, very secretly, so that nobody +could have seen him go there--and down to the far end, where, twelve +feet below the surface, on a ledge of wood, where the sides were shored +with timber, his mate had her nest. Here he delivered over his carved +joints to the three ugly creatures which he knew as his children and +thought the world of, and appeared next flying low and quickly back to +the garden. That is to say, he had contrived to slip from the nest so +secretly that that was the first time he showed. + +A sparrow-hawk, worried with a family of her own, took occasion to +chase him as he flew, and he arrived in among the young lime-trees that +backed the garden, switchbacking--that was one of his tricks of escape, +made possible by a long tail--and yelling fit to raise the world. The +sparrow-hawk's skinny yellow claw, thrust forward, was clutching thin +air an inch behind his central tail-feathers, but that was all she got +of him--just thin air. There was no crash as he hurled into the green +maze; but she, failing to swerve exactly in time, made a mighty crash, +and retired somewhat dazed, thankful that she retained two whole wings +to fly with. There is no room for big-winged sparrow-hawks in close +cover, anyway, and Blackie, who was born to the leafy green ways, knew +that. + +Blackie's yells had called up, as if by magic, a motley crowd of +chaffinches, hedge-sparrows, wrens, robins, &c., from nowhere at all, +and they could be seen whirling in skirmishing order--not too +close--about the retreating foe. Blackie himself needed no more +sparrow-hawk for a bit, and preferred to sit and look on. If the +little fools chose to risk their lives in the excitement of mobbing, +let them. His business was too urgent. + +Twenty lightning glances around seemed to show that no death was on the +lurk near by. Also, a quick inspection of other birds' actions--he +trusted to them a good deal--appeared to confirm this. + +Then he flew down to the lawn, and almost immediately had a worm by the +tail. Worms object to being so treated, and this one protested +vigorously. Also, when pulled, they may come in halves. So Blackie +did not pull _too_ much. He jumped up, and, while he was in the air, +scraped the worm up with his left foot, or it may have been both feet. +The whole thing was done in the snap of a finger, however, almost too +quickly to be seen. + +The worm, once up, was a dead one. Blackie seemed to kill it so +quickly as almost to hide the method used. In a few seconds more it +was a carved worm in three or four pieces--an unnice sight, but far +more amenable to reason that way. + +Blackie was in rather long grass, and nerve-rackingly helpless, by the +same token. He could not see anything that was coming. Wherefore +every few seconds he had to stand erect and peer over the grass-tops. +It made no difference to the worm, however; it was carved just the same. + +Blackie now hopped farther on in search of more worms, but found a big +piece of bread instead. It was really the hen-chaffinch who found the +bread, and he who commandeered it from her. Now he disclosed one fact, +and that was that bread would do for his children as well as worms. +Anyhow, he stuffed his beak about half up with bread, returned for the +pieces of worm, collected these, and retired up into the black cover of +a fir-tree. + +No doubt he was expected to go right home with that load, then and +there. Even a cock-blackbird with young, however, must feed, and, if +one judged by the excess amount of energy--if that were possible--used +up, must feed more than usual. That seemed to be why he hid his whole +load in the crook of a big bough, and, returning to the lawn, ate +bread--he could wait to catch no worms for his own use, it appeared--as +fast as he could. Three false alarms sent him precipitantly into his +tree upon this occasion, and one real alarm--a passing boy--caused a +fourth retreat. + +These operations were not performed in a moment, and by the time he got +back to his nest--mind, he had to contrive to approach it so that he +was seen by nobody, and his was a conspicuous livery, too--his children +appeared to be in the last stages of exhaustion. That, however, is +young birds all over; they expect their parents to be mere +feeding-machines, guaranteed to produce so many meals to the hour, and +hang the difficulties and the risks. + +There was no sign of Blackie's wife. Presumably she was working just +as hard on her own "beat" as he had been on his--their hunting-grounds +were separate, though they joined--and would soon be back. + +Blackie did not wait. He managed again the miracle of getting away +from his nest without appearing to do so, and next turned up on the +summer-house roof. Fatherlike, he thought he had done enough for a +bit, and would enjoy a "sunning reaction" on the summerhouse roof. It +was rather a good place, a look-out tower from which he could slip over +the side into the hedges, which met at the corner where it was, if +trouble turned up. + +Trouble did turn up, but not quite what he had expected. He had been +sitting there, wing-stretching, leg-stretching, and "preening" his +feathers, and had finally left off just to sit and do nothing, +when--lo! his wife popped up over the side without warning, and right +upon him. + +She was very dark brown, not black, and had a paler throat than the +palish throat of most hen blackbirds--nearly white, in fact. She said +nothing. Nor did Blackie, but he looked very uncomfortable. She did +more than say nothing. She went for him, beak first, and very angrily +indeed; and he, not waiting to receive her, fled down to the lawn, and +began worm-hunting for dear life. A whole lecture could not have said +more. + +Mrs. Blackie remained on the roof for about a minute, looking round, +and then flew off to her own hunting-ground. She was wilder and less +trusting of the world than Blackie, and did not care for his lawn in +full view of the house windows. And Blackie did not even stop his work +to watch her go. Apparently they had, previously in their married +life, arrived at a perfect understanding. + +This time, too, Blackie got a big and a small worm. The small he +coiled like a rope, and held up towards the base of his beak; the big +he carved up into sections, which he held more towards the tip. The +large ones, it seemed, were too awkward and lively simply to carry off +rolled up whole. + +The journey that followed was a fearful one in Blackie's life, for he +met half-way the very last foe in the world he was expecting--namely, +an owl. Truly, it was a very small owl, scarce bigger than himself; +but it was an owl, and, like all its tribe, armed to the teeth. Men +called it a little owl. That was its name--little owl. Blackie didn't +care what men called it; he knew it only as one of the hundred or so +shapes that death assumed for his benefit. + +Just at that time it happened to be cloudy, and little owls often hunt +by day. But how was Blackie to know that, little owls being a +comparatively new introduction into those parts? + +Blackie screamed and fled. The owl did not scream, but fled, +too--after Blackie. Blackie had no means of judging how close _that_ +foe was behind by the whir of its wings. Owls' wings don't talk, as a +rule; they have a patent silencer, so to speak, in the fluffy-edged +feathers. Therefore Blackie was forced to do his best in breaking the +speed record, and trust to luck. + +It was a breathless and an awful few seconds, and it seemed to him like +a few hours. The owl came up behind, going like a cloud-shadow, and +about as fast, and Blackie, glancing over his shoulder, I suppose, +yelled afresh. The terror was so very close. + +Then Blackie remembered another excavation, just like the one his nest +was in, a little off his course to the left, and he tacked towards it, +twisting his course wonderfully, thanks to the long tail. And the owl +lost a foot on the turn. I think it was expecting Blackie to make for +the hedge at all costs. But, be that as it may, that foot was never +made up again, for Blackie vanished into the trench next instant, like +a blown-out light, and, though the hunter searched for him carefully, +he never put in an appearance again while that owl was within sight of +the place. + +[Illustration: "The owl lost a foot on the turn"] + +All signs of uproar on the passing of the little owl had died down some +time before Blackie turned up again, and then it was in the garden, so +he must have got from the tunnel unseen. + +He still hung gamely to the food for his young, and now made another +attempt to deliver that food where it belonged. He was half-way there, +indeed, before he saw the boys--three boys--with two rows of birds' +eggs threaded on strings. They were passing so close to the trench +that one nearly fell into it, and, of course, any one could see that +they were bird-nesting. + +Blackie swerved off sharply to the far hedge, his heart nearly bursting +with anxiety, little knowing that the boys had never even thought of +looking in the trench for nests. It seemed the last place in the world +to find one. It may have been, moreover, that he feared that his wife +was home, in which case she might have lost her head, and, dashing out +with a scream, "blown the whole gaff," as they say in the vernacular. + +Apparently madam was not at home, by good luck, for the boys passed, +and Blackie once more executed the magic of getting into his nest +without seeming to do so. And here he stayed. Dusk was setting in, +and his young were fourteen days old. They showed it in their +disobedience, and were not in the least inclined to keep as quiet as +they should, considering their father had but just warned them, in his +own way, to "lie doggo," because of the gray shape he had seen sliding +out into the field, a gray shape which was a cat. + +They were more like thrushes than blackbirds, those youngsters, with +their speckly fawn breasts; and they were not like the adults of either +in their frog-like attitudes and heavy ways. Frankly, they were not +beautiful, even at that stage; and a fortnight before, when they had +been larger than the eggs they had come out of, they were positively +reptilian and repulsive. + +Blackie said the blackbird equivalent to "Be quiet, you little fools!" +as quietly and as sternly as he could three or four times, and perched +on the top of a wheelbarrow to watch the gray shadow which was a cat. +That sudden death, however, was more afraid of the open than Blackie, +even, and, moreover, wasn't expecting blackbirds' nests in the middle +of fields. It turned back; and at length Mrs. Blackie, who had been on +a general survey round about to see what foes of the night were on the +move--and a fine hubbub she had made in the process--came home, +reporting all well. + +Then they slept; at least, they ceased to be any further seen or heard. +Think, however, how you would sleep if every few minutes you could hear +sounds in your house one-third of which were probably the noises of a +burglar. Think, also, how you would feel if you knew that that burglar +was a murderer, and that that murderer was, in all likelihood, looking +for you, or some one just like you. Yet those birds were happy enough, +I fancy. + +It was barely pale gray. It was cold and wan and washed, and +wonderfully clean and sweet, and wet with dews, when a lark climbed +invisibly into the sky and suddenly burst into song, next morning. +There was something strange and out of place, in a way, in this song, +breaking out of the night; and as it and another continued to break the +utter silence for ten minutes, it seemed rather as if it were still +night, and not really dawn at all. Dawn appeared to be waiting for +something else to give it authority, so to speak, and at the end of ten +minutes that something else came--the slim form of Blackie, streaking, +phantom-like, through the mist from the trench out in the field to the +summer-house in the garden. Here, mounted upon the very top, he stood +for a moment, as one clearing his throat before blowing a bugle, and +then, full, rich, deep, and flute-like, he lazily gave out the first +bars of his song. Instantly, almost as if it had been a signal, a +great tit-mouse sang out, "Tzur ping-ping! tzur ping-ping!" in +metallic, ringing notes; a thrush struck in with his brassy, clarion +challenge, thrush after thrush taking it up, till, with the clear +warble of robin and higher, squeaking notes of hedge-sparrow and wren +joining in, the wonderful first bars of the Dawn Hymn of the birds +rolled away over the fields to the faraway woods, and beyond. + +Blackie sang on for a bit, in spite of the fact that people said that +it was not considered "the thing" for a blackbird with such domestic +responsibilities to sing. And two other blackbirds helped him to break +the man-made rule. + +As a matter of fact, I fancy he was not taking chances upon the ground +while the mist hung to cover late night prowlers, for as soon as the +gay and gaudy chaffinches had stuck themselves up in the limes and the +sycamores, and started their own smashing idea of song, he was down +upon the lawn giving the early worm a bad time. + +Then it was that he heard a rumpus that shot him erect, and sent his +extraordinarily conspicuous orange dagger of a beak darting from side +to side in that jerky way of listening that many birds affect. + +"Twet-twet-et-et-et! twet! twet-twet-twet-et-et-twet!" came the +unmistakable voice of one in a temper, scolding loudly. And he knew +that scold--had heard it before, by Jove! And who should know it if +not he, since it was the voice of his wife? + +Perhaps he heaved a sigh as he rose from the deliciously cool, wet +lawn--where it was necessary to take long, high hops if you wanted to +avoid getting drenched--and winged his way towards the riot. His wife +was calling him, and it came from the other side of the garden, _her_ +side, behind the house. Perhaps it was a cat, or a rat, or something. +Anything, almost, would set her on like that if experience, plus the +experience of blackbirds for hundreds of generations working blindly in +her brain--and not the experience of books--had taught her that the +precise creature whom she saw was a danger and a menace to young +blackbirds. + +All the same, when Blackie arrived he _was_ surprised, for all that he +saw was a grayish bird with "two lovely black eyes," not by any means +as large as a blackbird. When it flew it kept low, with a weak and +peculiar flight that was deceiving; and when Mrs. Blackie, following +it, and yelling like several shrews, got too close, it turned its head, +and said, "Wark! wark!" in a harsh and warning way. + +Blackie joined in with his deeper "Twoit-twoit-twoit!" just by way of +lending official dignity to the proceedings. Whereupon his wife, +feeling that he had backed her up, redoubled her excitement and shrill +abuse. + +And they spent two solid hours at this fool's game, helped by a robin, +a blue tit, and a chaffinch or two--the chaffinch must have his finger +in every pie--following that gray bird from nowhere, while it moved +about the garden in its shuffling flight, or alternately sat and +scowled at them. But it must be admitted that Blackie himself looked +rather bored, and might have gone off for breakfast any time, if he had +dared. + +As a matter of fact, however, the bird did not stand upon the Register +of Bad Deeds as being a terror of even the mildest kind of blackbirds. +Red-backed shrike was her name, female was her sex, and from Africa had +she come. Goodness knows where she was going, but not far, probably; +and the largest thing in the bird line she appeared able to tackle was +something of the chaffinch size. But, all the same, Mrs. Blackie +seemed jolly well certain that she knew better. + +Then arrived the bombshell. + +One of the Blackie youngsters, stump-tailed, frog-mouthed, blundering, +foolish, gawky, and squawking, landed, all of a heap, right into the +very middle of the picnic-party. + +Mrs. Blackie very nearly had a fit on the spot, and the shrike judged +that the time had about arrived for her to quit that vicinity. + +Blackie himself, to do him justice, kept cool enough to do nothing. +Wives will say that he was just husband all over, but there were +reasons abroad. One of them shot past Blackie, who was low down, a +second later and a yard away, and had he not been absolutely still, and +therefore as invisible as one of the most conspicuous of birds in the +wild can be, he would have known in that instant, or the next, what +lies upon the other side of death. + +Another reason shot through the lower hedge, and, both together, they +fell upon the young bird. + +They were the cat of the house and her half-grown kitten, and they were +upon the unhappy youngster before you could shout, "Murder!" + +What followed was painful. Mrs. Blackie went clean demented. Blackie +went--not so demented. (It always appeared to me that his was a more +practical mind than his wife's, perhaps because he wore a more +conspicuous livery.) Mrs. Blackie kept passing and repassing the cats' +backs, flying from bough to bough, and sometimes touching and sometimes +not touching them. It was useless, of course, this pathetic charging; +and it was foolish. + +Blackie charged, too, but not within feet. + +Suddenly the old cat, who had had one eye upon Mrs. Blackie the whole +time, sprang up and struck quickly twice. There was a chain of shrieks +from Mrs. Blackie, and down she went in the grip of the clawed death. +She never got up again. + +What had happened was simple enough. One of the laborers working on +the trench, knowing of the nest, had, out of curiosity, approached a +little too close, when the bevy of youngsters, being ready to fly, but +not knowing it before this great fright, burst apart at his approach +like a silent cannon cracker. The fear showed them they could use +their wings. + +All three had made, flying low and weakly, for the nearest hedge, which +was the garden hedge--two to the side which comprised their father's +hunting-ground, and one to the side dominated by their ma. And the old +cat and her kitten had seen them coming, and had given chase. + + * * * * * * + +Blackie discovered his remaining progeny sitting about in bushes, +squawking, a few minutes later, when he returned, somewhat agitated to +his precious lawn, and there he promptly proceeded to feed them. The +task was such a large one, and took so long, and so many worms had to +be cut up, and so much bread, and, I may say, when all else failed, so +many daisies had to be picked, before he finally silenced their +ceaseless, craving remarks, that, by the time he had finished feeding +himself and had a clean up, something of the pain of the tragedy had +gone from him. + +And fine fat blackbirds he made of those youngsters, too, in the end, I +want to tell you, for he stuck to 'em like a brick. + + + + +III + +UNDER THE YELLOW FLAG + +A little past noon each day the sun covered a crack between two boards +on the summer-house floor, and up through that aperture, for three +days, had come a leggy, racy-looking, wolfish black spider. Each day, +as it grew hotter, she extended her sphere of jerky investigation, +vanishing down the crack again when the sun passed from it. + +To-day she prolonged her roamings right up the wall of the summer-house +and along a joist bare of all save dust, and--well, the spider walked +straight on, moving with little jerks as if by intermittent clockwork, +and she seemed to stroll right on top of the wasp lying curled up on +her side. Only when one of the latter's delicate feelers shifted round +towards her, as though in some uncanny way conscious of her approach, +did she leap back as if she had touched an electric wire. Then she +froze--flat. The wasp was lying curled up, as we have said, upon her +side, her head tucked in, her wings drawn down, her jaws tight shut +upon a splinter of wood. She had been there half-a-year, asleep, +hibernating, and in that state, without any other protection than the +summer-house roof and walls, had survived the frosts of winter. + +The wasp did not move further. + +The spider appeared to be taking things in, measuring her chances, +weighing the risk against her famished hunger--possibly her late +husband had been her last meal, months ago--marking the vital spot upon +her prey, aiming for the shot, which must be true, for one does not +miss in attacking a wasp--and live. Only, she would not have risked it +at all, perhaps, if the wasp had seemed alive, or more alive, at any +rate. + +Then came the shot--one cannot in justice call it a spring; it was too +instant to be termed that. The spider simply was upon the wasp without +seeming to go there; but the wasp was not there, or, rather, her vital +spot wasn't. She had kicked herself round on her side, like a +cart-wheel, lying flat, with her feet, and the spider's jaws struck +only hard cuirass. Before the spider, leaping back, wolf-like, could +lunge in her lightning second stroke, the wasp was on her feet, a live +thing, after all. + +The warmth had been already soaking the message of spring into her +cold-drugged brain, and now this sudden attack had finished what the +warmth had begun. She was awake, on her feet, a live and dangerous +proposition; groggy, it is true; dazed, half-working, so to speak; but +a force to be reckoned with--after half-a-year. And one saw, too, at a +glance that she was different from ordinary wasps--would make two, in +fact, of any ordinary wasp; and her great jaws looked as if they could +eat one and comfortably deal with more; whilst her dagger-sting, now +unsheathed and ready--probably for the first time--could deliver a +wound twice as deep and deadly as the ordinary wasp. She was, in +short, a queen-wasp; a queen of the future, if Fate willed; a queen as +yet without a kingdom, a sovereign uncrowned, but of regal proportions +and queenly aspect, for all that; for in the insect world royalties are +fashioned upon a super-standard that marks them off from the common +herd. + +The spider hesitated. She knew the danger of the stripes of +yellow--the yellow flag, so to speak. The fear of it is upon every +insect that lives. At the same time, the queen was undoubtedly yet +numb. + +Antagonists decide in the insect world like a flash of light, and quick +as thought they act. The spider attacked now so quickly that she +seemed to have vanished, and she met--jaws. Back she shot, circled, +shot in again, and she met--sting! + +It was never clear whether that sting went home. The spider did. She +fell--fell plump to the floor, only not breaking what spiders have in +place of a neck because of the fact that, being a spider, she never +moved anywhere, not even upon a spring, without anchoring a line of web +down first. Therefore, an inch from the ground, she fetched up with a +jerk upon the line that she had anchored up on the joist, spun round, +let herself drop the rest of the way, and ran into the crack between +the boards of the floor. Goodness knows if she lived. + +The wasp, with that extremely droll, lugubrious look on her long, +mask-like face which makes the faces of insects so funny and uncanny, +like pantomime masks, sat down as if nothing had happened, apparently +to scheme out the best way to possess herself of a kingdom and become a +queen in fact as well as in name. Really, she was cleaning +herself--combing her antennae with her forelegs, provided with bristle +hairs for the purpose, scraping and polishing her wings, as if they did +not already shine like mother-o'-pearl, and washing her quaint face. + +She was still rather groggy from the effects of her long sleep and the +cold endured--it is a wonder how she had stood the latter at all--and +when, with a subdued inward sort of hum, she finally launched herself +in flight, she nearly fell to the ground before righting herself and +flying in a zigzag heavily across the lawn. + +A cock-chaffinch up in the limes saw her, and condescending at last to +break his song, described a flashing streak of wine-red breast and +white wing-bars in the sun. He appeared to recognize her sinister +yellow shield in time, however, and returned to his perch with a +flourish, leaving the wasp to go on and begin dancing up the wall of +the house till she came to the open window. Here she vanished within. + +The sunlight sat on the floor of the room inside, and the baby sat in +the sunlight; and the wasp, apparently still half-awake, went, or, +rather, nearly tumbled, and sat beside the baby. + +They made an odd picture there--the golden sun, the sunny, +golden-headed baby, and that silent, yellow she-devil, crawling, +crawling, crawling, with her narrow wings gleaming like gems. + +Then the child put out her chubby hand to seize that bright-yellow +object--how was she to know that it was the yellow signal of danger in +the insect world that she saw? And, of course, being a baby, she was +going to stuff it into her mouth. But Fate had use for that +wasp--perhaps for that baby. Wherefore there was a little scream, a +pair of woman's arms swept down and whisked that baby into the air, and +a high-heeled shoe whisked the astonished wasp into a corner. Here she +swore savagely, vibrating her head with tremendous speed in the +process, rose heavily and menacingly, made to fly out, hit the upper +window, which was shut, and which she could not see, but felt, and fell +to the floor again, where she apparently had brain-fever, buzzing round +and round on her back like a top the while. + +And then, rising suddenly, the queen flew away, hitting nothing in the +process, but getting through the lower and open part of the window. +She seemed anxious to make sure of not getting into the house again. +She flew right away, rising high to top the garden hedge, and dropping +low on the far side, to buzz and poke about in and out, up along the +hedge-bank that bordered the hayfield. + +She flew as one looking for something, and every insect in her way took +jolly good care--in the shape of scintillating streaks and dashes--to +get out of it. The mere sight of that yellow-banded cuirass shining in +the sun was apparently quite enough for them--most of them, anyway. As +a matter of fact, she was looking for a site for a city. She had +ambition, and would found her a city, a city of her very own, with +generous streets at right angles, on the American plan; and she would +be queen of it. It was a big idea, and we should have said an +impossible one, seeing that at that moment she was the city and its +population and its queen all rolled into one, so to speak. +Queen-wasps, however, also on the American plan, ruled the word +"impossible" out of their dictionary long ago. They "attempt the end, +and never stand to doubt." + +The queen came to rest on a bare patch of ground an front of a hole, +and a black and hairy spider, with two hindlegs missing on the offside, +spun round in the entrance of that hole to face her. He had not been +noticeable until he moved. + +She left him in a hurry, and thereafter resumed her endless searching +along the hedge-bank. A dozen times she vanished into a hole, and, +after a minute or so, came out again with the air of one dissatisfied. +Half-a-dozen times she came out tail first, buzzing warnings and very +angry, at the invitation of a bumble-bee queen, a big, hook-jawed, +carnivorous beetle in shining mail, and so forth, but she never lost +her head. + +Finally, she came to a mole-hole that suited her. The other burrows +had all turned out to be field-mouse holes, leading ultimately into a +main tunnel that ran the whole length of the hedge apparently, and was +a public way for all the little whiskered ones. But this tunnel, bored +by the miner mole, ran nowhither, having caved in not far from the +entrance, and was very sound of construction, with a nice dry slope. +She selected a wide spot where the tunnel branched, each branch forming +a _cul-de-sac_. Here she slew swiftly several suspicious-looking +little tawny beetles and one field-cricket, who put up a rare good +fight for it, found loafing about the place. + +It pleased the queen that here, in this spot, she would found her a +city. But first she must, as it were, take the latitude and the +longitude of this her stronghold to be. She must know where her city +was, must make absolutely dead sure, certain, of finding it again when +she went out. Otherwise, if she lost it--well, there would be an end +to it before it had begun, so to speak. For this purpose, therefore, +she rose slowly, humming to herself some royal incantation--rose, upon +a gradually widening corkscrew spiral, into the air. + +She was, in point of fact, surveying the district round her capital to +be, marking each point--bush, stone, grass-tuft, tree-trunk, +flower-cluster, clod, branch, anything and everything, great and +small--and jotting down in indelible memory fluid, upon whatever she +kept for a brain, just precisely the position of every landmark. And +as she rose her circles ever widened, so that at last her big compound +eyes took in quite a big stretch of sunlit picture, to be photographed +upon her memory, and there remain forevermore. + +It took her some time, for it was some job; but once done, it was done +for good. + +Next, alighting with great hustle--now that the work was once +begun--the queen ran into her tunnel, and made sure that nobody had +"jumped her claim" in the interval. She found an ant, red and +ravenous, taking too professional an interest in the place, and she +abolished that ant with one nip; though, as you may be sure, the tiny +insect fought like a bulldog. + +Then she executed a shallow excavation upon the site of the future city +itself, carrying each pellet of earth outside beyond the entrance. +This also took time, though she worked at fever-pitch, almost with +fury; but she managed to finish it, and fly away into the landscape in +a remarkably short while, considering. + +Here once again she appeared to be searching for something through the +yellow sunshine and the falling blossom-petals--confetti from Spring's +wedding. And presently she found it, or seemed to--an old gate, off +its hinges. But the wood was rotting, and she was no fool. She knew +her job--the job she had never done before, by the way--and after +humming around it in a fretful, undecided sort of fashion for some +while, she flew on. Apparently she was looking for wood, but not _any_ +wood. Cut wood appeared to be her desire, and that oak; at least, she +put behind her a deal board lying half-overgrown, after one careful +professional inspection. + +Her way was through a perilous world, beset by a thousand foes, mostly +in the nature of traps and lines and barbed-wire entanglements set by +spiders. As a rule you didn't see these last at all--nor did she; but +her yellow-and-black badge usually won her a way of respect--and +hate--and she cut or struggled herself clear of such web-lines as her +feelers failed to spot in time. + +At last she found some real oak rails, and set to work upon them at +once, planing with her sharp shear-jaws. A tiger-beetle, gaudy and +hungry-eyed, sought to pounce upon her in this task. He was +long-legged, and keen, and lean, and very swift; but she shot aloft +just in time; and when she came down again, with a z-zzzzp, as quickly +as she went up, sting first, he had wisely dodged into a cranny, where +he defied her with open and jagged jaws. + +Again getting to work, she planed off a pellet of good sound wood--it +looked like a nail-scrape, the mark she made--and masticating it and +moistening it with saliva, whirred back like a homing aeroplane to her +city in the making. + +There was a whir and a buzz as she passed through the portals of her +main gate from the light of day, and she reappeared again, backing out, +"looking daggers," as we say, and brandishing her poisoned dart--her +sting, if you insist, on the end of her tail--in the air. But she +still hung on to her pellet. + +Presumably some unlucky visitor had called in her absence. More sounds +of concentrated argument followed, and finally there fell out, rather +than rushed out, a small and amazingly slender black wasp, one of those +hermits who seem to consecrate their lives to lonely working for a +family they never see. This unhappy one slid down the bank, curled up +at the bottom, uncurled, curled up again, and--remained curled. +Apparently _her_ day's work was done, which comes of falling foul of +the yellow flag. + +Arrived inside, at her hallowed chamber, our queen carefully selected a +rootlet in the roof--not just any old rootlet, mark you; never any +"old" anything, you will notice, but a good, sound, well-found rootlet +that you could hang five or six pounds' weight to; indeed, three +rootlets before she had finished. To these rootlets she +fastened--gummed would be a more correct word--her pellet of +wasp-paper, in the form of a thin layer, and hurried away, singing, for +more. This was, so to speak, the foundation-stone of the city, laid, +be it noticed, not haphazard--our queen never did any business that +way--but with mathematical regard as to what was to follow. In very +fact, too, it was the foundation-stone of her city, only upside-down, +though that is nothing. Wasps always do things that way, which is +unlike ants, those other and greater city builders. + +Back came the queen very soon with another load, and pasted +that--thin--to the first layer, hurrying, bustling, humming a happy +song continuously to herself. Then away again for more, and in the +process to a lively battle with a robber-fly, who appeared set upon +robbing her of her blood. It tried, like the beetle, to stalk her and +pounce upon her back, what time she was planing out wood for +paper-pulp; but her back wasn't there when it pounced, and her jaws +were. It "waited on," hovering like a falcon, and twice as keen, and +when she got to work again, dropped like a hurled lance-head, only to +be met with jaws, wide and ready, as before. + +It went away, watching from afar--far for an insect--from "the little +speedwell's darling blue" upon the hedge-bank, and just as she was +moistening the load, gathered ready to fly off, delivered its final +ultimatum--a marvelously persistent murderer. This time it, or, +rather, she, was received with the point--the poisoned point--and, +turning like a spent lightning-flash to avoid it, found the queen hard +on her heels, following all down the gay hedge-ditch, humming high, in +nearly a shriek of rage. Finally, she turned, to do battle for her +life, and the two, grappling, fell as shooting-stars fall, gleaming, +athwart the sun, with a brrr-r like a fused wire, and finished the job, +rolling over and over on the ground--rolling over and over among the +stalks of bluebells, like the heavens "upraising from the earth." + +It is written, however, that few in the insect world can withstand a +queen of the yellow devils, and in a few seconds the wasp got up and +flew home again, quite unperturbed. The robber-fly did not get up, and +she was not quite unperturbed, but died as they die who are poisoned +with formic acid, and very soon was still. + +By the time the shadows crept across the entrance to the derelict +mole-hole, warning the wasp back--for your true wasp is a worshiper of +the sun--the queen had formed a disc of paper, and suspended +there-from, in the middle, a stalk, also of paper, which widened out at +its base, and became, as it were, the outlines of four six-sided cells. +The cells were in the shape of a cross--that cross which you will +always find at the foundation of the cities of the waspfolk, and, in a +way, a sign or mark of their nationality--the cross in the +market-square, so to speak, outwards from which the city grew. + +The queen, satisfied apparently with her new city so far, hung up and +went to sleep. When anything or anybody came to prospect for house +lots, or edible victims, during the still, silent, silver night, she +hummed very severely, like an electric fan, to let the intruders know +who she was, and they mostly backed out again in a hurry. If they took +a step nearer the hum rose an octave, and became very wicked, and that, +so far as most of them were concerned, finished it. + +Two, however, there were who would not take even that hint. One was a +shrew-mouse, thirsting for blood, but who got poison instead, and next +morning was found running about with his mouth somewhere concealed +behind his ear, if one may be pardoned the expression, in consequence; +and the other was a carnivorous beetle, in black, purple-shot armor, +and armed with jaws toothed like lobsters' claws. The queen took some +nasty scars from those same jaws before she got home with the poisoned +point, a clean thrust 'twist breastplate and armlet, and the invader +doubled up on the spot where he was, and had to be dragged out in the +morning--not the dawning, for the sun had well stoked up before our +wasp would have anything to do with him. + +[Illustration: "A shrew-mouse, thirsting for blood, but who got poison +instead"] + +She found the day already in full swing when she rose, buzzing, from +her front-gate, late--for wasps hate early morning chill, like Red +Indians--and, circling once, swung straight away. She jumped into full +hustle right off, you see. She did not merely work; she superworked. +Forced to short hours by her constitution, she had to make up for it in +the time she got, and she did. She allowed nothing to stop her. If +anything tried to, she mostly stopped it, for there was no compromise +about this nation-builder; she reached her goal every time. + +It was on this journey that a spotted fly-catcher, sitting on a +gatepost, made a Euclid figure at her in midair as she passed. She had +not power to fight the bird's beak, and her poison-dagger was useless +here; nor do fly-catchers often miss. This, however, was an occasion +when one of them did--by an eighth of an inch--and only some +electric-spark-like dodging on the part of the insect in the air made +even that one miss possible. It was so quick, you could not see what +happened. + +That day the cross of cells in this budding city was developed further, +and a low wall built round each cell. Moreover, more cells were built, +always taking the cross as the center of all things--six-sided cells, +with a low, incomplete wall, or, rather, parapet, partitioning each +off, to the number of about twenty-four cells in all. Each cell was +closed, of course, at the top, the top being its floor, and open at the +bottom, the bottom being, if I may so put it, the top; for, as has +already been said, wasp cities are built upside-down, and everybody +walks and hangs on his head, being so fitted for the purpose. If you +don't hang, you tumble straight down into the scooped-out cavity below; +but nobody ever does that till he dies, for that cavity is at once the +cemetery and the refuse-heap and the dust-bin of the city, a haunt of +tiny ghouls--beetle, spider, and fly ghouls--and other loathsome +horrors, the scavengers, hyenas, vultures, and jackals of the wasp +world. + +Now, after making the first cell, or, rather, the part cell, with its +low parapet, the queen laid an egg--it was very minute, that +egg--inside the cell, gumming it against the top, on the angle nearest +the center of the city. It had to be cemented there; otherwise it +would have fallen out. + +In the next cell she laid an egg, too, cementing it up to the top in +the same manner--always in the angle nearest the center of the +city--and in the next another egg, and so on, up to the twenty-four or +so. It is a little doubtful precisely how long she took over the +process, because, for one thing, she made so many journeys backwards +and forwards to get wood-pulp from the rails for paper manufacture--she +used paper for everything; and, for another thing, she began to roof +over the whole affair with a hanging umbrella made of layers of the +finest paper that you ever did see--much finer than that made by the +ordinary common or garden worker-wasp of the jam-pots and the +stewed-fruit dish, for was she not a queen, and therefore not common in +anything she did?--and it became, in consequence, rather hard to see +what she really was "at." Most of the time that the sky remained +cloudy she used up at this job, and also when there was a shower of +rain, for she hated rain and all shadow and darkness. + +Her purpose, in regard to this paper roofing, was to keep out any +possible dripping that might come through the earth roof in wet +weather, and to store up and multiply the heat from her body. Terrific +heat, to be sure; nevertheless important in the scheme of things. When +all was completed, this city, this mighty kingdom, measured about one +and a half inches round. + +When all was completed, also, the wasp flew out for a drink and a feed. +But first she cleaned. The most fastidious cat was a grimy tramp in +comparison to her in habits, and in all her spare time--goodness alone +knows how she squeezed in any spare time at all during those hustling +days!--her first, and generally her last, act was to clean. She could +not afford dirt. To be dirty, with her, was to die even more quickly +than she would, anyway; for, you see, she did not breathe through her +mouth, but all over herself, so to speak--through her armor, or +hair-like tubes in that same. + +From bluebell to cowslip and lily she picked her way, sipping honey and +humming a wicked little hum through her teeth, as it were, and on to +where + + Daisies pied, and violets blue, + And cuckoo buds of yellow hue, + And lady-smocks all silver white, + Do paint the meadows with delight. + + +Now she toyed with a yellow oxlip, now paused at a purple lungwort; but +most she went into the garden, and hovered, still as a humming-bird, +among the rose-leaves and branches, especially those growing against +the sun-bathed old wooden porch, and for so long that one wondered what +she was doing there. She was licking up the "honey-dew," which, +translated, is the juice exuded by the plant-lice or "green-fly," which +swarmed all over the rose-trees. This "honey-dew" was sweet, and in +great demand among such insects as had tastes that way; in fact, the +enterprising ants--who are always a decade ahead of everybody +else--were, in one place, building mud sheds over the said herds of +plant-lice to prevent their precious "honey-dew" being exploited by +others. + +Thus a week passed, the queen fussing daily about her embryo city, +adding paper covering here, strengthening a wall there, warning off an +inquisitive insect somewhere else, and adding her heat to the natural +stuffiness of the place, though one would scarcely have thought she +could have made much difference. At times, too, in the hot sun, she +appeared here or there outside, drinking honey from some flower, or +sipping "honey-dew," much to the ants' disgust and anger. + +Then, at the end of the week, the first egg hatched out within the +city, and, frankly, what came forth was not lovely. It was a legless +grub, fat, presumably blind, and helpless; and it would have fallen +head downwards out of the cell, as it hatched, if it had not had the +sense to hook its tail into its own egg-shell, which in turn, as we +know, was already fastened to the top of the cell. But it had jaws, +and in addition, apparently, an appetite to use them. + +Whether the queen loved it, her first baby, was hard to tell. Did she, +indeed, ever love anything? She certainly did her duty by it; but what +was the use of setting up to be a queen, anyway, if she could not do +that? And, moreover, you've got to do your duty in the wild. There's +no profit in monkeying with Nature, as is possible with civilization, +for the penalty thereof is death. + +Wherefore did our queen, after making quite sure that the sack-like +atom with a mouth, hanging upside-down in the cell, and wriggling like +anything to show its hunger, was alive, sound, and quite all there, +quit home in a hurry, and with a loud buzz, in search of rations. But +there was a change in her manner from that adopted when looking for +food for herself, and for good reason. _Then_ her object had been +honey; now it was--scalps! + +From force of habit, more perhaps than from force of reasoning, she +flew to the rose-trees, and there fixed in her shear jaws not more than +two of the helpless, fool, unarmed, soft, juicy green-fly, which are +really no more, if one may so put it, than living, infinitesimal +"white" grapes. That she was challenged by a sentry ant--about as big +to her as a bulldog to us--that the sentry gave the alarm, that the +guard turned out from one of the ants' "cowsheds" over some of the +green-fly, and that she went away in a hurry, with half-a-dozen furious +ants on their hindlegs, trying to get hold of her retiring feet with +their jaws, was a matter treated by her with insolent unconcern. + +She had got her scalps, and winging home in a hurry to her baby, fed it +upon green-fly. The baby did not feed nicely, and the picture of the +glistening, corsleted devil queen-mother, with her lugubrious, +mask-like face, and the wriggling, hanging sack babe, and the luckless, +fool, helpless green-fly between them, was not a pretty one. Here +maternity was not a Sunday-sermon subject, yet it was maternity all the +same. + +By this time other eggs in other cells were splitting, and giving out +legless grub horrors, as seeds that give forth plants, each wriggling +mummy taking care to hook itself up to its shell by the tail at once, +lest it perish. And the queen's work from that moment really began. +Till then she had only tinkered at it, apparently. Now she got going +"real some," and--well, all the insect world outside knew it. The +terror of the yellow flag spread. + +Upon an hour she would appear, dropping, hawk-like and terrible, out of +the sun-glare, and neatly pick up a soft and juicy caterpillar from a +cabbage-stalk. Upon another hour she would be discovered, feet tucked +up and wary, darting, like an iridescent gleam, around the angry ants, +among the green-fly on the rose-bushes. The drowsy hum of the kettle +on the kitchen fire, and the steady, low hum of the house-fly dance in +the middle of the room, would be answered in the long, hot afternoons +by her wicked warning drone as she came sailing in at the open window, +like the insolent pirate that she was, to go out again a minute later +with a helpless fly between her jaws. The first heat of the sun, +drinking up the dew, would discover her sailing forth to war; his full, +sizzling rays would reveal her waging violent warfare with the +bluebottle flies over some carcass; into his amber light of the noon +her yellow flag would suddenly rise from out the cool shade of the +larder, where she had been carving meat, and "when the sun mended his +twisted copper nets," he would flash in bronze from her glistening +cuirass as she droned by high over some wriggling grub, caterpillar, or +palsied fly fast locked in her jaws--and all for her young, all for her +couple of dozen legless horrors, hanging by their tails, each in its +narrow cell, in darkness and in dead silence, in the embryo city under +the secret earth. + +Time was when these same grubs grew so fat and big that they no longer +hung, but became fast wedged in their dormitories; time when the queen +had to set to and extend downwards the wall of each cell lest the +growing inmates bulge over, and, obsessed with their ravening hunger, +incontinently eat each other; and time at last when, one after the +other, each grub, having grown out of more than one suit of clothes and +donned new ones, cast its skin for the last time, refused all further +food, spun a cocoon of silk with a dome-shaped silken floor to each +cell, and for a period retired from the prying eyes of the world, even +of its own mother, into the sacred sanctuary of the chrysalis state. +Then the queen's labor lightened a little for a period, so that you +could again see her at spare moments sucking nectar from the flowers +for herself, robbing the jam-dish, or lapping up the "honey-dew" of the +green-fly. + +Finally came _the_ day. It dawned all right, and there was nothing +about it to show that it was going to be different from any other fine +day; yet, as soon as the wasp woke up, she knew that, for her, it was +the day of Fate. + +A very cursory inspection of the budding city showed at once that +during the night things had been happening and changes taking place. +The domed floors of several of the cells were palpitating with life +from within, and there were sounds of the gnawing and tearing of the +silken screens. + +The queen became greatly excited, and began to hum and dance a little +step-dance to herself, all alone in the darkness among the cells, as +she saw her triumph evolving before her eyes. And, almost as if the +hum had called it, there rushed at her, out of the blackness across the +comb, a--a thing. + +She knew by instinct that it was an enemy. Indeed, it could not well +be anything else, but it fought like a black devil. + +It was, in point of fact, a mole-cricket, a creature just like its +namesake, if an insect can be said to resemble an animal, only that its +jaws were like unto the jaws of a lobster. It was a fearsome +apparition, and very much larger even than the queen. The good God +alone knoweth why it had chosen that moment and place to run apparently +amok. + +But, if the mole-cricket ran amok, the queen-wasp went berserk. It was +a thing unthinkable that in that moment of triumph she, and the +awakening city with her, should be cut off--unthinkable and impossible, +unthinkable and maddening. Therefore she fought as few wasps have +probably fought before or since, and they are pretty expert exponents, +and scarcely backward ones, of warfare. + +The battle that followed was awful. + +Almost at the start the two insects, grappling, fell headlong to the +excavation the queen had made below the city, and there, rolling over +and over, continued the struggle in the dark among the refuse, the +queen eternally feeling with her poison-dagger for a space to drive +home her death-blow between the other's smooth, shining armor-plates; +the cricket eternally endeavoring to behead the queen between its awful +jaws. + +It was a fight to the death, as most insect duels are, and it could not +last long. It was too tense, too fiendish, too shockingly wicked for +that. + +Suddenly the queen's body shot out like a spring. The opening she had +been feeling for had appeared, and she had driven her death-blow home. +At the same instant, with a supreme effort, she bent double and shot +herself free, the last convulsive, shearing crush of her foe's laws +clashing to so close above her head that they actually caught in their +death-grip, and held, till she pulled them out by the roots, two +bristles of her neck. + +And then--well, then the queen hurried back up to her city, just in +time to help out of its cell the first of her children--and citizens at +last--the first limp, clambering, damp, newly painted, freshly bedecked +young worker-wasp, perfect from feeler to sting, from wing to claw. + +Quickly they broke out now from the cocoons, and the queen bustled from +one to the other, assisting, cleaning, encouraging; for it is a tricky +job for an insect to come out of its chrysalis-case. The queen's work, +however, was really done; for, though for a day or two, till their +cuirasses and wings hardened, these new young worker-wasps only did +light labor, acting as nurses to the others that were following, and so +on, they quickly took upon their own shoulders the whole of the work of +the city: the nursing and feeding of the young, the hunting, the +building, the scavenging, and the waiting upon and feeding the +queen-mother herself completely, so that she should henceforth labor +not, nor fight, nor waste herself in the chase, but should keep at home +and lay countless eggs, and eggs, and always nothing but eggs, for the +workers to rear for the benefit of the State. + + * * * * * * + +To-day that city has a population of nearly 60,000, and contains over +11,000 cells; and the queen is still there, laying eggs, eggs, and +again eggs, till-- + + + + +IV + +NINE POINTS OF THE LAW + + Sharp's the word with her.--SWIFT. + +Some people never know when they are well off. It is a complaint which +afflicts cats, you may have noticed, and gets them into much trouble +that their contemptuous temper might otherwise leave them free from. +The silver tabby would have done better if she had remained asleep upon +Miss Somebody's arm-chair, instead of squatting, still as marble, out +in a damp field on a damp night, watching a rabbits' "stop"--which is +vernacular for a bunnies' nursery--and thinking how nice raw, pink +baby-rabbit would taste if she got the chance to sample it. She +didn't. At least, she hadn't for an hour and a half; but, then, what's +an hour and a half to a cat? Apparently the silver tabby could wait, +just like that, utterly inert, till the crack of doom--or dawn. + +Mind you, she was not alone. She had company. One always has in the +wild at night, or nearly always. You couldn't see that company, but I +don't know whether the silver tabby could. Who can tell how much a cat +sees, anyway? Nor do I think the company could see her, she being +still, and wild eyes not being good at picking out the still form. +Neither could they hear her, for she said nothing; neither did she +purr. They must have smelt her, though. Anyway, she seemed to be a +little island in the mist--the faint, faint, ethereal dew-mist--where +nobody walked. You could hear them--a rustle here, a squeak there, a +thud somewhere else, a displaced leaf, a cracked twig--this only +once--a drumming, a patter, a sniff, a snuffle, a sigh; but they all +passed by on the other side, so to say, and gave the silver tabby room +to think. Apparently cats are not considered good company in the wild; +lonely creatures, they are best left alone. + +No mother-rabbit came to the "stop"--which the cat knew to be there--to +feed her babies, which the cat, thanks to her nose, knew to be there, +too. No baby-rabbits came out to be fed--or to feed the cat either. +"Stops" are secrets, kept from the rest of rabbitdom by the wise +mothers, and, they hope, from other inquisitive people also. The +little short holes in the middle of the field are plugged up by the old +does with grass and fur when they are away, which is pretty often. + +Then the silver tabby heard a thump come out of the night--a thud, +hollow, resounding, and noticeable. It was repeated after an interval, +and again repeated. There was a certain note of insistence about +it--like a signal. And if the cat had been a wild creature she would +have thrown up the sponge, or gone away, and returned secretly later, +or, anyway, not persisted in crouching there; for those thuds were a +signal, and they meant that the game was up. In other words, some wily +old mother circling the approach, or some wandering back-eddy of wind, +had given the cat away; she had been scented, and rabbit after rabbit, +squatting invisible in the night, was thumping the ground with its feet +to say so and warn all off whom it might concern. The silver tabby, +however, neither wild nor satisfied to be tame, did not know. She sat +on, and in doing so wondered, perhaps, at the scarcity of rabbits +thereabouts. + +She sat, or hunched, or crouched, or couched, or whatever you call that +precise position of cats, which is neither lying down nor sitting up, +for some time longer--for another twenty minutes, to be precise; and +all the while the thuds of mystery serenaded her from nowhere in +particular out of the dark--and from down-wind. + +Then she must have come to the conclusion that she was being made a +fool of, for she got up, stretched herself lazily, with arched back and +bared claws, and yawned a bored feline yawn. And even as she did so +she was aware of a sudden final flourish of thuds, and then +dead-silence. Next moment, in that same dead-silence, she distinctly +heard something coming towards her, and that something was taking no +pains to conceal the fact. + +Now, in the wild it is not the custom to go towards anything and take +no pains to conceal the fact. The unhealth of such a procedure is +swiftly borne in upon such rash ones as make the experiment, and they +seldom live long enough to pass their folly on. Only the mighty can +afford not to walk circumspectly, and they are very few, and, with man +about, even they have learnt wisdom. That is why the wild is so +guarded, and why self-effacement becomes almost a religion therein. + +Even the cat knew this, I fancy. Anyway, she looked surprised as she +crouched again, and quickly. + +Now, of all the wild-people, probably one of the most brazen is the +pig; it is also one of the bravest. I mean, the wild pig. And it +would seem that he, or she, who came that way was a pig, only a +precious little one. You know the ways of a pig? How you can hear him +coming long before he comes; how he must snuffle, and grunt, and poke +dead leaves, and snort, and tread on things, and snore. Very good. So +it was here; and these things did this new-comer, who approached +through the mist--only all in a dwarfed way, as if they were done by a +tiny grown-up pig. Its gruntings were almost to itself; its snortings, +snorings, and sniffings quite small; and its snorts little miniature +ones. Only, in the profound silence of the night, and in comparison +with the furtive noises of all the rest of the night-wild, they sounded +quite loud. + +The cat, as she crouched, passed from supercilious surprise to +amazement. You could tell that by the roundness of her eyes. She had +no knowledge of pigs, and had never met any of the wild-folk gone mad; +yet it seemed that one must have done so now, and that one--to her +growing uneasiness--was coming straight towards her. I fancy that in +that moment she thought of the warm fire, the singing kettle, the +saucer of milk, and Miss Somebody's best arm-chair. + +The thing, whatever it was, came straight on in a more or less zigzag +line, till the cat could make it out dimly in the moonlight, a +blotched, roughly egg-shaped form, less than a foot long, so low to the +ground that it appeared to be running on wheels, and covered all over +with prickles, like a Rugby ball into which tin tacks had been driven +head first, the sharp ends pointing outwards and backwards. Its head +was the small end, and much lower than its back. Its eyes, little and +pig-like, set in a black cowl, gleamed red in the tired moonlight; and +its face was the face of a pig, nothing else--just pure pig; insolent, +cunning, vulgar, and blatant. Occasionally men name a wild beast +correctly, and this little beast could only have one name--hedgehog: It +was obvious on the face of it. + +But the cat, being a cat and an aristocrat, knew, as has been said, +nothing about pigs, real or only so called. She had killed a shrew +once, and spat it out for tasting abominably and smelling worse; and +shrews are cousins of the hedgehogs, of the same great clan, +Insectivora--far removed from the pigs, really--and that is the nearest +she had got. + +She had never heard of hedgehogs, and never, never met a beast that +walked through the wild as if he owned it. And, more, he expected her +to get out of his way, which she did with feline and concentrated +remarks; and he--by the whiskers and talons!--the fool exposed his +back--turned his back openly, a thing no wild beast in its senses would +do, unless running away. And that, for a cat who had waited close on +two hours for baby business that didn't turn up, had got most +unfashionably drenched, and had, moreover, in her time, tackled more +than one grown-up rabbit, which was considerably larger than any +hedgehog--that, I say, was, for the silver tabby, too much. + +She sprang. Rather, she executed two bounds, and somewhat unexpectedly +found herself on top of the hedgehog. I say "unexpectedly," because +she had hitherto bounded upon wild-folk who contrived mostly not to be +there. This one contrived nothing, except to stop still. And the cat +executed a third bound--_off_ the hedgehog, and rather more violently +and more quickly than the first two. Also, she spat. + +When she had got over the intense pain--and cats feel pain badly--of +sharp spines digging into her soft and tender forefoot-pads, she +stopped, about two yards away, and glared at the hedgehog as if he had +played off a foul upon her, and she was surprised to see that he was no +longer egg-shaped, but rolled up into himself like a ball, so to speak, +and utterly quiescent. (I wonder if she remembered the little +wood-lice that she had so often amused herself playing with in idle +hours. They rolled themselves up just like that. Perhaps she thought +she'd come upon the Colossus of all the wood-lice.) Anyway, after she +had spat off at him all the vile remarks she could think of for the +moment, without producing any more reply than she would get from the +average stone, she came back, drawn with curiosity as by strings. + +The hedgehog did not move; there was no need. It was for the cat to +make the next move--if she chose. He did not care. All things were +one to him, and all the views which he presented to the world were +points, a _cheval-de-frise_, a coiled ball of barbed wire, a living +Gibraltar, what you will, but, anyway, practically impregnable; and the +beggar knew it. "He who believeth doth not make haste"--that seemed to +be his motto, and he had, by the same token, a fine facility for +withstanding a siege. + +He felt the cat, that cat who did not know hedgehogs, pat him +tentatively. Then he heard her swearing softly and tensely at the +painful result. She did not pat again--at least, only once, and, in +spite of care, that hurt her worse than ever. Then she began growling, +low and beastily--for all the cat tribe have a horrible growl; you may +have noticed it. Perhaps the hedgehog smiled. I don't know. He knew +that growl, anyhow; had heard it before--the anger of utter +exasperation. He was an exasperating brute, too, for he never said +anything, only shut himself up, and let others do the arguing, if they +were fools enough to do so. + +Suddenly he heard the growl stop. Followed a tense pause, during which +he tightened his back-muscles under his spines, and tucked himself in, +to meet any coming shock, more tightly than ever. Followed the pause a +short warning hiss, jerked out almost in fright, it seemed--that cat's +hiss that is only a bluff, and meant to imitate a snake--a sudden +explosion of snarls, and a thud. A fractional silence, then a perfect +boil-over of snarls, and thud upon thud. + +Now, our friend hedgehog was an old hand, and he had heard many and +curious sounds take place outside himself, so to speak; but, all the +same, he was just tickled to death to know what, in claws and whiskers, +was happening out there in the leering moonlight now; so much so, +indeed, that at last he risked it, and took a furtive peep out of a +chink in himself, as it were. And what he saw might have amazed him, +if he had not been a hedgehog and scarcely ever amazed at anything. He +just got a snapshot view of the cat's fine ringed tail whirling round +and round as she balanced herself on the swerve, vanishing into the +ghostly moonlight haze of the night; and in front of him, close beside +him, squatting, stare-eyed and phlegmatic, he saw the form of a big, +gaunt, old doe-rabbit. And I think he knew what had happened. He +seemed to, anyway, and remained rolled up. + +Rabbits are thoughtless, headstrong, headlong, hopeless, helpless +cowards as a race and a rule. "The heart of a rabbit," they say in +France, speaking of a coward. But all races and rules have exceptions. +Occasionally the exceptions are old buck-rabbits, who know a thing or +two; but more often they are old doe-rabbits with young. And, mark +you, from the point of view of those wild-folk, there may be easier +rough handfuls to tackle than old doe-rabbits with young. This one had +simply streaked out of the night from nowhere--and behind--and knocked +the cat flying before she knew. Then, ere ever the feline could gather +her wits, the old doe had descended upon her with an avalanche of +blows--punches they were with the forefeet, all over the head and the +nose, where a cat hates to be hit--and all so swiftly, so irresistibly, +that that cat had never been given a chance to consider before she was +stampeded into the night. It was the silver tabby's first experience +of Mrs. Rabbit doing the devoted-mother act, and, by the look of +her--tail only--and the speed at which she was going, it appeared most +likely that it would be her last. + +[Illustration: "This one had simply streaked out of the night from +nowhere"] + +Meanwhile the old doe-rabbit sat there in the moonlight as immovable +and impassive as a Buddha, and the hedgehog, peering at her, guessed +that the time to unroll was not yet. He knew that it would hurt any +one to attack him; the cat knew it; all rabbits in their senses knew +it; but was that mother-rabbit in her senses? He concluded to lie low +and remain a fortress, therefore. + +Then, after waiting about five minutes, as if she knew that cats +sometimes steal back, the old doe-rabbit came to a "stop" quite close +to the hedgehog, and went in. She remained there some time, during +which a fox came by and sniffed at the hedgehog, but was quite wise as +to the foolishness of doing more; and a deadly, curved-backed, +flat-headed little murderer of a stoat galloped by, and sniffed too, +but was no bigger fool than the fox, and went his way. + +Both missed the "stop" by about two yards, though I don't know what +would have happened if they had found it. Digging and death in the +former case, and battle and blood in the latter, perhaps. But no +matter, they passed on their unlawful occasions; and half-an-hour after +the going of the stoat the old doe-rabbit came out, and dissolved into +the moon-haze. + +Then the hedgehog came out, too--of himself, and--well, dissolved into +the "stop." + +What happened in there it was too dark to see, but not to hear; and +what one could hear was--pitiful. He was there some time, for your +hedgehog rarely hurries; and when he came out again, his little pig's +eyes gleaming red under their spined cowl, it was with the same +snuffling, softly grunting deliberation with which he had gone in; but +the pale moon, that showed the gleam in his eyes, showed also blood on +his snout, and on the bristles of his forefeet, blood. + +Then, slowly, snorting, sniffing very audibly--as loud as a big dog +often does--grunting softly in an undertone, as if talking to himself, +he departed, rustling through the grass, leaving an irregular winding +track behind in the dew and the gossamer, as he searched, eternally +searched, for food. + +The hedgehog moved through the night as if he owned it and had no fear +of anything on earth; but many, it would seem, had cause to fear him. +He turned and snorted, and snatched up a slug. Three very quick and +suggestive--quite audible--scrunches, and it was gone. He described a +half-circle, sniffing very loudly, and chopped up a grub. He paused +for a fraction to nose out a beetle, and disposed of it with the same +quick three or four chopping scrunches. (It sounded rather like a +child eating toast-crusts.) He continued, always wandering devious, +always very busy and ant-like, always snorting loudly; grabbed another +beetle, and then a worm--all by scent, apparently--and reached the +hedge-ditch, where, in the pitch-darkness, he could still be heard +snorting and scrunching hapless insects, slugs, and worms at scarcely +more than one-minute intervals. And he never stopped. He seemed to +have been appointed by Nature as a sort of machine, a spiked "tank," to +sniff tirelessly about, reducing the surplus population of pests, as if +he were under a curse--as, indeed, the whole of the great order of +little beasts to which he belonged, the Insectivora, are--which, +afflicting him with an insatiable hunger, drove him everlastingly to +hunt blindly through the night for gastronomic horrors, and to eat 'em. +Anyway, he did it, and in doing it seemed to make himself worthy of the +everlasting thanks and protection of the people who owned that +land--thanks which to date he had never received. + +Strange to say, he never stopped of his own free-will, though he was +stopped: once when he walked up to a man kneeling--and he was a +poacher--and did not see him till, if I may so put it, the man coughed, +when he ran like winkle into the hedge, and promptly became a ball for +ten minutes; and once when he came upon a low, long, sinister, big, and +grunting shadow, which again, if I be allowed the term, he did not see, +though quite close, till he heard it grunt, when he instantly jerked +himself into a ball on the spot and in the open. In both cases it +seemed, on the face of it, more as if he had scented, rather than had +either seen or heard, the dangers, and in both cases he had come within +two yards of them--though they were not hidden--before scenting, +seeing, or hearing them, whichever he did do. + +Now, books and men have said that friend hedgehog fears only two +things: gypsies and badgers--who eat him. I should not be surprised at +anything the "gyp" did; nor, to this day, can we stake much on our +knowledge of the secret badger; but this badger, at any rate, seemed to +know nothing of books and men. He was delving for roots when the +hedgehog cast up out of the night and jumped him to "attention" by his +loud sniffs--much like a big dog's, I said. Thereafter, however, when +our prickly friend was represented as a ball only, and was as silent as +the grave, the badger took no further notice of him, beyond keeping one +eye--the weather eye--upon him, and treating him to a low growl, or +curse, truly, from time to time. + +The hedgehog, however, once there, did not seem keen upon unrolling and +exposing himself till the badger had gone, which it did finally, +vanishing so suddenly and unexpectedly into the dark as almost to seem +to have been a ghost. And after some minutes the hedgehog straightened +out, and ate his way--one can call it nothing else--to the hedge. Here +he came upon a wounded mouse, complaining into the night in a little, +thin voice, because its back was broken, and it could not return to its +hole. It was a harvest mouse, rejoicing in the enormous weight of 4.7 +grains and a length of 57 mm., but with as much love of life and fear +of death as an elephant. Heaven knows what had smitten it! Perhaps it +was one of the very few who just escape the owl, or who foil that +scientific death, the weasel, at the last moment--but no matter. The +result was the same--death, anyway. + +The hedgehog saw its eyes shining like stars in a little jet of +moonlight, and I fear the hedgehog slew far less adroitly than the owl, +and not nearly so scientifically as the weasel; but he slew, none the +less, and he did that which he did. + +From thence we find our hedgehog, still wandering devious, but with +always a direction, just as an ant has, heading his way down-ditch to a +farm, and all the way he ate--beetles mostly, but with slugs and worms +thrown in. + +Now, those of the wild-folk who approach the farm, even by night, do so +with their life in their paws, and most of them know it. Far, far +safer would it be to remain in wood or field-hedge, gorse-patch or +growing crop. Yet they go, like the adventurers of old. + +First of all, if he approached by ditch, before getting to the farm +proper, the hedgehog knew that he must pass the entrenchments of the +rat-folk, and that alone was enough to put off many, for the rat-folk +are no longer strictly wild, and, wild or tame, are hated with that +cordiality that only fear can impose. I don't know that our hedgehog +was given to fearing anything very much. He came of a brave race, and +one cursed, moreover, with a vile, quick temper, more than likely to +squash in its incipient stage any fear that might threaten to exist; +but he did most emphatically detest rats, except to eat them--a +compliment which the rats would have returned, if they had got a chance. + +As a matter of fact, it is unlikely that Prickles--for such was the +name of our hedgehog--would have gone that risky way, traveled so +unhealthily far, left his more or less--mostly less--safe home wood at +all, had it not been that it is sometimes with hedgehogs as it is with +men--in the warm seasons--their fancy turns to thoughts of love. +Prickles's fancy had so turned, not lightly, for he was of an ancient +and antediluvian race, heavy in thought, but certainly to love. And +love, I want you to realize, in the wild, or anywhere else, for the +matter of that, is the very devil. "Unite and multiply; there is no +other law or aim than love," one great savant despairingly assorts is +Nature's cry, and adds that she mutters to herself under her breath, +"and exist afterwards if you can. That is no concern of mine." + +To be precise, Prickles, who did more business with his nose than all +the rest of his organs put together, was following a love-trail. A +lady hedgehog, a flapper undoubtedly, and beautiful--all loves are +beautiful in imagination--had passed that way. Why _that_ unhealthful +way, Heaven knew; but, allowing for the capriciousness of the sex, and +mad because in love, Prickles followed, slowly, deliberately, heavily, +as befitted one descended from one of the oldest races on earth. + +The air was heavy with the scent of may and of honeysuckle, and his way +was a green-gold--silver where the moon cascaded down the hedge--and +blue-black bridal-path, arched with scented swords, strewn with pink +and rose and cream and white confetti of blossom. But he only saw and +smelt one thing, and that, those who have known hedgehogs intimately +will agree, is not like unto the scent of any blossom. + +Prickles was ruminating anciently upon these things, possibly, and +others, as he came down the trench--ditch, I mean--when the cry smote +him. It smote everything--the filtered silence of the wonderful, +tranquil night, the pale moon half-light, the furtive rustling shadows +that stopped rustling, the wonderful breathing pulse of growing +vegetation. And Prickles stopped as abruptly as if it had smitten him +on his nose, too. He heard _that_, at any rate, whatever might have +been hinted about the value of his ears elsewhere. + +There was no doubt about that cry, no possible shadow of doubt +whatever--it was a cry of extreme distress, a final, despairing S.O.S., +flung out to the night in the frantic hope that one of the same species +would hear and help. + +Several night-foraging wild-folk have S.O.S. signals of their own, but +none like this. It was not a rabbit's cry, for bunny's signal is thin +and child-like; nor a hare's, for puss's last scream is like bunny's, +only more so; nor a stoat's, for that is instinct with anger as well as +pain; nor a cat's, for that thrills with hate; nor an owl's, for that +is ghostly; nor a fox's, for Reynard is dumb then; nor a rat's, for +that is gibbering and devilish; nor a mouse's, for that is weak and +helpless. Then what? And why had it touched up Prickles as if with a +live wire? It was perhaps the rarest S.O.S. signal of all heard in the +wild, or one of the rarest, the peculiar, high, chattering, pig-like, +savage tremolo of a hedgehog booked for some extra deathly form of +death. And Prickles--naturally he knew it. + +It came from straightaway down the ditch; from ahead, where Prickles +had been heading for; from the farm, and Heaven know what it portended! +Perhaps, too, Prickles could tell a lady hedgehog's S.O.S. from that of +a gentleman of the same breed; or, perhaps--but how do I know? He +certainly acted that way. + +Prickles waited the one-fifth part of an instant, to listen and locate. +Then he got going, and provided one astonishment. Till then he had +seemed slow as the times he had descended from--like a rhinoceros. +But, like a rhino, he proved that he could shift some when hustled. He +did. It looked like suddenly releasing a clockwork toy wound up to +breaking-point. His short legs gave this impression, and his +next-to-no-neck, giving him a look of rigidity, assisted it. He did +not run so much as rush, and his spines and bristles, coming low on +either side in an overhang, so to speak, like an armored car, made him +rustle and scuffle tremendously. Three rabbits doing the same act, or +five cats, could scarce have made more row than he did. + +It was not, however, so much the fact that Prickles had gone that was +so noticeable as the fact that he had _arrived_. His arrival seemed to +follow his going as one slide follows another on a screen. One would +never have believed such quickness of him; nor, as a matter of fact, do +I think he would have believed it of himself; but--well, love is a +mighty power, and makes folks do some strange things. + +What he found was two ditch-banks, pock-marked with the untidy dug-outs +of the rat-people, smelling ratty, and looking worse, one original ray +of moonlight lighting the beaten ditch between. In the moonlight one +young female hedgehog, who may have been pretty by hedgehog standards, +but was now pretty by none, and five rats, frankly beastly, very busy +indeed with that same hedgehog. They must have caught that young lady +of the spikes "napping"--a rare thing. Yet, allowing for the fact that +she was in love--with love and nothing else, so far--and careless, or +allowing that she may have mistaken the unclean ones momentarily, she +may have given them one brief half-instant. And it doesn't do to give +a rat even the half of a half-instant. If you do, he has got you, or +you haven't got him. + +Apparently they had pretty well got her before she could quite roll up, +and in a half-rolled-up condition she was doing her best to meet the +jabs of five pairs of gnawing, cold-chisel, incisor, yellow-rats' teeth +at once. To time, apparently, she had not been successful in the +attempt--you could see the dark stains of blood glisten in the +moonlight, and the end was certain, on the face of it. + +Prickles, however, was a new factor that had got to short-circuit that +end, and Prickles didn't wait to meditate prehistorically _that_ time. +He came. He came full tilt into the midst of the mêlée like--well, +like a clockwork toy still, that couldn't stop. Only he did stop, +against the biggest rat of all, ducking his head, and jerking forward +his shoulder-muscles, and spines, with a sort of a thrust over his +head, and a noise like a pair of expiring bellows; and the prickles hit +home. + +That rat removed about one foot in one bound in one-fortieth of a +second, and he let rip one squeal in the process that sent away every +other rat into the nearest available hole as if it had been fired there +from a spring. Then the lady hedgehog took the Heaven-sent opportunity +to complete her rolling-up completely, and Prickles took his own +created opportunity to roll up almost more completely, and--well, they +were rolled up into two balls, you see, and there is nothing more to be +said about them. The rats did that, but it was all they did, except +hurt their noses presently, and delicate, pink, hand-like fore-paws, +and make 'em bleed on prickles. They were very angry indeed, those +unspeakable ones--very angry; but it didn't make any difference to the +hedgehogs. They were there; they were rolled up; they were together. +What _could_ make any difference after _that_? And at last, when the +rats gave them up as a very bad job, they went away _together_, and +that's all there is to say. _Together_ clinches it, you understand. + + + + +V + +PHARAOH + + +I + +Upon a day Hawkley came to the district, and took up his abode in a +cottage of four rooms. He "did" for himself. Every housekeeper will +know what "did" for himself means. But he did for himself in another +way also. He came to read up for an exam. He told everybody this, +which was one reason why he would be seen at ungodly hours, when no one +was about, going to and from lonely spots, with a pair of blue glasses +on his nose, a book under one arm, and a walking-stick with a silver +band and a tassel--he was always careful to display the silver band and +the tassel--under the other. + +Then Nemesis descended upon him. + +He was caught by Colonel Lymington's head-keeper on Colonel Lymington's +most strictly preserved wild-bird sanctuary, shooting certain rare +birds--many rare birds. Now, the colonel prided himself on his +sanctuary, and upon the number of rare birds he had living therein, and +the colonel was wroth. Hawkley had, in fact, ruined the sanctuary, and +taken or slain pretty well every other bird worth having in the place, +so that five years would not make good the harm he had done. Moreover, +it was shown in the evidence that Hawkley had been able to accomplish +his work by aid of a folding pocket-rifle with a silencer on, and his +cat--especially the cat, whose name was Pharaoh. + +No words of the keeper's could be found sufficiently to revile that +cat. Indeed, the head-keeper went speechless, and nearly had epilepsy, +in trying to describe it to the Court, and if it had done only one-half +the things that the keeper asserted, it must have been a very +remarkable beast indeed; the magistrate said so. In consequence +Hawkley got rather heavily fined, and went. He went more quickly than +was expected, because the police got a telephone message from the +police of another district--several other districts, I think--to say +that he was "wanted" for precisely the same game there: and Hawkley +must have expected this, for he walked out of the court with a grin on +his face, and was no more seen. + +So quickly did he go that he had no time to take the cat. He left it +at home in the cottage--which shows that he must have been badly +scared, for such a cat must have been worth a lot to a collector's +agent, such as Hawkley was. But perhaps he left it by way of revenge. +I do not know. Anyway, there it was in his cottage, asleep on the sofa +before the fire--just as Hawkley, at the invitation of the authorities, +had left it that morning. + +It was about five o'clock in the afternoon when the cat, Pharaoh, woke +up, and transformed himself instantly from deep sleep to strained +alertness, in that way which is peculiar to the children of the wild, +but has been lost by their domestic degenerates. The sun was shining +full in at the little diamond-paned window. The window was open, and a +late fly of metallic hue was shooting about with a pinging noise, like +the twang of some instrumental string. But neither fly, nor sun, nor +the tick of the little clock on the mantelpiece had awakened the cat. +It was the click of the little front-gate latch. + +The cat--the pupils of his eyes like vertical slits in green-yellow +stone--gave one quick look at, and through, the open window. He had +the impression, framed in the window, of a bobbing, black, "square" +bowler hat--not often seen these days--and a red face with small eyes, +and a sticking-out beard of aggressiveness. This was no Hawkley. The +cat knew it, as he knew, probably, the alien tread. Hawkley had a +white, clean-shaven face, and big eyes--the eyes that an animal may +love and trust. Possibly the cat knew even the profession of him who +came that way so softly and alone in the still afternoon. Anyway, he +acted as if he did. + +Like a snake, and with rather less noise, Pharaoh slid off the sofa and +to the door leading into the scullery. For a moment he stopped, +looking back over his shoulder, one paw uplifted, body drooping on bent +legs, inscrutable, fierce eyes staring. Then he was gone. + +I don't know how he went. He just seemed to fade out in the frame of +the doorway and into the shadowed coolth of the scullery like a +dissolving picture. + +A pause followed, while the little clock on the mantel-piece ticked +hurriedly, as if anxious to get on and pass over an awkward moment. + +Came then the click of the front-door latch, the flinging open of the +door wide, the bar-like gleam of hastily raised gun-barrels in the new +flood of light, and--silence. Only the one or two late flies "pinged," +while the little clock fairly raced. + +The tall, uncompromising figure of the head-keeper was standing in the +doorway, with a double-barreled 12-bore gun half-raised. + +He stood there a moment with his dog, bent a little, peering in. He +had come to find "that there pesky cat." And in this, perhaps, he +showed more sense than most people gave him credit for. Apparently, he +had seen enough to know that the cat was quite unlike any ordinary +cat--and cats of any kind are bad enough--and certainly he guessed that +the cat under control of its master was one, and away from that +questionable influence likely to be another, and very much worse, +calamity. + +The keeper searched that cottage from chimney to doorstep. No cat +there. His dog did not, as might have been expected, help him in this +search. Indeed, his dog, he now discovered, had vanished--had, in +fact, gone out at the back-door and cleared off. + +Meanwhile the cat was, for his sins, being horribly pricked by the +holly-hedge through which he was sliding. He growled under the +punishment. Ordinary domestic cats do not, as a rule, growl in such +cases, though they may "swear." + +Once through the hedge, the cat dropped into the ditch on the other +side, turned to his right, and galloped up it. It ran upwards, +skirting a sloping wet field, to a dark, damp, black wood, as woods +always are that stand on cold clay and have much evergreen growth. +They remind one of a wet, chill rhododendron forest of Tibet. + +The cat's gallop was in itself peculiar, loose, long, his head low, his +forepaws straight, his hindlegs trailing out behind. So does the tiger +gallop across the jungle glade when the beaters rouse him. + +There were other things peculiar about Pharaoh also, now that one had +him on the move and could see. He was, perhaps, a fraction big for his +kind; his coat was yellowish, fading beneath, with "faint pale stripes" +well marked on the sides; his tail was long, and oddly slender and +"whippy," ringed faintly to the black tip; his fur was short and harsh, +quite unlike that of a domestic cat, and the expression of his eyes was +one of permanent, unsleeping fierceness. + +Once he stopped and stared back, and in the pause which followed one +could distinctly hear a faint but rapidly increasing drumming sound +following his trail up the ditch. And least of all beasts had that cat +delusions. He turned and galloped on. The keeper's dog was of an +independent turn of mind. He had quietly run that cat's trail, +forgetting that, in the long-run, dogs are not fitted to maneuver +independently, and may suffer if they do so. You see him flying up the +trail, square nose to ground, tracking really very cleverly indeed, and +with a fine amount of what huntsmen call "drive." + +Ho had overtaken Pharaoh before the hunted one could reach the wood. +He realized it as he took the last bend in the ditch, when he saw a +yellow streak rise under his nose, and bound, with all four legs stuck +out quite straight, and claws spread abroad, like a rubber ball out of +his path, avoiding his clumsy, murderous snap by an inch, and then felt +it rebound right on to his back. + +The next few seconds were quite crowded, and that dog had the time of +his life. + +Even an ordinary domestic "puss" can make wonderful havoc of a dog's +back when once it gets there; and stays, as it does, like a burr, and +this one could go a bit better than most; and when that dog at last got +the cat's "leave to go," he went rather sooner than at once, +proclaiming his misery aloud to all the world, so that his master, +coming at that moment out of the back-door of the cottage, heard him +afar off, and swore. + +As for the cat, he turned about, all bristling, and went too. He went +straight up to, and through, the wood, disturbing in clouds the +starlings, who had just come in to roost in the rhododendrons, so that +they rose with a rushing of wings like the voice of a thunder-shower on +forest leaves, and incidentally drenched the cat with a deluge of +raindrops collected in the leaves as he raced through underneath. A +lesser beast, it may be noted, would have climbed a tree, but Hawkley, +I think, had convinced his cat of that folly when a man might be +following up behind. + +Straight through the wood galloped Pharaoh, and into a stretch of +age-old furze, or gorse, if you like, beyond. That showed strategy. +The furze was a maze of a million spikes, and branches, and twisted, +gnarled stems tough as wire-rope; a wonderful place, all honeycombed +with rabbit-runs; a world unto itself. + +The cat moved on quickly into the heart of the furze, pausing every few +strides to listen and glare round. Several times he sniffed the sickly +grass and the carpet of dead spikes. + +Once or twice something moved ahead; a branch was shaking as he came +up, a blade of grass slowly righting itself, as if something that had +been sitting upon it had but just stolen away. All round were hints of +life, but no life was visible. It was as if the cat were moving +through an army of ghosts. + +Then, in a flash, without any kind of hint or warning to prepare one +for the unnerving contrast of the change, was war--raw, red war. + +There had come up a rabbit-run--a regular rabbit-turnpike--a creature. +It was strikingly colored, that creature, and big--nearly three feet +long, to be exact; but it looked much bigger in the ghostly +twilight--and yet till it was actually upon him he, even he, had failed +to see it. + +Long, low, bear-like, and burly, with claws caked with earth, gashed +and bleeding on flank and shoulder it was, red-fanged and wild-eyed. +It charged home upon Pharaoh without a second's pause, and with an +obscene chatter that was unnerving to any one, let alone so highly +strung a bag of tricks as a cat. + +Men and dogs had been besieging this badger in its den for twelve +hours. It had in the end made a desperate _sortie_, upset one man who +had failed to grab its tail, run into and bitten another, and got clean +away. Pharaoh was unfortunate in that he stood between the half-mad +beast and another den for which it was making. + +There was no time to go back, no room to execute one of those beautiful +lightning side-leaps which are the pride of all the cats, and less to +spring into the air, a neat trick of the tribe which it has also +perfected. + +The cat was cornered, and, being cornered, fought like--a cornered cat! +That is to say, an electrified devil. + +He reared up. He struck, pat! pat! right and left, with the terrible, +rending, full stroke of his kind. He met open jaws with open jaws--you +could hear fang clash against fang. He grabbed, scrunched, drew back, +grabbed, scrunched again, as a lion will--for the cats neither hold +fast like a weasel nor snap like a wolf. Then, as the full force of +the charge and the weight of the enemy's body--some twenty-seven and a +half pounds--took him, he hugged, round-arm fashion, with his talons, +and, still grabbing and scrunching, rolled over backwards. + +Cat and badger turned into a ball--a parti-colored ball, very lively as +to its center, and it whirled. Unfortunately there was not much room +to whirl in. That made things all the more grisly. You could almost +see the grim skeleton shape of death, hovering over that growling, +snarling, spitting, worrying, tearing, kicking, gnashing, scrunching, +foaming, blood-flecked Catherine-wheel--almost see death, I say, +bending down with upraised arm ready to strike. But death never struck. + +In an instant there came, sounding strangely hollow in that still, damp +air of dusk, as though it were in a cave, the unmistakable noise of a +deep, dry, hacking cough. Truly, it was nothing much--just a good old +churchy and human cough. But it might have been a blast from the +trumpet of the archangel Gabriel himself by the effect it had upon the +two combatants. They shot apart like released electrified dust-atoms, +and--pff!--they were gone--wiped out. Like pricked bubbles, they had +ceased to be. And neither gave any explanation. Being wild things, of +course they wouldn't. + +The cough had only come from a laborer, who, passing along a pathway +through the furze, had heard the commotion, and stopped. He never saw +anything, though he crashed into the furze and hunted--he never saw +anything, which was no wonder, seeing that he could hardly have +selected a way to see less. The cat was four hundred yards away by +that time, and goodness knows where the badger was---deep down in his +den, one presumes. + +Later the cat slept, in a fortress of nature safe enough, surrounded by +a hundred unseen sentries with brown jackets and white tails--rabbits, +who would give him all the warning he required. + + +II + +The lean night wind next evening came down, and day went out almost +imperceptibly. Blackness grew under the furze caverns, and the last +glimpse of the estuary faded away in a steely glimmer; a brown ghost of +an owl slid low over the spiked ramparts, and wings--the wings of +fighting wild-duck coming up from the sea to feed--"spoke" like swords +through the star-spangled blue-black canopy of heaven. + +The night-folk began to move abroad. You could hear them pass--now a +faint rustle here, now a surreptitious "pad-pad" there. Once some +bird-thing of the night cried out suddenly, very far away in the sky, +"Keck! keck!" and was gone. + +It was not Pharaoh, however, that you would have heard move. None of +the wild-folk could tell how at midnight he managed to land himself far +out over the marsh, unperceived. He was there--you must take my word +for it--just two faintly luminous yellow-green lamps floating on the +mist. + +Not many men knew their way across the marsh by day; certainly not five +even of the oldest wildfowlers could have got over safely by night. It +was not man, therefore, that was causing the cat to melt into the +short, salt grass, so closely that there was nothing of him left. +Something else was coming his way. + +Along the edge of the dike it came--tall, thin, pale, ghostly, +and--yes, I could have sworn it, though night does play odd tricks with +the human eyesight--faintly phosphorescent. At least, it seemed to +glow ever so dimly, like one that moves in a nearly burnt-out halo. + +Every yard or two it paused, that thing. Once there was a splash, as +if some one were spearing fish and had missed. + +The cat moved rather less than an average stone. He knew that in the +wild to be motionless is, in nine cases out of ten, to be invisible. +The tenth case doesn't matter, because the creature that discovers it +usually dies. Moreover, there was no cover to move to, and cover is +the cat's trump card. + +Now, everything would have gone off all right if--well, if the cat +hadn't been a cat, I suppose; that is, if he had been able to stop the +ceaseless twitching of the black tip of his tail. Tiger-hunters know +that twitching, and those who have stalked the lion will tell you of +it, as also the sparrow on the garden wall, whose life may have been +saved from somebody's pet "tabby" by that same twitching. It is a +characteristic habit of the tribe, I take it. + +The luminous ghost-thing was close now. Heaven knows whether it saw +that twitching then! I think so. It stopped, anyway, and became a +pillar of stone. The cat, almost under it, fairly pressed himself into +the grass. + +Then--whrrp! + +Something shot through the air like a lance, and pinned that twitching +tail-point to the ground. There had been no warning--nothing! Just +that javelin from the ghost, and---the cat on his hindlegs, screaming +like a stricken devil, clawing at the ghost, now revealed as a very +big, long-legged bird which flapped. It flapped huge wings and danced +a grotesque dance, and it smelt abominably, with the stench of ten +fish-markets on a hot day. + +Then at last, the cat clawing and yelling the whole time, the bird's +slow brain seemed to realize the mistake. The javelin, which was its +beak, was withdrawn from the protesting tail-tip hurriedly--to be +driven through the cat's skull as a sheer act of necessary +self-defense, I fancy. But the cat did not wait to see. Imagine the +infamy, the absolute sacrilege, from a cat's point of view, of spitting +a feline tail in that disgusting fashion. Why, if you only tread on +one, you hear about it in five-tenths of the average second, and offend +the supercilious owner for a month afterwards! + +There was a vision, just a half-guessed vision, of our cat shooting +straight upwards through the air, and outwards over the still waters of +the dike; there was a number one splash that set the reflected stars +dancing, and the water-voles ("rats," if you like) bolting to their +holes; and there was the sighing "frou-frou-frou!" of great wings as +the big bird rose and fled majestically. There was the sucking gurgle +and drip-drip of a furred body leaving the water on the far side, eyes +that glared more hate than pen can set down, and a deep, low, malignant +feline curse. That cat had swum the rest of the way over the dike +which he could not jump. + +The bird was only a heron, and that does not sound much unless you are +acquainted with the ways of the heron and all his beak implies. A +heron is one of those birds that can fight at need, and--knows it. +Moreover, in his long beak, set on his steel-spring neck, he has a +weapon of awful "piercefulness," and--knows that too. The bird is an +example of armed defense. + +This one had merely been fishing for eels in that pessimistic way +peculiar to all fishermen, and seeing the tail-tip waving in the grass, +and nothing else, had mistaken the same for his quarry. And this will +be the easier to believe because we know, and probably the heron did +also, that eels are given at times to overland journeys on secret +errands of their own. + +The cat crawled away down the dike in offended silence. He was wet, +and the only cat I ever knew who did not seem to be scandalized past +speech at the fact. Indeed, he went farther. He came upon a ripple +and a dot, some fifty yards farther on, which to the initiated such as +he, represented a water-vole ("rat," if you will) swimming. + +Then, before you could take your pipe from your mouth to exclaim, the +water-vole was not swimming. He was squealing in a most loud and +public-spirited fashion from between Pharaoh's jaws, and it was the cat +who was swimming. He had just taken a flying leap from the bank and +landed full upon the dumbfounded water-vole--splash! Then he swam +calmly ashore and dined, all wet and cold. Now, what is one to say of +such a cat? + +[Illustration: "Landed full upon the dumbfounded water-vole--splash!"] + + +III + +Long did the keepers, in Colonel Lymington's woods and along the +hedges, search with dog and gun for Pharaoh, and many traps did they +set. The dogs truly found a cat--two cats, and the guns stopped them, +but one had a nice blue ribbon round his neck, and the other had +kittens; the traps were found by one cat--and that was the pet of the +colonel's lady--one stoat, one black "Pom"--and that was the idol of +the parson's daughter--and one vixen--and she was buried secretly and +at night--but Pharaoh remained where he had chosen to remain, and he +remained also an enigma. + +Then the colonel's rare birds began to evaporate in real earnest. +Hawkley's little efforts at depleting them were child's-play to those +of Pharaoh that followed, although, of course, Pharaoh himself did not +know, or care the twitch of a whisker, whether the birds he slew were +rare or not. + +Now, if there was one thing more than another about which the colonel +prided himself in his bird sanctuary, it was the presence of the +bittern. I don't know where the bittern came from, nor does the +colonel. Perhaps the head-keeper knew. Bitterns migrate sometimes, +but--well, that keeper was no fool, and knew his master's soft spot. + +It was a night or two later that Pharaoh surmounted the limit, so to +speak, and "sprung all mines in quick succession." He had been curled +up all day in his furze fortress, that vast stretch of prickly +impenetrability which, even if a dog had been found with pluck enough +to push through to its heart, would still, in its massed and tangled +boughs, have given a cat with Pharaoh's fighting prowess full chance to +defy any dog. + +He was beautifully oblivious of the stir his previous doings had kicked +up, and of the winged words the colonel had used to the head-keeper; of +the traps set all about, of the gins doubled and trebled in the wood +and round the park, and of the under-keepers who, with guns and +tempting baits, took up their positions to wait for him as night fell. + +No one seemed to have suspected the furze a mile away, and still less +the marsh and the coverless bleak shore of the estuary, as his home. +Indeed, no one looks for a cat on a wind-whipped marsh when woods are +near at all. Yet this open, wet country seemed to be a peculiarly +favorite hunting-ground of Pharaoh's. + +It was a night of rain-squalls and moonlit streaks when Pharaoh, +wandering devious among the reeds, first became aware of the bittern, +in the shape of reptilian green eyes steadily regarding him from the +piebald shadows. Possibly the cat's whiskers first hinted at some new +presence by reason of the "ancient and fish-like smell" which pervaded +this precise reed jungle. + +Pharaoh stopped dead. Pharaoh, with cruel, thin ears pressed back, +sank like a wraith into the soft ground. Pharaoh ceased to be even a +grayish-yellow, smoky something, and became nothing but eyes--eyes +floating and wicked. A domestic cat, after one frozen interval, would +have crept away from the foe it could not fathom, but Pharaoh had other +blood in his veins. + +To begin with, he was wondering what manner of beast the owner of those +saurian-like orbs might be. To go on with, he was hungry, and--smelt +fish. But though he was looking full at the big bird, he could not see +it, which is the bittern's own private little bit of magic. + +Nature has given him a coat just like a bunch of dried reeds and the +shadows between, and he does the rest by standing with his bead stuck +straight up and as still as a brass idol. Result--invisibility. + +None know how long those two sought to "outfreeze" the "freezer," while +the rain-showers came up and passed hissing, and the moon played at +hide-and-seek. None knew when Pharaoh, flat as a snake, first began +that deadly, silent circling, which was but acting in miniature the +ways of the lion. None knew, either, at what point of bittern first +begun to sink and sink, till he crouched, and puffed, his neck curved +on his back like a spring ready set, his beak, like a sharpened +assegai, upright. + +Only the short-eared owl, with his wonderful eyes, beheld Pharaoh make +his final rush; watched that living spring _sprung_ quick as light, +shooting out straight at the cat's glaring eyes, and saw--greatest +miracle of all the lot--Pharaoh dodge his head aside in the twentieth +of a second, and blink, letting the blow that spelt death whiz by. + +And only those same owl's ears--sharpest of all the ears of the +wild--heard the diabolical yell of Pharaoh as the long, sharp beak +pierced through the loose skin of his shoulders, and, thanks to that +same looseness, came out again an inch or two farther on, transfixing +him; or listened to the devilish noise of the "worry," as the cat +turned in agony on himself and buried his fangs where he could behind +those expressionless green reptilian eyes; or caught the stupendous +flurry and whirl of wings and fur and gripping claws and scaly legs, as +a cloud put out the moon and darkness fell with silence, like the +falling curtain that ends a play. + + * * * * * * + +The very last pale rays of a watery setting sun slid bar-like through +the cottage window, and fell, twirling, aslant the floor. + +A late spider had spun a web across the fireplace, and the one last fly +that always lingers sat in the sunbeam. It was Hawkley's cottage, +dismantled and derelict. + +Something like a furry round hassock, lying motionless in a far corner, +moved at the sound of rain, and lifted a round head with round eyes +that glared with so terrible an expression that one caught one's +breath. There was blood--dried blood--by the furry shape, and drops of +dried blood across the floor from the window in the next room, that it +had been nobody's business to shut. + +The day went out in gloom and howling rain-rushes. Darkness took +possession of the room. And--_the gate clicked_. + +Truly, it might only have been the wind, but--Pharaoh was on his feet +in a flash, growling, and there was a glint of green-yellow light as +his eyes whipped round. + +Followed a pause. Then, in a lull, once, twice, the unmistakable +crunch of a shod foot on gravel. + +Another pause. Pharaoh was crouching close now, trembling from head to +foot. + +"Pharaoh! Pharaoh! Pharaoh, old cat, are--are you in there?" + +The voice, strained and husky, came in at the open window. In the last +lingering afterglow of dying day, a face, haggard and set, showed +there, framed in the lead casement. + +"Phar---- Ah!" + +Pharaoh was up. Pharaoh had given a strange, coaxing little cry, such +as a she-cat gives to her kittens. Pharaoh, lame and stiff, but with +tail straight as a poker, was running to the window in the next room, +was up on the sill, was rubbing against and caressing the haggard face +like a mad thing. + +There was a long, tense pause, broken only by a continuous purring. +Then the creaking sound as of the lid of a wicker basket being opened. +The purring ceased. The creaking came again, as if the lid were being +shut. There came the crunch once more of stealthy shod feet on gravel, +the click of the gate, and--silence! + +Hawkley had come for, and found, his cat. + + + + +VI + +THE CRIPPLE + +It was gradually getting colder and colder as he flew, till at last, in +a wonderful, luminous, clear, moonlit sunset, when day passed, +lingering almost imperceptibly, into night, the wind fixed in the +north, and a hard white frost shone on the glistening roofs--far, far +below. + +Up there, at the three-thousand or four-thousand feet level, where he +was flying, the air was as clear and sparkling as champagne, and as +still as the tomb. If he had been passing over the moon instead of +over the earth, the effect would have been something like it, perhaps. + +He was only a thrush, _Turdus philomelus_ the songster, but big and +dull and dark for his kind, and he had come from--well, behind him, all +shimmering and restless in the moonlight, like a fountain-basin full of +quicksilver, lay the North Sea; ahead and beneath lay England; and +across that sea, three hundred miles, as I count it, at the very least, +to the lands of melting snow, he was going when late cold weather had +caught him and warned him to come back. And alone? No, sirs, not +quite. Ahead, just visible, blurredly--a little phantom form rose and +fell on the magic air; behind, another; on his right, a third--all +thrushes, flying steadily westward in silence; and there may have been +a few more that could not be seen, or there may not. + +His crop, as were the crops of the others, was perfectly empty. +Indeed, he appeared to prefer traveling in ballast that way. But his +eyes shone, and his wing-strokes, with little pauses of rigidity +between, such as many birds take--only one doesn't notice it much--were +strong and sure. + +Once a large-winged, smudged shape, making no sound as it slipped +across the heavens, came flapping almost up to him, peering this way +and that at him and his companions, with amber flaming eyes set in a +cat-like, oval face. The thrush's heart gave a great jump, and seemed +threatening to choke him, for that shape--and it howled at him +suddenly, in a voice calculated to make strong men jump--was death of +the night, otherwise a short-eared owl. + +But a gun went "boomp!" with that thick, damp sort of sound that smacks +of black powder, somewhere down on earth, and a huge "herd" of green +plover, _alias_ peewits, which are lapwings, rose, as if blown up by an +explosion, to meet them, their thousand wings flickering in the +frost-haze like a shower of confetti, and the owl was so disconcerted +by the disturbance that he dropped back into the night whence he came, +as one who falls into a sea. + +Then suddenly the thrush--all the thrushes, indeed--tipped tails, and +flew downward--offering no explanation to help one to understand +why--till they dropped, each one entirely on his own hook, apparently, +in or about some gardens, as if they had tumbled out of the sky; and +our thrush, in twenty seconds, had slipped into some apple-trees, and +thence to some laurels round a shed, and--was asleep! I say "was +asleep." Out of the starry sky, down, in under, and asleep--all +without emotion, and like a machine. Now, what is one to make of such +a bird? + +He did not see, or, more correctly, did not appear to see--for I do not +know what he saw and what he pretended not to see, really--the lean, +lithe, long, low weasel that passed, climbing and sniffing, beneath +him--within six inches--possibly scenting out a rat. He did not hear, +or show that he heard, the blackbird--she was rusty, dark brown, as a +matter of actual fact--scream, a piercing and public-spirited scream, +when the very big claws of a little, round, spotted-feathered ball with +wings, like a parody of a cherub--but men call it a little owl, +really--closed upon her and squeezed, or pierced, out her life. He did +not feel, or let on that he felt, the branches gently sway as two eyes, +glinting back the light of the moon--eyes which were the property of a +"silver tabby" female cat--floated among the twigs, looking for him, +him most certainly, whom she seemed faintly to smell, but never saw. + +[Illustration: "A 'silver tabby' floated among the twigs, looking for +him"] + +These things represented tense moments dotted through hours of cold, +dark silence, and the blue-black dome of night arched, and the moon +drifted, all in rigid, cold, and appalling stillness. + +Then the wind changed, and our thrush awoke to a "muggy" day, under a +soaked, cotton-wool, gray sky, all sodden with streaming showers of +rain. And, by that token alone, he must have known that he was in +England. No other climate is capable of such crazy, unwarned, +health-trying changes. He had come in an icy, practically petrified +silence. He left in a steaming, swishing, streaming gale. + +But that was not before he had been down to scratch like a fowl among +the dead leaves under the privet-hedge for grubs, who "kidded" +themselves that they were going to be fine, flashing insects next +summer. He also prospected a snail or two, and broke through their +fortifications by hammering the same upon a stone. And, by some magic +process that looked akin to the way in which some men divine water, he +divined a worm out of seemingly bare earth. It was there, too, and it +came up, not joyfully, but tugged, to be hammered and shaken into +something not too disgustingly alive to be swallowed. + +Then, while a robin mounted to a spruce-spire and acted as Job's +comforter to all the birds of the garden by singing--ah, so plaintively +and sweetly!--of the dismal days of frost and snow, he "preened"--i.e. +went over and combed every feather, and tested and retested, cleaned +and recleaned, each vital quill. Then, in one single, watery, weak +stab of apology for sunshine, on the top of a fowl-shed, he surrendered +himself to what, in wild-bird land, is known as the "sunning reaction," +which really consists of giving body and mind utterly to the sun and +complete rest. + +And then he left. + +Now, it was no chance that he left. Birds don't do business that way. +To you or me, that location and its climate would have seemed as good +for him to "peg out a claim" in as any other. He knew better. +Something--Heaven alone knows what--within him told him what was +coming. He had the power to take a draft on the future, and by that +means to save himself--if he could. Wherefore he flew on +southward--always south. + +And six hours after he had gone, the wind swung like a weather-cock, +swung and stopped at northeast, and frost began to grip that garden in +an iron fist that threatened to squeeze the life out of every living +thing in it, and the sky hung like the lid of a lead box. + +The thrush flew, with a few halts, practically all day and well into +the night, and the northeast wind and the Frost King chased him south. + +He roosted in a great fastness of age-old holly-bushes within a wood, +whose branches were packed with his relations--redwings, thrushes, and +blackbirds, and also starlings--all tired out, all booked for the south. + +Some woods seem to hold a curse of gloom. One cannot say why. And +this was one of them. And the tawny owl that nobody saw but everybody +heard, and the white stoat that everybody saw and nobody heard, and the +amorous dog-fox with the cruel bark that everybody saw and heard, did +not, taken together or singly, add to the gayety of the scene. + +The thrush was just ahead of the cold when he went to roost in pouring +rain. In the night, however, the cold had overtaken him, and the +thousand-jeweled beauty of frost-flakes flashed to his waking eye. + +He was numbed and puffed out and peevish, and disinclined to move, but +anything was better than sticking about in this roosting-place, this +casual ward and clearing-house of the wild. The keen starlings were +already off, swinging away, regiment by regiment, with a fine, bold +rush of wings; the blackbirds were dotting the glades; the redwings +were slipping "weeping" away, to find soft fields to mope in; and the +pigeon host--what was left alive of it after diphtheria had taken its +toll--had streamed onwards, heading southwest. + +_Turdus philomelus_ spelt L-u-c-k for our friend that morn, for he had +not prospected two hundred yards when he came on a place where a +vagrant "sounder" of half-grown, domestic, unringed pigs had been +canvassing the wood for beech-mast, acorns, and roots during the night. +The soil was all torn up for a space of about an acre, probably the +only soil for miles--except along streams and by springs--penetrable by +beaks until the sun came out; and the thrush feasted royally upon +hibernating caterpillars and chrysalids that would have become moths, +beetle larvae all curled up and asleep, and other pests; and he must +have done a considerable amount of good in that place during the next +hour or so. + +But feasts do not go begging long in a frost-bound wild, even if they +are hidden; and by the time our thrush had driven several other +thrushes away--for he was a jealous feeder--and had been driven away by +blackbirds himself more than once, starlings descended upon the place +with their furious greed, and our thrush concluded that it was about +time to "step off." The crowded place might become a quick-lunch +resort for some others, not insect-feeders--hawks, for instance--and +was unhealthful for that reason. Indeed, he had not more than moved +away into the shelter of the rhododendrons when a shadow with a hooked +bill shot round the corner, going like the wind. He had time to see it +dive like a dipping kite--but it was a sparrow-hawk--and to hear the +death-scream of a feeding blackbird, before he went completely from +that place, and it knew him no more. + +Soon after that he sighted the sea, wide-stretched and restless, ahead, +and turned westward parallel with the coast-line, till, in the +afternoon, he came unto "a land where it was always afternoon"--a flat, +damp, dwarf-treed, relaxing, gray land, mild, as a rule, and +melancholy--a land full of water. But for once it was a cold land, and +the thrush realized that the bitter frost had leapt ahead of him, and +that he might now never outstrip it again, perhaps. I do not know if +he realized, too, that the lead sky, that looked as if it were going to +come down and crush one, meant snow. + +In a bare orchard he was attracted by the sight of several blue titmice +and two robins, feeding upon one or two odd apples that had been left +unpicked at the very top of a tree. It seemed strange and out of place +to behold apples in midwinter like that; but, for some reason, he took +only a few pecks, and his devil prompted him down to peck at some +soaked bread among the violets, and to drink at a spring so exquisitely +encrusted with moss that it looked as if everything, every floating +dead leaf, stone, and root, had been upholstered in plush. + +Then Fate struck--hard. + +A snap, a thump, and he was bouncing over and over, with an air-rifle +bullet in his thigh. It was a blow that knocked him half-silly, and he +was down before he knew, but only for a second, because of what he saw. +He beheld a boy, with an air-rifle in hand, running towards him; but +ahead of the boy was the boy's young cat, who evidently had learnt to +look for a meal when the air-rifle went off. + +The cat, being young, however, managed to bungle his pounce for the +fraction of a second, and that is long enough for most of the +wild-folk. Came a mad fluttering, a beating of wings, a quick mix-up, +and, before he knew, that cat found himself frantically chasing that +thrush across the orchard, striking wildly always at a thrush that just +wasn't there, as the latter part flew, part hopped, with every ounce of +strength and agility that clean, hard living had given him, till he was +clear of the trees. Then--up and away, with his heart in his beak, so +to speak, and his brain whirling, till the orchard lay "hull down" on +the horizon, and was only another bitter experience, and a warning, +seared into the bird's memory. + +So far, so good. He had made his escape, had euchred Fate, but--the +payment for laziness, the terrible cess for a momentary lapse from +vigilance, which great Nature, in her grim, wise cruelty, always +demands, had to be met, and the end of it was not yet. + +It began, however, now. + +The thrush discovered that he was not alone in the air, and that he had +all at once got himself, as it were, fixed in the public eye, and was +"wanted." A swish in the sky made him look up, to see a rook, with a +leering eye, coming down upon him. He cleverly "side-slipped" in +mid-air, and let the rook, braking wildly, go diving by. Perhaps he +wondered what had turned the rook hawk. As a matter of fact, the +weather had, partly, and the rifle had, the rest; for the rook could +see what the thrush did not yet realize. + +The rook went away astern, shouting bad language, and another foe came +to take his, or her, place. Again our thrush discovered that he was +not alone. Little, white, silent, cruel, dancing flakes of white were +traveling more or less with him and downwards, upon the following wind. +The snow! The snow at last! And he was trapped, for it was to keep +ahead of the snow that he had journeyed all that way back again. +Indeed, you can hardly realize, unless you have almost lived their +life, what the snow and the frost mean to all the thrush people, but +more especially to the common song-thrush and the redwing. At the +worst it means death; at the best, little more than a living death. + +However, to race the snow were useless. Yet he flew on, and on, and +on, like a stampeded horse, blindly, one-sidedly, while the ordnance +survey map beneath turned from brown, and chocolate, and silver-gray, +and dull green, first to pepper and salt, then to freckled white, then +all over to the spotless white eider-down quilt of the winter returned, +as far as the eye--even his binocular orbs--could reach, muffling tree +and house, and garden and copse, and farm and field, and fallow and +plow and meadow in the one mystical, silent, white disguise of winter. +And the thrush at length came down. + +His eye had spotted a little corner of a garden that might have been a +spread table in the wilderness. It was only a small triangle of lawn, +with a summer-house at its apex, and a spruce-fir and a house at its +base, and privet-hedges marking off the rest. But it had a +"bird-table," and a swept-clean circle on the grass, and there was +sopped bread upon both. And that place was given over entirely to +chaffinches, _all hens_, tripping, mincing, pecking, feasting, +fighting--because they were chaffinches, I suppose, and must fight--all +over the place. + +The thrush came to anchor upon the roof of the summer-house, +and--straightway fell upon his beak! And that was Fate's punishment +for laziness, one second's relaxation from vigilance. + +Righting himself, he almost overbalanced the other way, and only +finally managed to come to an intricate halt on one leg. The other +leg--the right one--was twisted back under him, in line with his closed +wings and tail; that is to say, it was pointing the wrong way for a +bird's leg, or, rather, so far as could be seen among the feathers, +that was how it seemed. But the leg was not broken; he could still +move his toes and expand his foot. Otherwise he could do nothing with +it. The leg might not have been there, for all the use it was to him; +it would have been better if it had not been there, for it hampered his +flight, or unbalanced him, or something, so that he was incapable of +traveling now beyond the snow, even if he would. Undoubtedly the +air-rifle had done its work. + +Now, in the wild it is a fairly sound maxim that an injured wildling is +a dead wildling--that is, unless the injury is quite slight. There are +exceptions, of course. Flesh-wounds and quick-healing wounds are +exceptions. + +However, our thrush seemed to be no coward, and he at once buckled to, +to fight Fate and all the world--one bird _v_. the rest. It was +appalling odds, and I guess no darn fool could have been found to back +that bird's chance of winning through. + +Then he showed that he had at least one trump up his sleeve. A shape +like unto the shape of a silken kite came floating in ample circles +across the low-hung sky. And the color of that shape was brown--pale +brown; and the shape was alive, and had the appearance of eternally +looking for something, which it always could not find. So hunts the +kestrel falcon, and by the same token the thrush knew that this was a +big hen-kestrel. I say "big" advisedly, because in kestrel society it +is the ladies who have the weight and the vote. + +And the thrush, who had by that time flown to the ground, promptly +"froze "--froze to stillness, I mean--and vanished. It was a startling +little trick of his, almost an eccentricity; but the fact was that so +long as he kept still on the dark ground where the snow had been swept +away--and earth and grass mingled almost to a black whole against the +white--he was practically invisible. This was because of his peculiar +somber color. Had he been light of dress, like an ordinary +song-thrush, any eye could have picked him up in that spot. + +Now, that kestrel was in a bad temper and vicious. She was cursing the +snow which covered the doings of the field-mice, which ordinarily were +her "staff of life"; and she had not killed since dawn. Hence she was +a public danger, even to wild-folk she usually left alone, and just now +she was looking for our thrush, who she had seen fly down and--vanish. + +There he was, however, bang in the open, unshielded by any cover, +motionless on one leg, looking upwards, and, to all intents and +purposes, not there. The kestrel came shooting up superbly, going at a +great pace on the wind, cutting the cold air like a knife, twisting and +turning her long tail tins way and that, but moving her quarter-shut +wings not one stroke. Right over him she dived, her wonderful eyes +stabbing down, so close that you could see her small, rounded head +turning and craning. But no thrush did she see. She "banked," hung, +swept round, and came back. Then she hovered, like a bird hung from +the sky by an invisible hair; and for our thrush she was indeed the +sword of Damocles, for the spot in the air where she hung was directly +over him. If anybody had shot her dead at that instant, she would have +fallen upon his back. At that instant, or the next, she might fall +upon his back, anyway, without anybody shooting her. Indeed, the +betting seemed a good few hundred to one that she would. + +Very few human beings know the full meaning of the word "still"--not +even bluejackets!--but most of the wild-folk do. They have to. So did +the thrush, but never before had he kept so utterly, stonily, frozenly, +strickenly motionless. If he had moved an eyelid even, winked, or +gulped too hard, it would have been all up with him. But he didn't and +it was not all up; though the kestrel seemed as if she were going to +hover there, in that spot, through all eternity. And when at last she +condescended to surrender to the wind and vanish like a falling star +into the horizon, our friend was as near nervous prostration and +hysteria as a bird can be. A very little longer and I believe he would +actually have died from sheer overstrain, instead of from kestrel. + +Then the thrush fed. He did it against time, before dark, for if night +came and caught him with an empty crop, he froze. Perhaps he would +freeze, anyway; but no matter. + +The hen-chaffinches, presumably at the end of a journey, or part way +along it, too, were in a like hurry, and for the same reason. He could +see them now only as faint splashes of white, as they opened tail and +wing to fight; but they could not fight _him_, and he savagely kept the +little clearing in the snow free of all save himself. It was as if he +knew that he was "up against it," and the fact had developed a grim +fierceness in his character. + +An owl must have gone over about this time, because an owl did go over +that garden about the same time every night; but perhaps she was not +expecting thrushes in that gloom, or was in a hurry to keep an +appointment with a rat. Anyway, the owl did not develop. + +Thereafter and at last the thrush went to sleep in a spruce-fir. + +Dead silence reigned over the garden, and Cold, with a capital C, +gripped the land. Heaven help any bird who roosted on an empty stomach +on such a night! It would freeze to its perch before morning, most +like. + +Indeed, our thrush had a neighbor, a hedge-sparrow just newly arrived +from "somewhere up north." It had come in after dark, and therefore +had no time to feed. The thrush just took his head out from under his +wing and opened one eye, as the poor little beggar perched close to him +for company. He could see it plainly in the petrified moonlight. + +When next he opened one eye and looked, dawn was at hand, and the poor +little bird was still there. When at last, with shoulders humped and +feathers puffed, our thrush flew down to feed in the first pale-gold +glimmer of very-much-diluted sunlight, the hedge-sparrow did not move. +Now, in opening his wings, possibly from a vague idea of frightening +the hedge-sparrow away from the magic swept circle on the lawn close +by, and its bread, the thrush brushed heavily against that +hedge-sparrow, so that--oh, horror!--it fell, or swung over backwards, +rather, and hung head downwards, swaying slightly, like a toy acrobat +on a wire, before it fell, so rigidly and so stiffly immovable that one +expected it to shatter to pieces like glass as it hit the ground. It +did not, however. But it did not matter. The hedge-sparrow was quite, +quite dead before it fell, frozen stiff and stark in the night. And +none of the other birds seemed to care. Why should they? Such a fate +might overtake themselves. + +The thrush, much tucked up, but still with some fight in him, was late. +Big flocks of peewits or green plover--he could see them between the +spruce-boughs--had gone drifting by, winking like floating silver, high +overhead, bound westward; and skylarks were passing over the garden, +one by one, heading southwest towards the warm, and chortling to each +other as they went. Starlings--some of them with extraordinarily +bright-yellow dagger-beaks, and some with dull beaks--were before him, +squabbling and sparring over the bread on the lawn. A robin dropped a +little chain of melancholy silvery notes, and a great titmouse bugled +clearly, "Ting-ling! Ting-ling! Ting-ling!" Some one opened a window +of the house giving on to the lawn, and the last house-fly blundered +out into the cold air; and a company of gnats--surely the most hardy of +insects--was dancing in the pale sunlight by the summer-house, _above +the snow_. + +The opening of the window had erupted the starlings into the +surrounding trees, there to whistle and indulge in a "shiveree," such +as is dear to the heart of the excitable, social starling. And our +thrush was standing motionless in the middle of the swept circle on the +lawn almost at once. No one saw him go there. Indeed, unless the +observer looked closely, no one saw him at all, for even then he was, +unless he moved, difficult to see, and, whatever had been his custom +before, in those days he moved but little. + +He had come at even to a garden given over to hen-chaffinches--no +cocks, as we said--but at dawn, or, rather, his later hour for rising, +he found the garden given over to song-thrushes, all pale beside him, +all slim, all snaky of build--Continental song-thrushes, most like, and +the same only come to those parts in very hard weather, for they come a +long way. + +Our song-thrush, standing on his one leg, looked at them with one +shrewd eye. There were two of them in the snowless circle on the lawn, +which had been swept clear of the snow, that was now deep, before he +was up, and had also been replenished with bread. Two thrushes sat in +the spruce-fir, and one on the top of the summer-house, and every jack +of them was ravenous. He could expect no mercy from _them_. They must +live, if they could, and there was not enough food for all. And he +asked no mercy himself, either. Still, it was long odds. + +Then he showed that he, even a bird, knew the laws of strategy, the +essence of which is surprise. He surprised everybody by suddenly +charging at the thrush on the lawn near him with a murderous ferocity +that took one's breath away. It certainly would have taken away that +of the other song-thrush, if our friend had not knocked it out of him +by the impact. By all the laws of precedence, of course, any one of +those others ought to have sent him, with his one leg, into headlong +retreat by merely threatening. But our friend was not concerned with +the laws of precedence, it seemed. He became a law unto himself, and a +most amazing "character" to boot. Also, he fought like several demons, +and, by sheer reckless fury, removed that dumbfounded rival of his from +the lawn in twenty-one hectic seconds. + +Then he fed--it was enough only to glance, just glance, at the other +thrushes and the chaffinches, after that astounding exhibition of his +character. He fed, and, after he had stuffed full, he stood still a +little way off. + +This was the signal for two of the thrushes in the spruce-fir to flap +down to the bread. One got there. The other saw what was coming, and +turned hastily back. The one that got there snatched up a piece of +bread. But he never ate it. Something hit him on the side. It felt +like the point of a skewer, but it was our thrush's beak, really, and +by the time he had recovered from that blow he found himself so busy +saving his eyesight that he was glad enough to drop his bread and go. + +That, however, was not enough for our thrush. He appeared to "see +red," and with a terrible cruel, relentless "redness." He followed the +retreating foe to the spruce-fir, flying heavily and awkwardly by +reason of his smashed leg. He perched beside him on the branch he +settled upon, nearly overbalancing, and perilously swaying and +wobbling, with wings wildly flapping, and he drove that thrush to +another branch, with such a rain of pecks that the feathers flew. Nor +was even that enough. He followed up the attack, and hustled the +thrush from that other branch, so that he flew down the snowed-up road. +Then our cripple, spinning in a whirl of snow, hurled himself upon the +other thrush in the tree, and drove him out of it into the road. + +But even that did not suffice him, for devils seemed to have possessed +him, and the thought of opposition sent him crazy. He blundered into +the privet-hedge, and unearthed a half-frozen _confrère_, who fled, +squawking peevishly, leaving one tail-feather in our friend's beak; and +finally he flew down to the road. + +In the road, he first of all buried his face in snow, then fell on his +side, deep snow not being, he discovered, an ideal medium in which to +get about on one leg. During that performance his rivals could have +abolished him five times over if they had had the heart to unite. But +they seemed to think otherwise, and had not the heart for anything. +They sat still, with that helpless abandon that afflicts fowls and +other birds in disaster, and they seemed about to starve practically on +the spot, if left alone. + +Our thrush, however, did not leave them alone. They were a direct +threat to his only line of communication with life, so to +speak--namely, food. Wherefore, either they or he must go. Soon he +found that cart-ruts make convenient roads for the birds in the snow, +or perhaps it was the chaffinches, who were following one another in +lines along the cart-ruts, who showed him. + +Then and there, in the road, our thrush seemed to go berserk. He +landed upon the thrush nearest to him, spread-eagled and hammering like +a feathered devil. There was a whirl of brown feathers and finely +powdered snow for about ten seconds, at the end of which time that +other thrush detached himself and fled, oven as his conqueror hurled +himself upon the next bird. + +There were two here, side by side, but neither was quick enough to +parry our friend's lightning lunges, after he had beaten down their +guard with his wings; and they, too, got up and winged into the leaden, +frowning sky. The others did not wait. They had seen all they wanted +to, apparently, and would take no part in the play. They faded out +among the drifting snowflakes, over the still, white fields, and our +thrush was left to the lawn, and the bread, and the swarming +chaffinches, whom he easily kept aloof, and--yes, there was no getting +away from it--the one thrush on the summer-house who, you will note, +had never moved. But when he looked he found that thrush was not on +the summer-house, but on the lawn, eating bread; and when he flew down +to the lawn to investigate--he flew and landed very clumsily--he made a +discovery that seemed to surprise him; or did he already know it? +Anyway, the thrush on the lawn was a lady, and--well, what would you? +The cripple balanced as well as he could, and looked foolish. It was +all he could do. + +The day passed swiftly, and faded out in blinding snow. Most of the +time the cripple stood motionless, watching his companion and guarding +his swept circle, and, as often as he could, he fed. And neither then +nor at any other time, except once when the gardener nearly trod upon +him before he would move, did he utter a sound. The last glimmer of +day showed him still at his post, motionless, all but invisible. But +he roosted, as a matter of fact, in the privet-hedge, on the south side +of the summer-house, and this time he was not alone. + +The day had been trying enough, with its fights and its three cats, +which passed within reach of him, and could have slain him--for his +injuries made him slow to get under way--if they had not failed to see +him, because so still. The night, however, was a clouded terror. + +Certainly he went to bed--if one may so call it--full, if not warm +exactly; but that was the only advantage. It snowed with ghastly, +relentless steadiness, and it blew like the hacking of sharp knives. + +But through it all, because full fed, the cripple, with all his +handicap, and his lady companion lived; lived to see the hard dawn pale +tardily; lived to watch the kind gardener--under strict orders +assuredly, or he would never have done it--sweep a space clear on the +lawn and spread food for the birds; lived to ruffle his feathers and +fly down; and lived to see the thaw which came that afternoon, when the +warm sou'-wester came romping over the land, and winter's last stand +was overcome by the forces of spring, and all the wild breathed a sigh +of relief and went abroad gayly to feed. + +But the cripple lived to see other things. For there came a day, about +a week later, when our cripple, who had been "keeping company" all the +time with his lady friend, heard the whole dawn awaken to a sudden +mighty chorus of thrush song. I don't know why they all chose to burst +into song thus as at a given signal, but they did, and the effect upon +the cripple and his companion was curious. He had just landed upon the +top of the summer-house on his one leg, in a particularly awkward and +unbalanced manner, and he perched, listening, as if rooted to the spot, +and with something nearly approaching horror in his eyes, it seemed to +me. + +The female bird listened, too, for about a minute, and then, ignoring +the poor cripple as if he had never existed, hopped towards the +spruce-fir--atop of which a particularly fine and strong-voiced +songster was warbling--as if she were drawn by ropes. And--oh, +horror!--the songster came down to _her_. + +The cripple never uttered a sound, not a song, or a call, or a sign. +He hurled himself straight at this new rival like a bolt shot from a +crossbow, and he fought. My word, how he fought! But this new +antagonist was no half-frozen, half-starved Continental song thrush. +He was a Britisher, thick-set, bullet-headed, thick-necked, who had +wintered, perhaps, in the south of Ireland or farther, and he fought +like a Trojan. + +All up and down the lawn the fight raged, and in and out of the hedges, +into the mountain ash and out again, down to the ground and up again; +but in the end--ah, but it could have only one end!--the Britisher was +on the top of the summer-house, literally shouting his song of triumph. +And the cripple was on the ground at the foot of the hedge, beneath the +spruce-fir, lying on his side, blood-stained and panting. Nobody saw +him creep away. Nobody cared--certainly not his lady acquaintance, who +was too busy receiving glad eyes from the conqueror. + +Also, nobody saw him die. Yet next morning he was dead, stiff and +still on the ground beside the summer-house. Some think that it was +the injuries he received in his last great fight that killed him. I do +not. I could find no wounds upon him sufficiently severe to sustain +that theory. I think he died of a broken heart. Don't you? + + + + +VII + +"SET A THIEF"---- + +Cob arrived in a snowstorm of unparalleled ferocity. He came upon +extended vans sixty-nine inches from tip to tip, which he seemed as if +he were never going to flap. All black above, all white below, he was. +The fact was worth noting, because, as seen from below, he looked +neither black nor any other hue, but just indiscriminate dark, unless +he swerved against the little light, and then his white "hull" shone +like silver. + +In his calm tacking, in his effortless play, in his superb mastery of +the furious gale, one realized that here was one of Nature's +masterpieces. He arrested the gaze with his serenity, and in his +majesty of flight marked himself as a bird apart. + +Here was a bird accustomed to power, to respect, and to wield fear, as +a king might do; but he was no king, even among birds. He was a great +black-backed gull, immense, austere, and cruel, with eyes as cold as +the waves whose glitter they reflected, and a heart as implacable as +the storm that cherished it; sea-rover, pillager, pirate, swashbuckler, +son of the storm in whose fierce buffetings he rejoiced, master of the +gale upon whose fury he flourished--the very spirit of the ocean's +frontiers, arrayed in the spotless uniform of the sea, sailing under +her bold colors. + +And then, as he suddenly came, the watcher, had there been one, would +have looked at him expectantly, for an eagle, bristling with weapons, +so to speak, fierce-eyed, mighty, and scowling, came flapping heavily +across the white-fretted bay. There is expression in birds, and most +have their feelings and their character stamped upon their whole body. +But there was no expression in Cob. His cold eyes continued to stare +with steady stoniness, his vast vans to waft an occasional shallow, +lazy quarter-flap, his spotless head to peer down at times. Once only, +as the real king of the birds, on his course, drew very near, so that +you could hear the deep, dry "hough! hough!" of the powerful wings, did +Cob open his red-stained--as it were blood--yellow beak, and give +utterance--one could call it no more--and so instantly close his beak +again and revert to his absolute expressionlessness that one had a job +to realize what, or who, in all that vast scene, had spoken. + +"I'm-Great-Black-Back!" he said very quietly, quickly, gratingly, and +tersely; and then, as if expecting an answer, added, "Eh?" in a hollow +undertone. + +The eagle's imperial head jerked round as he flew, and he shot a +stabbing, sheathed glance at the great sea-bird, as a king might at a +man in a crowd who begins to fumble at his hip-pocket. But, save for +that, he took no further notice, and beat on with his terrific, +piston-like, regular wing-beats; and the gull, that speckless, +dazzling, hardened, hard giant, laughed--laughed, I say, softly and to +himself, hoarsely and insolently: "How-how-how-how!" It was as if he +laughed in derision. + +And then a strange thing happened. From the opposite stupendous +cliffs, draped in snow, bejeweled with icicles, frowning and desolate, +an ominous black shape flung itself furiously, and made straight for +the eagle, barking hoarsely with rage as it came. Another hollow bark +followed, and a second evil ebony form hurled down from the tottering +cliff-top, and flapped towards the eagle in the path of the first. +Bark echoed bark above the deep mutter of the breakers, and the echoes +along the cliffs answered both uncannily and mockingly. + +They were a raven, disturbed from her wool-quilted nest, and her mate; +but if they had been hobgoblins straight from an evil dream, they could +not, in that immense, grim setting, have been much more impressive. + +The great black-backed gull said no more, but wheeled on as if nothing +had happened. + +The eagle said nothing, and tried to beat on as if nothing had +happened, too. He did not succeed, for the ravens who had been +addressing him most particularly soon addressed themselves personally +to him; and before he knew just how it all came about, they had +summoned a quite amazing and unexpected aerial acrobatic power, and +were shooting and diving, striking and flapping, about his regal head +in a manner that even _he_ could not pretend any longer to ignore. No +one, not even a king of all the birds, feels comfortable under the +imminent possibility of losing an eye--and such a haughty, wonderful +eye, too. Nor did the eagle. And he showed it. One presumes he might +have abolished the pair--one or both--but the eagle never let on what +he presumed. What he _knew_ was that he had nothing to gain in a fight +with such super-hooligans, and everything to lose, for one wound only +might mean a dead eagle _viâ_ starvation and a dead raven--what was a +dead raven worth, anyway, to him, or anybody else? + +Therefore the eagle changed his mind about continuing his course, which +would have taken him above the ravens' nest. He did it grandly, and +without giving the impression that the ravens had anything to do with +it--he could have squeezed the life out of them with one awful +handshake, if his heart had been as big as his claws. But they had +something to do with it. And they knew it. So did Cob, who laughed +again, hoarsely and as one appreciating a joke, while he wheeled and +wheeled over the following waves, seeing all things and never appearing +to see anything. + +Then at last, when the king of all the birds had sunk, like a speck of +floating burnt paper, away over the far, white-mantled hills, the +ravens suddenly evaporated into nowhere. Probably no one had seen them +go except Cob, and Cob was by now a lonely, dwindling speck away over +the restless ocean. Then he was not. He was coming back, swinging +along with great, easy, shallow half-flaps, so sublimely lazy that he +seemed merely to swim through the gale. But he covered distance; there +was speed as well as majesty in his flight, for all that. + +In a very short time he was above the cliffs, silent, sinister, almost +stealthy. One of the ravens came back suddenly, diving over the crest, +half-demented with anxiety to cover her eggs from that stony stare of +the sea-rover; and Cob, seeing where she had come from, surrendered +himself to the gale, hurtled down-wind, veered, tacked, circled, +rocking, and came down in a series of his oblique plunges--smack-bang +into the middle of a gory dinner-party, consisting of the male raven, +five gray or hooded crows, and one silver herring-gull, feasting upon +the carcass of a dead sheep. + +Every head went up, every eye blinked, every wing half-opened, every +beak shut tight as Cob, whom everybody had thought to be miles away by +that time, threw forward his wings, umbrella-fashion, flung them up, +hat-fashion, fanning wide his tail, dropped his giant webbed feet, and +came to anchor with a rush. Then he folded those wonderful pinions of +his, foot by rustling foot, stared stonily at the amazed, mute company +around him, and, throwing back his immaculate, smooth, low-browed, +spotless head, laughed to the winds, hoarsely, loudly, wildly--a rude, +baleful, transport of mirth: + +"How-how-how-how-how!" + +The raven did not laugh. He had to feed his sitting wife--not counting +his big self--in that bitter weather, and he was pluming himself upon +having turned the eagle from sight of this gift banquet from Providence +as well as his nest. The gray crows saw no cause for merriment, +remembering how big the great gull was, and how small are these little, +long-wooled, black-faced hill sheep. Moreover, sheep do not often +oblige by getting turned turtle in a cleft of rock, and being unable to +right themselves before poor, starving, wild hunters--I won't swear +who, but it was not the raven _this_ time--can come and peck their eyes +out. + +Cob looked at them again--all five of the gray crows sitting staring +straight down their own black gouge-beaks, hunched, cold, out-at-heels, +and dejected. Then he laughed again--burst into another wild, jeering +fit of merriment, and fell to work. + +First of all, he pointed out to the raven--his beak was the +pointer--that he was sitting upon the choicest portion of that sheep, +and must make way therefrom _instantly_. Next, he turned his head and +looked--only looked--at a gray crow that had presumed, upon the turning +of his broad, black back, to recommence feeding, and that hooded crow +moved one yard in one second--out of reach. And next, Cob, who +apparently loved discipline and cherished good manners, started his +banquet, and allowed the others to start theirs. + +But it was an unholy feast. Cob tugged and tore like a butcher without +any knives. At times he nearly fell backwards, when the meat gave way; +at times he bolted, and gulped, and choked horribly; at times he was +nearly standing upon his head, and at other times upon his tail; and, +in case the others should find the woolly outside, where they alone +could feed, too easy, he was continually breaking off, to rush--a +red-headed demon from hell now--at the raven, or glare at the crows and +remove them yards, as if his eyes could kill. As for the herring-gull, +he raced and danced in a crazy circle round his giant clansman, +apparently smitten with delirium at the luscious titbits he was obliged +to watch vanishing down Cob's bright throat. + +The raven, however, was growing desperate. He was under contract to +Fate to feed his wife. She would freeze there on her nest in the snow +among the icicle-studded ledges else. And every time he had got hold +of a big enough dainty to tug free and fly off with, Cob had cut in and +collared the said morsel. As a matter of fact, friend raven was a +better carver than the sea-pirate, had a beak better suited for the +grisly purpose. Finally, the black one got hold of a piece of meat, +and did not let go. He hung on, and, before anybody realized that he +had moved, Cob's yellow-and-red-painted bill--nearly all red now--had +closed upon that raven's neck. There was one wild, asthmatical croak +from the raven, a whirl of sturdy black and overshadowing +black-and-white wings, and the raven was jerked clean head-over-heels, +where, among the heather, he lay for a brief second, kicking +ignominiously, on his sable back. + +Here the crows fled to strategic positions upon bowlders, waist-deep in +heather, hard by, expecting a like fate, and leaving the herring-gull +to gobble up what he could in the confusion, and risk his life in the +process, when suddenly, above the beating of wings and the hiss of +wind, all distinctly heard, and jumped at, the sound of a single, +horrible, instantaneous, metallic clash. + +Cob's agonized yell, the clash itself, and the whir and rush of wings, +as every bird there present literally flung itself into the air, seemed +really, though of course they were not, coincident--such is the +quickness with which these wild creatures act. But Cob alone remained. + +He stopped in mid-spring horribly, and suddenly, as if a Hand had +reached up and plucked him back. For a second his wonderful wings beat +and beat tremendously, frenziedly, with a noise you could hear all up +the hill; then he fell back in one demented, frenzied mix up of +bashing, smashing pinions, legs, tail, and whirling feathers. + +That clash, which had jarred Cob's frame from head to hind-toe, was a +trap, _alias_ a gin, _alias_ a clam, and the rack of man's Inquisition +of the wild. He had stepped upon it; it had gone off, and caught him +by the right leg, and, being anchored by a chain, had refused to let +him go when he sought to remove himself, trap and all. + +What followed during the next minute or two it would scarcely be fair +to so fine a bird to print. Moreover, it was unnice to behold. +Wild-folk have a habit often of going temporarily insane when they +first find themselves trapped, because the trap represents to them the +most supreme, the most unbearable, of all terrors--loss of freedom; and +freedom is to them more than life, especially to birds, and more +especially still to those whose lives are dedicated to the wild, free +sea. + +At the end of that time Cob lay exhausted upon his side, one mighty +pinion pathetically trailing in the snow, his beak open, his whole jet +and spotless white body shaken and convulsed with pantings that were +almost sobs. He seemed in danger of dying there and then upon the +spot, with sheer, sickening horror or a broken heart. + +The herring-gull was a silver line--about as big as a thrip--to +seaward. The gray crows climbed the heavens to landward, like flies +that climb a window-pane. Only the raven had not gone, quite. + +The raven was a bird, of course, and every bird has got to do its duty. +There can be no shirking. _His_ duty was to supply food to keep the +fires of life burning in his mate as she sat upon her icy nest. His +duty was to see that his eggs, _their_ eggs, hatched out; and with him +the motto was: "The end justifies the means." This bird, this +sea-rover, this big pirate, alone stood between him and the discharge +of duty. There was no other way, no other food; he had searched. +Wherefore, the raven stayed; he knew all about traps, few better, and +he stayed, waiting, if it please you, for Cob to--die! + +But Cob would not oblige. He had not got a broken and crushed leg, as +the raven possibly expected. He was not injured, as he should have +been, according to program; only puffed. The mercy of Allah had seen +to it that some teeth of that instrument of vile torture that had hold +of him were broken off, and that his leg should have been caught in the +gap thus formed. Moreover, the trap had not been looked after; it was +rusty, and did not shut quite properly. The spring was weak, or some +grit had got in, or something, and a smart rat would have got out of it +easily, but a rat is not a gull, and knows too much. + +Thereafter, nothing happened for a long while. Cob's first delirium +seemed to have spent him, and perhaps taught him how much a leg can +hurt when tugged by the full lift of sixty-nine-inch wings, especially +when one tries to whirl round upon it when it cannot turn. + +The raven sat on his lichen-decorated, snow-draped bowlder, hands in +pockets, so to speak, abominably untidy, with a pessimistic hunch of +the shoulders, but a light in his eyes, a strangely malignant, +devilishly roguish leer, that belied his appearance. Perhaps he was +waiting to see if Cob during his struggles obligingly touched off any +further deadly surprises that might lie hidden in the vicinity. One +never knows. He had seen a gray crow double-catch himself in two traps +lying close to one another--once. + +Nothing happening, however, that raven presently sailed in on his fine +work. He broke his neutrality with a sudden dry rustle of wings, and +clumsily half-hopped, half-heavily napped, down to Cob, lying there +still and silent, but very much awake, upon the snow. He almost seemed +to be rubbing his hands, or, rather, his claws, that ebon rascal. This +was, indeed, a game after his own heart. + +Cob never moved when the raven arrived. I suppose he knew all about +ravens, and what one may expect from them. He only stared at him with +one cold eye, a tense, lop-sided stare; and he mouthed a little--if one +may be permitted the expression--with his beak, like a man moistening +his lips. + +The raven looked him over critically, leeringly, insolently, with a +hateful air of ownership. Then the raven sharpened the gouge thing +which he called his beak--wheep-wheep--upon a stone, as birds do, and +tightened his feathers, as if almost visibly tucking up his sleeves +for--well, for the job. + +Then he tweaked Cob's tail, apparently just to see how much alive he +was. But Cob did not move, beyond drawing one webbed leg--the free +one--up under him. + +Then the raven dug him under the wing--punched him in the ribs, so to +speak. But Cob did nothing more than cringe--cringe from head to +hind-toe, like a worm. + +Then suddenly, startlingly suddenly, with the full stroke, the dreaded +pickax blow, of all the ravens, he let drive straight at Cob's clear, +shining eye--the left one, with which Cob, with his head twisted, had +all along been regarding him. He had disclosed his hand, that raven. +It was devil's work. + +Till that moment Cob had never moved, as we have said. Save for his +one eye and his quivering, one would scarcely have known that he lived. +That was his game, perhaps. Who can tell? For a stolid, slow-thinking +gull may have, in his way, just as deep, or low, a cunning as a +brilliant-brained raven. Anyhow, in that fiftieth of a second allowed, +just when it seemed as if nothing could save his eye, Cob's head +snicked round and up, and he slid the enemy's beak down off his own +with as neat a parry as ever you saw. And he did more. He caught hold +of the said raven's beak, got a grip on beak in beak, and once having +got hold, he kept hold. This was nothing new to him. It was his +way--one of his ways--of fighting rival great black-backed gulls. But +it was new to the raven, and he had not previously thought out any +proper counter to it. (There is a counter, I think.) Result--caught +raven as well as caught gull. + +Then it was that raven's turn to go mad, and dance a paralytic kan-kan; +but he could not get any change out of that gull. Cob hung on almost +as well as the trap hung on to him, and far more twistfully. He was +quite at home, of course. He had been brought up to this sort of +thing. It was the official regulation gull way of fighting under set +rules, but he could rarely get any other bird than a gull to fight with +him like it. It was not the raven's way of fighting, though, and I +think he felt himself in a trap. He certainly acted like a bird out of +its senses, while the gull, flapping hugely, and forgetting, in the +excitement, his own bondage, gradually forced the raven's head back and +back over his back, till that raven was in the unenviable position of +staring over his own back at his own tail, upon which he was +ignominiously sitting. Also, his neck was half-dislocated, and he was +nearly choking. And about this time it began to dawn upon him that it +did not pay in the wild to monkey with great black-backed gulls, even +trapped ones. He swore, as well as he could, in a gurgling croak. +Then---- + +Clash! + +Horrors upon diabolical horrors! Another trap? + +The same ghastly thought flashed to both birds' brains at the same +moment, and both literally sprang bodily up into the gale in one +maddened leap, both forgetting all else in the panic to be gone. + +Both stopped at the same instant, with a jerk that nearly unhinged +every bone in their bodies. Both yelled with terror at the identical +moment. + +Both were released--as by the cutting of a string--at the same fraction +of time, and both hurtled aloft at the same fear-blinded, rocket-like +speed. + +But both had not been caught by the same kind of trap. + +It was the jerk that had freed Cob from the really quite light hold, as +we have already explained, of the jaws of the steel trap. + +And it was the jerk that had torn out some of the raven's +tail-feathers, and left them in the jaws of the--gray, old, hill fox. + +And it was the fox who was standing all alone, watching, with oblique +eyes, the two great birds fast dissolving with every desperate, +stampeding wing-beat into the hurrying cloud-wrack and the wild +seascape--in opposite directions. He had made a good stalk, but had +sprung a little short, had brer fox. + +Upon a day, weeks later, we find the raven, whose young had left the +nest, stolidly soaring over a small, flat island, golden with furze, +purple with heather, pale-rose chiffon where it was covered with +sea-pinks. + +In addition to these, only one other hue, beside green, was there upon +that island gem floating on the jade-green sea, and that was a patch of +black and white! It flashed to the eye of the raiding rogue-raven, and +he altered course towards it, when it turned into a female great +black-backed gull, running, literally racing, to her nest, which the +raven could now see, with its two big, buff, dark-splashed eggs. + +Down flopped the giant gull upon her treasure, and began yelling, +"How-how-how-how!" at the top of her voice. + +But the island seemed empty of life, and her yelling useless. + +Down dropped the raven in front of her. + +Down winnowed the hen-raven at the back of her. + +And, both together, they approached. And all the time the great +black-backed gull continued to yell, "How-how-how-how!" + +At last, when he had got close enough, the cock-raven lunged at her, +or, rather, underneath her. She parried his stroke, and--the hen-raven +lunged. Nothing now, she knew, could save her eggs, unless she rose to +fight the cock-raven. The hen-raven then ran in. She only required a +second in which to ruin each egg, but she never got it. + +Nobody saw the avalanche coming, but everybody heard it arrive. It was +of snow-white, and it was of jet-black, and it knocked the cock-raven +one way, and sent the hen-raven, picking up her skirts, as it were, and +fleeing, the other. And the name of the avalanche was Cob. + +I fancy he considered that he bore a grudge against that cock +bandit-raven. Perhaps in dreams he could still feel that trap on his +leg. Who knows? He certainly used to wake up with outcries, and he +equally certainly made that cock-raven shy of that island for evermore. + + + + +VIII + +THE WHERE IS IT? + +No one would have thought of looking for any living beast in the raffle +of dried twigs and tamarisk "leaves" between the crawling, snake-like +roots of the feathery tamarisks if it had not been for the noise. The +noise was unmistakable, as the noise of a fight always is; and the only +other living thing near the spot, a tiny, tip-tailed, brown wren--a +little ball of feathers, dainty as you please, and all alone there, and +out of place down by the terrible, snow-covered, wind-tortured estuary +shore--made shift to remove herself, making remarks--wrens can't help +saying what they feel--as she flitted. + +Then the combatants fell out--literally. Up from the solid earth +between the twisted roots they seemed to come, but that proved the art +of one of them in concealing his front-door from the curious, and down +the bank of the sea-wall, over and over and over, squeaking the most +murderous language, and grappling like pocket-devils--tumbled a little +jet-black and a little dark-brown beast. + +They continued the duel upon the dry gravel below--the finest and the +whitest gravel ever you did see--and they would apparently have gone on +for goodness knows how long if a gray-white, thin, worn post a couple +of yards away had not turned into a heron and stalked an ungainly stalk +towards them. + +Then they fell apart, and one of them, at any rate--the brown one--ran +away in the shape of a water-vole--water-"rat," if you will--the heron +making spear-lunges at him with his bill as he ungainlily skipped at +the other's tail all the way up the bank. The other fighter, the black +one, could not rightly be said to have turned into anything very +much--at least, not anything that any one could swear to. It just +seemed as if a dark blur whizzed about--more bird-like than +beast-like--around the astonished and prancing heron, and then into +nowhere. It was like watching a blue-bottle in a tumbler, and very +extraordinary. The heron never even professed to follow it or lunge at +it. He preferred the water-vole, whose agility was not too fast to see. + +At the place where it had come from, the mouth of the hole, it +stopped--this beast that could move quicker than eye could +follow--stopped so suddenly and completely that its change from almost +lightning motion to stony motionlessness in the fraction of a second +was nearly as amazing as its first marvelous exhibition. It stopped, I +say, and became a--a rat. + +To nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of a thousand, the word +"rat" conveys only one impression. This rat did not fulfill that +impression. In fact, there is more than one kind of rat, and though +fate and their fathers' Kismet has cursed them all with a name of +shame, they are not all the kind of people that made it so. There is +the foreigner, the invader, the common brown rat, who is accursed; +there is the old English black rat, whom the accursed one has nearly +wiped out into little more than a ghost; and there is the water-rat, +who is not a rat, but a vole, and would thank you to remember the fact. + +And this rat was a black rat, as black as jet, shark-jawed, star-eyed, +elfin-eared, snake-tailed, lean, long-legged, and graceful--a very +greyhound among the rats. He was there, in that dancing-floor of the +winds by the estuary, because no common or sewer rats were there. They +were anathema to him, and they were worse--death in many horrible +forms. He had been there all the summer, all the autumn, and all +the---- No, by whiskers! he was not going to remain there all the +winter. He had his limit, and he hated cold; and here, down by the +flat, sodden, mud-choked shore of the estuary, it was so cold that if +you didn't jolly well mind what you were up to and keep your tummy +always full, you went to sleep, and--never woke up any more. + +A little pile of mussel, winkle, and shore-crab shells, and the +backbone of what had been a stranded fish, close to the mouth of the +hole, showed the rat's account-book to date; but there was a line to be +drawn even in this trade. That dawn--if you could call the gray dark +of a snowstorm dawn--he, wondrously adventurous, had gone shell-fish +collecting, away out upon the freezing wet mud-ooze. He had got three +mussels; a muddy face; muddier feet; nearly an eye pecked out by a +mighty, great black-backed gull; three chivyings from herring-gulls; +one nip from a crab who ought to have been dead; two winkles under big +stones that took half-an-hour to shift; one dead pigmy shrew--length +two inches--with a hole in its skull, no brains, and a horrible smell; +nearly his life removed by the swoop of a kestrel falcon and the +javelin-stab of a heron's beak; and twenty minutes' hard cleaning to +remove the mud-stains that were not properly off--to his nice +liking--yet. And, to add to that, he had no sooner finished than he +found that some clumsy fool of a water-rat--vole, I mean--with a mania +for mining, had run a shaft into his hole, and brought the whole roof +crumbling down upon his scrupulously neat and tidy nest of fine hay and +carefully shredded rush--the only approximately warm corner he +possessed in all that biting cold--so that days of labor would not +repair the silly damage; and he had had to enter into a free fight with +and turn the fool out, nearly losing his life, for the fourth time that +short, dark, bitter day, in the process. And now he had to clean +himself all over again! + +No wonder he was fed-up, and decided to quit. He loved the dank marsh, +the brackish channels, the long, lone wind blowing through the +tamarisks, and the smell--salt, seaweed, mud, and fish--of it all; but +in this--weather, when the cold here, even in shelter, was greater than +the cold in any other spot--and the unchecked wind cut like swords of +ice--he realized that one must be an eider-duck or an Iceland gull, a +northern diver or an Arctic owl, to stand it, and he was none of these. +Wherefore, though the dusk had made the dull day only a little more +dark as yet, and the pink, luminous frost-haze still hung in the west, +he called down his hole to his wife--his one and only wife, but that +was not his fault--and quitted. + +Ten minutes later you behold our black rat--if you had eyes quick +enough, but it was a matter of momentary glimpses, anyway--trekking up +a ditch. You have pretty well got to take my word for it, because, +though sometimes you saw him for the half of a second, mostly you +didn't, and couldn't tell whether there was his wife only, or he only, +or both. Really there were both, but our black friend with the +embarrassingly, the abnormally, long tail and the genteel head--Mr. +_Mus rattus_ on Sundays, if you please, and in nowise to be confused +with that _canaille_, Citizen _Mus decumanus_, the common brown +rat--had not the slightest intention that any one should see him, if he +could help it. His wife might be trusted to look out for herself. And +for this reason, perhaps, his march was a progress to wonder at. + +Did a flock of wild-duck come over from the sea with whistling wings, +he did not so much get under the over-hanging grass as _be_ there. Did +a "gaggle" of wild-geese go by high over, clamoring like hounds, he +went out like a blown candle. Did a party of teal--for it was the +magic hour of "flight," when all wildfowl shift their quarters to feed, +or not to feed--fairly hissing with speed, like masterless bullets, +dash over, he--well, he was not before you could realize that he had +moved. + +Then up and flew round them a shape, and the name of that shape was +death. It might have been a gull with hawk-like form. It might have +been a hawk in gull-like light-gray uniform. And it might have been an +owl with gull-like dress and hawk-like lines. Whatever it was, it was +clipper-built, swift, and in fighting trim. As a matter of fact, it +was neither gull nor hawk nor owl, but a harrier, a hen-harrier--that's +its name, not its sex, for it was a cock--and the same is a half-way +house, so to speak, between hawk and owl. Possibly because they are +crepuscular, harriers may be thought more rare than they are. This one +was "crepusculing," and--the black rat did not like it. They had met +before, and Mr. Ratus had gained a lively dislike for this hawk-owl +combination, greater than his respect--which itself was not small--for +owl or hawk. + +Seeing nowhere to go, and nothing to hide in when he got there, our Mr. +Ratus shifted from one spot to the other when the harrier made his +cat-like pounce--yes, he was something cat-like, too--and had the +pleasure of seeing the harrier's uninviting talons grab a clawful of +grass, which, by all powers of judgment, ought to have been black rat's +fur. + +A mere hawk, or even an owl, might have considered this rebuff enough, +but not the harrier. _He_ wafted himself ten feet aloft on his long +narrow vans, and, flapping owl-like, or almost butterfly-like, began to +beat, and the beating of the harrying harrier, up and down, is one of +the most trying ordeals, for the game beaten for, in the wild. + +Mrs. Ratus sat where she was, he presumed, playing the same bluff. + +But both were without cover, and the black rat, I fear, devoutly hoped +that she would be fool enough to move and give herself away first; +whilst she, on her part, was cursing him for many kinds of a fool for +starting their "flitting" before it was dark. + +While she sat and froze--in both senses--however, the black rat, rigid +as a beast cut out of coal, with one bright, shining eye upon the +harrier beating up and down, was probing the dusk with the other eye. +And presently he thought he saw his chance. He would have had to move, +anyway, I fancy, for the strain of sitting there bang in the open was +unendurable. His nerves would have snapped. So he went to his +chance--a hole in the bank of the ditch. + +I say he went, but I only take it to be so because he got there. One +could not actually see him go. One had only an idea, quite an +uncertain idea, that something, most like a swift bird, had passed up +the ditch, and one could not swear even to that. It seemed impossible +that the flying something had been a four-legged animal. + +It was the black rat. Nor did he go straight. He went, if I may so +put it, every way at once, ending up with a merry-go-round dance with +death--the harrier was pouncing savagely--round a tuft of grass, at +such a speed that he looked exactly like the rim of a quickly spun +bicycle-wheel--a halo, that is to say, and nothing else. + +And then--he was crouched, panting, inside the hole, wondering whether +his heart or his lungs would be the first to burst. And then? Oh, and +then he--cleaned himself, naturally and of course. What else did you +expect? He was the original black rat of Old England, and one of the +cleanest animals on earth. + +Mrs. Ratus, having vanished past finding while the hunt to the hole was +on, presently scented her lord out, when the night had come and the +harrier was gone, and together, starting like antelope at every hint of +a sound, they traveled up the ditch, and up the bank of a stream that +the ditch folded into. + +Once an owl--the nomad, short-eared owl of the marshes--let forth a +hoot that would have sent a nervous lady into "astericks," and sent +_them_ into no-where, as if it had detonated a charge of that lively +mystery called T.N.T. under their dainty feet. Once, just as they were +lapping like dogs at the edge of the ice that was conspiring to span +the brook, an otter shot up his head--jaws wide and dripping--almost +under their long and pointed noses, and they, with one accord, and +driven by their long tails acting as a spring, leapt simply into space. +At any rate, they could not be followed by mortal eye, wherever they +did leap to. + +And once they met a wandering cat. And that cat seemed to go mad, for +she shifted about the steep bank of that stream, and up, and +about--here she swore because the spikes pricked her--and down a +holly-bush, as if she had got a rocket tied to her tail. She had not, +of course. She was hunting black rats. I suppose she saw them. If +so, she was the only person who did, and I feel sure that, instant as +she was, when she was up the bank or the holly-bush they were down it, +and when she was down they were up. Finally, when her lost temper had +completely run her out of breath, she slouched away, spitting like a +worn sparking-plug, and very much disgusted. And--the black rats +cleaned themselves! + +That night was not a profitable one. The shell-fish of the estuary +were gone, and there was little instead on the stream--only snow, and +the snow fell quietly at intervals throughout the night, hiding +everything. Rats, too, are creatures of warmth. They hate cold as +much as the writer, and these two black rats became very miserable. +They had no home, and did not know where to go; and, save for a few +berries, they had nothing to eat. Mercifully, they had plenty to +drink, and that is an item with rats, who die in a very few hours if +they cannot get a drink. + +A bitter, dull paling of the sky, which by courtesy we will call dawn, +found them cleaning again, with their hand-like forepaws, exactly like +cats, inside a water-vole burrow. The owner had been out, +bark-chipping, all night--it was the only thing he could find to keep +body and life from parting company--and was not over-pleased, on his +return, to find that he had company at home. A short two-round contest +ensued, during which the water-vole must have felt as if he had taken +on a bit of black lightning. Then the water-vole went away, somewhat +bewildered, to turn some smaller water-vole out of his winter bed; and +the rats curled themselves up, heads between hindlegs, tail encircling +all, with only their ever-ready, elfin ears poking out to give the +alarm, and they slept. And, by the way, it was a saying in the wild +that no one had ever seen them asleep, or knew if, or how, they did +sleep. + +Nothing came to disturb them during the day--which was a wonder, for +all the wild was hungry and looking for food--and at the hour when + + Night, busy with her dawn, begins it with a star, + +they came out, after a prolonged, starry-eyed stare, from their +fastness, and continued their journey. + +Things were serious now. They had not fed, and could find nothing to +feed upon but two hawthorn-berries, dropped by the wasteful fieldfares; +but they drank, _and_ cleaned, and proceeded up-stream, with that +caution one only learns in a world full of enemies and empty of friends. + +Another six hours of this cold on an empty stomach would send them into +that sleep--the dread, drugged slumber of the cold--from which there is +no awakening in this world, and they seemed to know it. They were +desperate, and their eyes burnt in their sharp heads like gimlet-holes +of light. Desperate they were, as the poor, little, brilliantly +resplendent, and tropic-looking kingfisher had, no doubt, been, whom +they found, frozen into a dried, huddled heap, under the stream-bank, +and so emaciated that, after they had picked his bones, they scarcely +knew that they had touched him. + +But anon the face of the snow changed--meaningly for them. Whereas +before they had been alone, almost, in a frozen world, scarcely +crossing a trail but the quadruple track of water-voles or the +chain-pattern impression of a moorhen--nor had seen a living thing but +the square-ended, squat, little, black form of a water-vole out upon an +alder-branch, gnawing bark--they now began to be aware of gradually +increasing company. Not that the company advertised itself, mark you. +Being wild company, it would not; but they knew it was there. + +The chain-trail of the moorhen reduplicated itself. It was joined by +that of a water-rail--they saw his ruby eyes and rat-like form in +passing. The fourfold track of a rabbit led the way ahead of them, as +if pointing the path, to be joined by the broken footprints of another +rabbit, and then by the track made by the longer leap of a hare, +fourfold also. The delicate lined marks left by a wood-mouse now kept +company with the others, and anon the little fairy imprints of two +field-voles--short-tailed field-mice, if you prefer. They crossed the +track of another rabbit going, at right-angles, down to the water to +drink, and then the little, busy tattoo of bank-voles. Another hare's +trail, and more rabbits' tracks, began to meander about, but all +heading more or less one way--the way they were going. And then they +stopped dead at the smudged groove and ancient and fish-like scent of +an otter. Moreover, they had scarcely got over that than they came +upon the dog-like tracks, and the smell, like nothing else, of Reynard, +the fox; and, with nerves fairly tingling now, and eyes everywhere at +once, they arrived at last--as the converging trails seemed to say they +would--at the towering, smudged blur against the sky, which was the +farm-buildings. + +The black rat peered under the lower rung of a gate into a straw-yard, +and heard the rustlings of little folk--field-vole, bank-vole, and +wood-mouse--who had gone before him. There was no sign of the others; +but that was not strange, for the hares and the rabbits had probably +gone round to the kitchen-garden, for which they were making in their +extremity of hunger; and the otter and the fox were, most likely, +keeping each other off the fowlhouse. + +Wherefore, plucking up courage, the black rat skipped into the yard, +and made straight for the manger, where, in the inky blackness under +the open-sided roofs, he could hear the long-drawn blowing and sigh of +fat cattle lying down. + +A pale moon came out behind him, and showed him tripping lightly over a +bullock's broad back. Then he was up on the manger-edge, had paused to +make sure, and was down in the manger, picking up crumbs and dust of +linseed-cake and chaff. Three mice were doing the same thing, but fled +at his approach; but he did not trouble about that, for the cattle had +not left even him and his wife a full meal, having blown what was left +of the chaff away, and licked up practically all of the cake-crumbs and +dust. However, it was better than nothing. + +The rat's natural curiosity was awakened, and his comparative warmth in +this place, out of the razor-edged wind--oh, what a relief to be out of +that infernal sawing blast!--made him explore. And he ran along the +edge of the manger to a hole in the wall, which led--the peculiar and +indescribable smell said so--through to the pig-sties. But here he +stopped, and his wife behind him stopped. Some one was coming through +from the opposite side--some one who smelt very much worse than any pig. + +Next instant both black rats had gone off together like sparks--if ever +sparks were black--and the brown rat, coming through the hole, wondered +what on earth had happened. Then he sniffed at their trail, tried, but +found it impossible, to follow, and passed on. He would have felt +great pleasure in slaying them if he could, and they knew that. + +The black rat now essayed to cross the yard to the stable. He could +not very well stop there--up among the rafters, that is--all night, so +he came down, and, with his wife following him, gingerly rustled out +upon the partially snow-covered straw. + +Then he got a shock that turned him into a winking series of black +streaks. + +Then he got another shock which turned him, literally, into--well, into +black lightning. You never saw anything like it in all your life. You +never would have believed that any living beast could have so +frantically and so furiously got itself about from place to place so +instantaneously. It was--dazzling. It made you blink. It was It in +the agility line, and no mistake. + +Firstly, the brown rat, having hidden up in some black corner, with +brown-rat cunning, came hopping out instantly--nay, charging--on the +black rat's trail. And there was murder in his wicked, little, +glinting eyes at he came. + +Secondly, a white eider-down quilt--at least, that was what it seemed +like--descended lightly as--as an eider quilt, and as soundlessly, out +of the blue-black sky, and covered the brown rat up. You could hear +his horrid, muffled screaming of rage and fear under the quilt; you +could see the quilt--but they saw that it looked pale brown on +top--lifting about, and feeling for that murder-child of a rat +underneath. Then the quilt got him--you could hear the unspeakably +beastly death-squeal reverberate mufflingly--and then the quilt rose, +still utterly without sound, and one saw it was a big barn-owl, with a +rat--a brown rat--twitching in its white-mittened claws. + +But do you think that made any difference? If so, you don't know the +cruel devil of perseverance that is the brown rat. + +As the black rat, at the end of his amazing lightning display, reached +the barn, with his mate behind him, he leapt--he could not stop--clean +over the back of one great twenty-inch, glitter-eyed brown ghoul, +called by the death-scream of his colleague--other rats usually answer +it--coming out of a hole. The black rats dashed into the hole like +flickering streaks, but the brown rat had instantly spun upon himself, +and was after them. + +The barn was an unfortunate choice. It seemed full of brown rats, and +four of them, in the darkness, instantly took up the pursuit of the now +fairly hunted black couple. Nothing but their miraculous agility saved +those two from being eaten alive, but they came out of the barn on to +the spotless snow on the far side, with only a foot to spare between +their long tails and the mangy, scarred head of the leading brown fiend +behind them. + +Straight across the open, like a drawn black bar, they shot, to a +towering building of wood, and along this--here they lost six inches of +the precious twelve by which they led--looking for a hole. They found +it, whizzed in, five brown rats close behind them, nine brown rats hard +behind the five. + +They discovered themselves in a great room half-filled with sacks and +the sweet smell of corn, and in and out among these sacks they led +their hunters such a dizzy chase as no man ever witnessed, or could +witness, for the matter of that, since human eyes could not follow it. +But the end seemed positive, anyway. It was only a question of tiring +the black sparks out, for the four brown rats in the place, engaged +upon lowering the weight of the flour in the sacks--one of those rats a +dreaded cannibal of twenty-one and a half inches--joined in the +mobbing, and soon the black rats found themselves in such a position +that there was no escape--no escape for any but a black rat. For them +there was one way. And those two living electric sparks on four feet +took it. They went up the wall! + +I don't know, but I guess that, as the black rats' upper jaws were +longer and sharper and more shark-like than the brown rats', and their +tails very much longer, they got a spring off the tail--and legs, +too--and had an agility in hanging on to knots and crannies above that +possessed by the brown ghouls. Be that as it may, they did it, and got +a respite under the floor of the room above, before their enemies, +traveling more normally, and by holes, could swarm up after them. + +Then the two, cornered at last, with one last desperate rush, shot up +through a hole in the boards, out into the middle of the room on the +first floor, and stopped dead. + +Ah! they stopped. Good reason, too. Good reason had the five brown +rats, excited with blood-lust, hard on their tails, to stop also. + +They found themselves suddenly revealed in the middle of a big room, +furnished mainly with a few sacks, and flooded with a dazzling, +blinding glare of electric light, that seemed brighter than the very +sun. + +There they were, all seven, black and brown, struck rigid, plain and +clear for any to see. And four men and two dogs stood there seeing +them. They, those men and dogs, had just come quietly for their +evening rat-hunt, turning on the light suddenly, for the place was a +mill as well as a farm, making--from the mill-wheel--its own +electricity. + +There was a strained, aching pause for about as long as a man takes to +gasp. Then the dogs sprang in, and one of the men jumped to the only +hole in the room they had not previously stopped up. + +But the black rats! The brown rats died, at intervals, fighting +horribly, as cornered brown rats do. In five minutes they were, all +five, dead--that is, all that had come into the room and been cut off. +The black rats, however, in five minutes, were not dead. Nobody seems +to have seen them, after the hunt had once begun, till the others were +killed. Even then all four men aver that they could never rightly +swear that they saw them. They saw lines, and streaks, and flashes, +and whirls, and halos of black, which might have been rats--and the +dogs said they were--but no one could swear to it. At times these +giddy phenomena were among the rafters, at other times they were on the +floor, and yet again they were going up or coming down the walls; but +all the while both men and dogs seemed to be everlastingly too late, +and hunting them where, half-a-second before, they had been. In fact, +they perpetually had been, and were always where snapping jaws and +beating sticks were not. + +At the end of half-an-hour the men, mopping their foreheads, even in +that cold, gasped, "Lor' love yer! Did yer ever see th' like?" + +At the end of three-quarters of an hour the men flung themselves, +gasping, on to the sacks of flour, and the dogs, panting, on to the +floor--done. And the black rat and his mate, lively as ever, perkily +watched them from the rafters. + +Then the men and dogs went away, the light went out, and presently +great sounds of war below suggested that the brown rats on the +ground-floor were having the time of their lives. So were the two +black rats, but a different sort of time. They were feasting upon meal +and grain. And there, so far as I know, as they were like birds, +flying among the rafters like black lightning if molested, they live to +this day. + + + + +IX + +LAWLESS LITTLE LOVE + +She rolled over and regained her feet in a flash, to find herself facing +a dark beast, with a huge, bushy, white tail, held up straight like a +pleased cat's--but this was a sign of warning, not pleasure--that shone +ghostily in the gloom of the mysterious, dread thorn-scrub. And the face +of the beast was the face of a black and grinning devil, and its eyes +shone red. + +She stood there, shivering a little, with the tiny young thing crawling +weakly away from almost under her feet, and the long, vivid, raw gash +that the white-tailed beast, coming from nowhere special out of the +night, had set upon her shoulder--a murderess caught in the act. + +On three legs--her left hindleg had been bitten off by a trap set for a +hyena--emaciated, with all her natural buoyant courage gone out of her, +her wonderful agility gone too, she felt instantly in her heart that she +could neither face this diabolical-faced foe, nor yet get away from it. +This same crippled condition had spoilt her hunting forays, and, driven +by hunger, had made her nose into other people's nurseries, and be caught +just on the point of slaying somebody else's baby, when the owner had +come home, like a streak out of the night. + +But that was not the worst of it, for she was longer than the enemy, a +bit, and might have put up a good fight--she had fought for her life, as +a matter of course, ever since she left her mother's side--if the enemy +had not brought with her an ally. It was not visible to the eye, that +ally, but it was to the nose--a most distinct and appalling stink, and it +could be felt, for it made her nostrils smart. Apparently, then, that +white tail was intentional, was as a red flag, insolently displayed, +warning all to beware of the stink. Well, there is more than one way of +holding your own in the wild, and a most unholy smell is not such a bad +way, either, when you come to think about it. + +The owner of that nameless odor was a polecat--not our polecat; worse +than that--and--well, you know the breed. Fear they know not; neither is +pity with them a weakness, especially where the lives of their young are +concerned. This one did not wait. She attacked quicker than you could +cry "Knife," taking off with all four feet together, in a peculiar and +patent way of her own. + +The would-be murderess, who was long, and absurdly short in the leg, too, +just like her opponent, only with a more graceful and not such a +thick-set body, turned on herself in a snaky fashion, and her neck, that +the fangs had aimed at, was not there when the polecat arrived, but her +teeth were, and they closed on the polecat's cheek. + +The latter gibbered horribly at the spark of pain, and set herself really +down to fight. + +The intending murderess said nothing at all, but, unbalanced with her +game hindleg, having no force to push or spring with, and being very +weak, she knew she was done for directly they closed to the clinch. + +In a few seconds the polecat had her down, and only an awful, mad, +desperate clashing of fang against fang kept the attacker off her throat. +It could not last. + +Then it was, at that moment, that a sharp little, gray little, +dark-spotted, clean-cut, close-cropped, intelligent head, on a snaky, +long neck, peeped out of the shadows, and peered about, as if to see what +in whiskers all the pother was about. The head might have been there by +chance, but it wasn't. Its owner had been running her trail for hours, +and looking for it for days, and didn't mean to let her go, now that he +had finally come up with her, polecats or no polecats, smells or not. +But he was not a fool. He knew the game, the bitter, cruel game of +death, as it is played throughout the wild. With man the inexorable law +is, "Get on or get out." In the wild they phrase it another way: "Kill +or be killed." Man puts it more politely, perhaps, but it's all the same +old natural law, I guess. + +The head and snaky neck developed a long, creamy, tawny-spotted body, and +the body a long, banded, tapering tail--all set on legs so short, they +scarcely kept the owner off the ground; and the name of that beast was +genet. The same are a sort of distant relation of the cats, a fourth +cousin once removed; but it is necessary to tell you, because you might +think they were beautiful weasels, otherwise. _And she was a genet_, +too--the murderess that might have been. + +Then the new-comer moved. Then he began to move, and--here! It was just +like the buzzing of a fly in a tumbler. Certainly you could say that he +was still there, but you could not swear that you actually saw him. + +The first that the polecat knew of him was that red-hot fork-like feeling +that means fangs in the back of your neck. The polecat spun on herself, +and bit, quick as an electric needle, at the spotted thing, that promptly +ceased to be there, and, to use the professional term, she "made the +stink" for all she was worth. She forgot all about the long female +would-be slayer of her children, and the genet was mightily thankful to +drag herself clear, but she would not have been she if she had failed to +get her fangs home, as a parting shot, before she went. + +Then, I fancy, she was ill; and, upon my soul, I don't wonder. It was +enough to asphyxiate a whale-factory hand. But the male genet was not +ill, or, if he was, he was moving from place to place too quickly to give +the fact away; and by the time he shot up a tree, like a long, rippling, +cream and tawny-dappled, banded line, he left that polecat considerably +redder than when he found her, and weak, as if she had been bitten by +leeches. The polecat had certainly saved her young, or thought she had, +although I cannot swear that the female genet had really meant them harm; +but she did not look as if she had saved much else. However, she held +the field of battle, and the foe had fled, and that is supposed to be the +sign of victory; but that had been done by her "gassing" methods, so to +speak, not by fighting alone. + +Rippling about among the branches, an incarnation of grace personified, +and hunting for her by nose alone, for in the moonlight her exquisite +creamy, dappled coat was invisible--a real piece of magic, this--the male +genet quickly found her for whom he sought. She remained low, lying +along a bough, line for line, shadow-patch for shadow-patch, flat as the +very bark, and as undulating, until she felt sure that he would run over +her; then she rose, spitting and snarling in his face, cat-like and +vicious. + +It was a poor kind of thanks for having saved her life, perhaps, but it +was her way--_then_. And, anyway, who can blame her? She had never met +any living creature that was not a foe or an armed "unbenevolent" neutral +in all her life, and she did not know that any other category or creature +existed, the recent fight notwithstanding. + +But the male genet neither ran nor fought. He dodged her snap, by a +tenth of an inch, almost without seeming to move, and there he stood +looking at her meekly. She leapt to him, and he shot off, as she arrived +upon, the place where he had been. Perhaps she knew that only a genet, +or a mongoose, could do that trick in a manner at once so machine-like +and precise; and after that she merely sat, bent in a curve, with her +lips up. But her spring had given her away, and he saw that she was +lame. Perhaps he saw, too, the gleam of hunger, the wild, cruel gleam +that forgets all else, in her eyes; but who am I to say whether he +understood it? + +Be that as it may, the male vanished suddenly and without explanation, +doubling on his trail and going out like a snuffed candle. He was in +view, as a matter of fact, several times during the next few minutes, +climbing quietly; but the dark blotches of the leaf-shadows magicked him +into invisibility, and no one could tell where he was, till suddenly the +silence was smitten by one piercing squawk somewhere among the greenery +above. Then a crash, wild flutterings, a hectic commotion, and he and a +terrified guinea-fowl came down together, more nearly falling than he +liked. Indeed, he must have let it fall, or gone himself with it, as he +slid past, grabbing for holds, if she had not dropped quickly to the next +bough and taken a hold, too. Then, side by side, they hauled the warm, +feathery, fluttering thing up, and he slew swiftly, in order to silence +the noisy prey, who foolishly kicked up such a noise, as if maliciously; +for he knew--and perhaps the gleany (guinea-fowl) did, too--how quickly a +crowd may gather to interfere in an advertised "killing" in that wild. + +The female genet, however, was past caring about risks. She had reached +a stage of hunger when no risks can overshadow the risk of starvation, +and she had the guinea-fowl by the throat, and was sucking its blood +before the other had time to realize what she was at. Then, with fine +discrimination, she ate the breast and thigh, and later might, or might +not, have let him have a look in, if some blotched shape had not slid up, +without sound, across the blue black night sky, and, halting in the tree, +begun, apparently, to crack nuts very sharply and very quickly. +Whereupon, without saying anything, the genets faded out. + +It was nothing much, really--only the noise she makes when the giant +eagle-owl is angry; but when you are a genet, with a body under two feet +long, you may find it rather a bore, if nothing else, to remain cheek by +jowl with an angry eagle-owl three feet or so across the wings, with the +feline temper of an owl, and armed, owl-like, to the teeth, if I may so +put it. + +[Illustration: "An angry eagle-owl"] + +Now the question came as the two genets arrived at the ground--would she +follow him, or would he have to follow her? He was determined, anyway, +that nothing short of calamity should part them. Yet I don't see, since +he never uttered a sound, how she understood him to say that if she would +follow him he would find her food, even though she was still hungry, for +she had not yet got to trusting him much more than she trusted any other +beast, and seemed to think that he was half as likely to eat her as to +get her something to eat. Such a thing as another creature finding her +food for only just friendliness--love was out of the question yet, or out +of her question--was an idea her suspicious nature could not yet grasp. +However, she followed. + +Twining and twisting, turning and tripping, in and out among the bush and +the tree-trunks, soundless, and quite invisible, except when they crossed +a moonbeam--and then nearly so, because the moon has a trick of, as it +were, dissolving the colors of even fairly conspicuous creatures--they +crept on their low way. There was not a sound that they did not crouch +for, often flat as a whip-lash--and that wild is full of sounds by night, +too--not a puff of air that they did not throw up their sharp little +muzzles to test, not a movement or the hint of a movement which their +eyes did not fix with a suspicious stare. + +They passed a hippopotamus feeding--a sheaf at a mouthful--upon long +grass; they came upon three wild dogs eating an antelope and gibbering +like gnomes; they beheld two striped zebras stampeding from a lion; they +got into the middle of a herd of elephants--but what must those giants +have seemed to them, almost at ground-level?--and did not know it, so +silent can the mighty ones be, till they heard the unmistakable digestive +rumblings; they happened on the tail of a leopard, observing a young +waterbuck antelope, and retired therefrom without his suspecting them; +they watched some bush-pigs rooting in a clearing, hoping they might turn +up some insects worth eating; they heard a mother-lion grunting among +some reeds, and were nearly run over by the stampede of zebras that +followed; they chased a rat that ran into a hole in which was a snake, +and it never came out again; they went up a tree after a weaver-bird's +nest, but, from the way the bottle-shaped structure was hung, could not +get at it; they investigated a hare's hole, and found a six-foot mamba +snake, with four-minute death-fangs, in possession; they risked the +thousand spikes of a thorn-bush to get at a red-necked pheasant roosting, +only to find the branch he was on too slender to hold their weight; they +were stalked by a wild cat, and hid in a hollow tree; and were pounced +upon by a civet cat--who was their big cousin--and dodged him most +wonderfully; and were chased by a jackal, whose nose they bit when it +followed them into a hollow log. Finally, they came to the wall, and +stopped. + +Their noses told them it was not the wall of a native village, for no +one, not even a man, could possibly make any mistake about _that_. Also, +their noses may have told them other things. Anyway, the moon saw them, +in the form of two gray lines, slide over the wall and drop silently into +the shadow on the far side. + +A wild cat was courting a domestic cat of the bungalow close by, at the +corner of the compound, but, flat as strips of tawny-spotted cloth, they +got past him all right. + +A black-backed jackal was gnawing a bit of old hide at the angle of the +wall, and they were forced to make a detour up to the veranda of the +bungalow to avoid that sharp-eared, sharp-eyed one. + +Here, on the veranda, they discovered a chair, and the male genet, +standing on hindlegs to see what was in the chair, found himself looking +straight into the electric-blue, purplish balls of light that betokened +another cat, which had been asleep, but was now very wide awake. + +He went round that chair in the form of a hazy, wavy, streak, as the cat +shot out of it. The female genet faded from publicity behind a palm in a +pot. But the genet's tail was so long that, with the cat and himself +going round and round that chair like a living Catherine-wheel--both he +and the cat spitting no end--the cat was touching his tail, while he was +snapping at the cat's. Wherefore he moved across the veranda as an arrow +flies, and round the corner, and as he turned the corner he--leapt. + +It was a beautiful leap, and it cleared the danger that he seemed bound +to run into, as it lifted in his path, by about an inch. As he sprang he +heard the cat's claws scraping loudly, as she madly endeavored to +stop--too late. + +Then the head of the eight-foot python that had been creeping up round +that corner in the process of stalking that cat whizzed by beneath him +like a hurled poleax. + +As he landed the genet heard the cat make one sound--only one--and it was +indescribable, and he dropped off the veranda into the shadow of a bush, +where the female genet presently joined him. + +There was a small mongoose (my! what a lot of hunters do collect about +the bungalows at night, to be sure!) under the bush, engaged in eating +that precise reptilian form of poisoned death known as a night adder, +which it had just killed. But the genets had other and private business, +and they parted from the mongoose with no more than a snarl, the two +genets to appear next--or, rather, to be no more than guessed +at--crossing the last stretch of moonlight between them and the fowlhouse. + +As they did so, a blurred, vast-winged, silent, dark shadow passed +overhead, and a peculiarly piercing whistle stabbed dagger-like through +the waiting, listening silence. Both genets jumped, as if the whistle +had really been a dagger and had stabbed them, and vanished into hiding +before the sound had ceased, almost. They knew that shadow--the owner of +the whistle; they had met her earlier that night--the giant eagle-owl. +But what the fangs and claws was she doing here? After rats, perhaps. +They hoped so, and tried to think she was not after them. + +The people who are condemned to live in those parts know that deaths, +many and mysterious, go about there in the night, seeking victims, and +that fowls must, in consequence, be well penned. Yet they die; and it +has been said that where a snake can squeeze into a fowl-house, there a +genet can follow--perhaps dealing with the snake first, and the fowls +afterwards. Certainly, there seems to be no longer, and narrower, and +lower, and more sinuous little beast on this earth than the genet. + +The male genet took the problem upon himself as his own special province +to find entrance into places; and the female, her suspicions of him +oozing away more and more every minute, "kept cave." And he found an +entrance, that little, long, low beggar; he found an entrance, a hole up +under the roof, that appeared small enough, in all conscience, to be +overlooked by anybody. + +The moon knows how they climbed to it--I don't. And as the male genet +dropped down inside, the female took his place. But even as he landed he +wished he had not. Fear was there before him. + +In the smelly, stifling, heated pitch-darkness a fowl squawked with pain, +and others burst into noise above his head. + +Then he made a blunder. Surprised certainly, and angry perhaps, he +growled. + +Instantly the confusion ceased and hushed to silence; and instantly, too, +round, large, amber-gold balls of light like lamps, to the number of two, +were switched on--fixed upon him, staring, so that he "froze" in his +tracks where he stood, and her crest stood up on the female genet, as it +does on a cat, as she peered through the hole. They had disturbed +something at its killing. + +Very few graven images move less than those two pretty but small hunters +did in the nest half-minute, while the fowls settled down again, and the +genets tried--mainly with their noses--to find out what, in the +wilderness or out of it, they had run up against this time. + +At the end of that period there fell upon their stupefied ears the sound +as if some one unseen were cracking nuts--nut after nut, very quickly--in +the blackness, and both genets very nearly had a fit--a motionless +one--on the spot. + +Then they knew, most entirely did they know, and the knowledge gave them +no end of a fright. It was the giant eagle-owl. She--it was a she--had +beaten the robbers in hole-creeping, had outburgled the burglars, and +outcrept the creepers, though goodness alone knows how. + +The only difficulty was, who was going out first, and who alive, and who +dead? + +The male genet apparently knew about owls, and nothing of what he knew +had shown that they were cowards. Nor was he a coward; but the wild +hunters we not out to win the V.C., as a rule, I guess; and, if they +were, he was not one of them. He was out to feed, not fight. + +Possibly, while he was considering this, standing there with arched +back--by reason of his long body and apologies for legs--in the darkness, +the owl was considering the same thing. Anyway, both seemed to make up +their minds in the same instant, and to act on it. Wherefore they +arrived at the hole under the roof in the same instant, too; and you can +take it from me that there are very few creatures indeed who can go into +a hole, or come out of it, with such an amazing rush as the genet. + +The result naturally was war, and red-hot at that. + +Grappling, spitting, hissing, growling, snorting, coughing, the two fell +in a heap to the ground--and an owl on the ground is one degree more of a +spiked handful than an owl in the air--where they continued the +discussion in a young whirlwind of their own, much to the perturbation of +the roosting fowls, who woke up and added to the riot. + +The female genet had gone out of the other end of the hole, like a cork +out of a bottle, taking a scratch on the nose from the owl with her; but, +finding nothing further happen, she now crept back and peered in. What +she discovered did not give her any comfort, for, although upon her back, +it looked as if that she-owl had been specially designed to fight that +way. She had one fiend's claw gripped well home on the male genet's +shoulder, and another doing its best to skin him alive; while her beak +was hammering the gray top of his weasely-looking head. True, the male +genet's fangs were buried up to the socket in the owl's throat, but that +was no proof that he had found either her windpipe or the equally useful +jugular vein, and, if he did not pretty quick, it looked as if it would +never matter, so far as he was concerned. + +I like to think of what that little, long, crippled female genet did +then, in that well-like blackness and that smelly heat, with the chance +of retreat open to her, and no one to say her nay. Without hesitation, +she dropped to the ground beside the scuffle, and flung herself into +it--into the winnowing, slapping radius of big pinions, that beat and +beat and beat, smothering all with feathers and dust. One wing caught +her squarely, and she fetched up against the wall, winded and dazed; but +she was back again in a flash, dancing on her toes, and, suddenly +flattening, shot in, level with the ground, like a snake. + +She arrived. She felt feathers against her nose--she could not see. The +wings pounded her flatter. She laid hold, biting in as deep and as far +as she could get. + +As a matter of fact, she had got the owl by the neck, but one would have +thought she had turned on a young volcano by the confusion that followed. +Both genets shut their precious eyes, and hung on, while that owl beat +herself round and round in one last wild flurry, coughing horribly and +humanly the while, and cracking nuts. Finally she collapsed as suddenly +as a pricked bladder, and lay still--a great, mixed-up feathery heap, +limp and pathetic, with her vast flung-out wings. + +The two genets backed away, glad enough to be done with such a fiery, +feathered fury. The male genet stumbled a little, and sat down. He was +nearly as red as the sun on a stormy dawn, but all the blood was not his. + +They did not seem to trouble further about the great foe lying beside +them. Certainly she pervaded the air with a musty smell that was not +attractive, or, at least, not attractive when fowls were by; and it was +to the fowls they turned, the female first, the male later, after he had +done some very necessary licking. + +I fancy that, though dizzy, the male genet was rather proud of himself. +He had brought his lady-love to such a feast as she may have dreamed of, +and she had saved his life. That gave them a fellow-feeling that looked +well for his prospects in love. But I do not think he had quite realized +how hungry that beautiful velvet-skinned damsel of his choice was till +that minute, and then he was given no time to think about it. + +The dark over his head burst like a mine, and feathers and noise +enveloped him whirling. That represented the female genet coming down, +fixed to the throat of a hapless fowl. She sucked the blood, and flew at +another. Ordinarily she would have removed that one and found it enough; +but men who have been "broke," when they got suddenly rich, seem to go +temporarily mad with the lust of spending, and so it was with her; only, +her madness was the lust of killing. + +She killed, leaping and wrenching at the poor, screaming birds' throats, +blinded to the world with excitement, drunk with blood. That is an awful +intoxication, and makes even men, let alone wild, carnivorous beasts, do +unmentionable things. Also, the smell of blood was too much for the male +genet, and he presently rushed, with flying tail, into the crimson orgy +too. + +They were some time at this craziness; and when they had finished, they +and the fowls that were still alive could only lie and pant together +among the contorted slain, the blood--you would never believe how a +cockerel will bleed--and the carmine-tinted feathers. You might not +believe me if I told you how many fowls they had killed, but it was a +most disgraceful number, and quite inexcusable. + +And then, even as they lay there, dead-beat, they started suddenly and +together, for, almost like a blow, the fact dawned upon them that it was +day. Night had stolen away, and dawn discovered them at the killing; and +goodness alone knows how long they had been at it--ten minutes or hours. +Anyway, here it was, and they leapt to their feet together. + +As they hurried out they had to pass the place where the carcass of the +owl _had been_! It was gone--mysteriously sauntered as a corpse into +nowhere. Owls are uncanny creatures at any time, but moving about when +dead is not usually a recognized habit of theirs. The genets sniffed +anxiously, and ran the trail to the hole under the roof, since it +happened to be on their way. Through the hole it went, and into the +air--literally into the air. In other words, that owl had simply +"bluffed" death when she realized that she was near death. The bluff had +come off; and at a later, and what she judged a proper, time, she had +just, and of course silently, flown off by the way she had come; and--as +I live!--a fowl had gone with her. + +One minute later an unsuspected martial hawk-eagle precipitated himself +out of a big, hoary, old fig-tree, a hundred yards away from the +fowlhouse, on to one of the genets' disappearing tails. This is the +world's most general view of a genet, by the way--its disappearing tail; +and it is given to very few to see the beautiful, dark-blotched, creamy, +little, lithe, long beast that the ringed tail belongs to. Of course, +the eagle was too late. + +Two minutes later, a late leopard, returning to his lair after a blank +night's hunt, saw the tail of the female genet, who was leading, +disappear into a hollow tree. The male had not time to get in as the +leopard sprang, so he shot up another tree close by, disturbing a mamba +cobra, whose color was green, and whose bite was death, as it lay asleep +among the twined vines. The legless terror fell to the ground and +streaked for its hole, and the following leopard only just managed to +bound out of its way as it did so. + +Then, leaping light as thistle-down, coughing harshly, the leopard went +up the tree after the male genet, and appeared to have cut him off from +life and liberty for ever. + +The genet climbed beautifully, and dodged round the tree-bole, and in and +out among the trails and the leaf-bunches of matted creepers, with +amazing speed; but the whole time the leopard's paw, all hooked claws +bared, was whip-whip-whipping the air, only just behind that lovely, +long, ringed tail of the genet, and more than once touched it. + +Finally, hard driven, panting, at the end of his tether, it seemed, the +genet was forced out upon a branch, farther and farther, slowly and +more-slowly, the leopard creep, creep, creeping, almost flat, well spread +and craftily, his paw, well out in front, hooking at the luckless little +genet, till the twigs began to bend under the poor hunted creature, and +all hope seemed gone from him, for the ground was sixteen feet below, and +there was nothing between. And then--ah! but it was a fine effort!--just +when it seemed that he could go no farther, and that the next terrible +hooking round-arm stroke of the leopard must fish him into the +annihilating scrunch of the terrible jaws, whose foul, hot breath already +played upon him, the genet sprang. + +It was a wonderful spring; the little beast had gathered every last ounce +of his strength for it, and he literally seemed to sail out upon the air. +Sixteen feet to the ground he bounded, and twenty-two feet out from the +bole of the tree he landed, and--well, what d'you think of that? + +Quick was the leopard--to our eyes he seemed to come down almost on the +heels of the genet--but not quick enough, for he had first to gather +himself on an uncertain, swaying footing. Wherefore, by the time he got +to the ground, bounding like some great rubber ball, he had the pleasure +of seeing the male genet's tail vanishing also into the small hole in the +hollow tree. + +And there he left them, because perforce he could do nothing else. And +there, too, we leave them, curled up side by side in the darkness and +safety, reconciled, and a happy couple at last. + + + + +X + +THE KING'S SON + +They found the king's son lying in a bed of reeds with his sister, the +king's daughter, and although the prince and princess fought royally, +as befitted their rank, they were smothered up roughly in sacks and +carried speedily--the queen might return at any moment and want the +captors--to the Governor of all the Provinces, and the Governor spake +thus: + +"Oho! A royal pair, eh? They shall be sent to the capital, but first +we must put them in an inclosure while we knock up some kind of a cage." + +And into "an inclosure" were they, therefore, cast, and it was small +and bare, but for one box with dried grass in it; and the walls of the +place were of corrugated iron nine feet high, so that escape looked +impossible. Ransom was out of the question, and rescue a wild, but +still faintly possible, dream--they could even then hear their father +speaking in a mighty voice very far away, but their mother, they knew, +would be following their trail in terrible silence. + +Meantime they were king's children, and it behooved them to carry +themselves as such in the presence of the enemy. Wherefore did they +neither cry nor grieve (outwardly), nor sulk, nor cast themselves down +or about with despair or rage. They just sat down side by side, and +put their heads together, and stared with haughty insolence at the +common crowd, "the lesser breeds without the law," who gathered to +inspect them. It is not every day men get a chance to spit at and make +mock of a king's son, whose father, as like as not, killed one's mother +or little brother with no more thought than you or I would kill a +rabbit, and the crowd made the most of that chance. + +But luckily night, who was their godfather, came stalking swiftly +westward, as he does in those wild parts, and flung his protecting +cloak over them, and the crowd melted to its fleshpots, and the magic +of the dark settled down over all. + +One by one the little lights twinkled out in the huts and tents of +their captors, and the deep bass drone of men's voices within mingled +with the shrill cackle of women, and the high song of the mosquitoes +without; and the smell of cooking and tobacco together came to them, so +that they sniffed aloofly and stirred from their places. + +A pariah dog, lean and yellow, came to eye them furtively through the +chinks of the corrugated iron, and the horses snorted and stamped in +their pickets, as the night breeze carried to them their scent. + +Time passed, and the shrill voices of the women-folk ceased, the deep +mutter of the men died gradually down, the lights faded, the scene was +lit up only here and there by the sudden glow of a fire kicked into +blaze by a sentry, but the song of the mosquitoes never ceased. + +Then arose and uprose the strange, uncanny voices of the night, which, +taken together, made up a background to the great silence which they +seemed to accentuate. And the king's son bounded again. They were to +him as a mighty call, those voices, from his own land--the land of the +wilderness. + +The rumbling thunder of his father's rage, breathing of death and +destruction, had ceased now; but there were plenty more sounds, and the +king's son, listening, knew them all. The distant "Qua-ha-ha!" of a +troop of zebras going to drink; the peculiar snort of an impala +antelope, scenting danger; the far-away drumming of hoofs of a startled +herd of hartebeests; the bleat of an eland calf, pulled down by who +knows what; the "Hoot-toot!" of a hippopotamus, going out to grass; the +sudden shrill "Ya-ya-ya-ya!" of a black-backed jackal close at hand; +the yarly, snarly whines of a hunting leopard; the snap of a +crocodile's jaws, somewhere down in the nearby river; and, last, but by +no means least in ghostliness, the awful rising "Who-oo!" followed by a +sudden mad chorus of maniacal laughter, which told that somewhere a +gathering of hyenas were--at their work! + +The king's son was moving about the prison now, examining what he could +see--especially of the walls--with his wonderful, proud eyes, and what +he could not with whiskers and nose. He made no sound, of course--not +so much as a whisper; and when his sister joined him, they were simply +intangible, half-guessed shapes, drifting--there is no other word for +it--through the gloom. + +A man, even a colored one, might look long into that inclosure and, +unless he caught the sudden smolder at the back of their eyes, never +tell where they were. Indeed, the inclosure was in pitch-darkness +itself, by reason of its high "tin" walls; and even when a weird yellow +moon came and hung itself up to add to the general uncanniness of the +scene, the prison of the king's son showed only like a well of ink. + +Suddenly the silence and the voices of the crickets were broken into by +the sound of scramblings by night. A nightjar fled from the tree +overhead to the accompaniment of strange noises; and an unseen jackal, +who had crept up to the very huts pessimistically, in search of +anything awful, or offal, fled with a startled scurry. Apparently +something with claws was trying to scrape away the corrugated iron. + +Came then a scrawling scrape, and a thump. Then silence. But after a +bit the noises began again--a fresh lot, and more violent. The pariah +dog, who had come to investigate with his tail in the air, went away +again, and quickly, with his tail between his legs; and in the same +moment the king's son's head appeared over the top of the corrugated +iron wall in silhouette against the staring, surprised moon. + +Of course, and quite naturally, every sentry was asleep, or else even +they could not have failed to realize that the sounds of desperate +scratchings that followed were no ordinary phenomena, and might bear +looking into. + +Presently the king's son's body followed his head, and he sat for a +moment, balancing clumsily on that narrow top, before vanishing +suddenly, to the accompaniment of a heavy thump that was the last sound +he made in the place. + +Further and even more frantic scratchings followed, and anon the king's +daughter, who certainly meant to die rather than be left alone in the +hands of the foe, eclipsed the moon. A pause, and she, too, vanished +downwards with a thump that was the last sound she made there in that +place also. + +A minute later, and she had joined her brother under the thorny guard +of a mimosa. + +For a moment or two the pair stood rigid as rock carvings, looking +back, crouched a little, and deadly silent. Then the king's son turned +and led the way to the river at a loping trot, and his sister followed +in his tracks. They shook the dust--literally and daintily as a cat +shakes dew from her feet--of the hated captors' fastness from their +feet in little momentary halts as they went, and the place knew them no +more. + +But there is one point I should like to insert here. Go and try to +climb over a corrugated iron wall nine feet high, and with nothing but +the bare earth to take off from, and see how you succeed. Further, +when doing it, remember that these royal children were so young as to +be little more than babies. Then you may tell how they accomplished +the feat. I do not know exactly to this day. + +It is to be hoped that by this time everybody will be aware that the +king's son and the king's daughter were lion cubs, the survivors, +therefore the strongest and the fittest, of three lion cubs in a +litter. It required, you will admit, some resource, courage, and +intelligence to do what they had already done, considering their age; +but the worst was to come. Having got out of the frying-pan, they must +now face the fire, and be quick about it, too, if they didn't want to +be traced and recaptured at dawn. + +Arrived at the river's edge, they stopped and stared out across the +dark swirls and unknown, cold depths. Lion cubs, as also the young of +every other African animal, must assuredly be born with an instinctive +and a very lively dread of all rivers and their occupants. Any +horrible invention of death, they must have known, might be expected to +lurk there, ready waiting for them in that underworld of dark waters; +but if they felt fear, they never showed it, and the pride of their +birth held true. Their hesitation was only momentary. The terror had +to be faced, bravely or fearfully, as they would, but still faced, and +bravely it was done. + +Slowly and coolly the king's son waded out into the black, chill +waters. He felt the current, which was strong, plucking like invisible +great fingers at his legs; he felt the cold strike through tawny, +spotted fur and skin to his belly, but he never looked back. His feet +were whirled from under him; he trod upon nothing, cold, cold +emptiness, and that was enough to terrify any grown beast, let alone a +baby; but he struck out right manfully, and his fine eyes and face took +on that regal expression of haughty determination that you see in the +face only of King Leo himself and his mate, and in no other beast in +the world. And the king's daughter unhesitatingly followed--a real +princess, by gad, sirs! + +Steadily the pair swam, heading instinctively, one presumes, up-stream, +to counteract the drift of the ever-shouldering current. There was, +perhaps, from two to five feet of water under their sturdy paws; but +had it been twenty or thirty, I, personally, believe it would have made +no difference. There were probably also other things under and around +their sturdy paws--things very much worse and less innocent than any +water--things they must have, dimly, at any rate, if not acutely, been +aware of in an inbred sort of way; but they made no difference either. + +"Make way for the king's son and the king's daughter. It is their will +to cross the river. Hear, all of you loathly horrors, you lurking +terrors--make way. Who dares check the will of the king's son?" + +Once there came a mighty swirl on their right hand--or right paw, if +you like--and the waters parted, with waves and the spouts of a geyser, +to give up the monstrous nightmare head of a hippopotamus. Once +something cold and leathery and ghastly touched the bottom of their +padded feet; and once--but this was too awful for any expression by +pen--something else, equally cold, but smooth, coiled, writhing, round +the king's son's left hind-leg, but providentially slid clear again, as +he kicked like a budding International. + +Then came the ordeal. It arrived in the shape of two knobs, that just +were suddenly, and remained, motionless in the mocking moonlight, on +the surface of the water. It might have been merely some projection +from a half-sunken log. It might, but--well, there had grown in the +air an unspeakable stench of musk, and that wasn't there before the +knobs showed up. + +Both lion cubs saw, both little royal ones smelt, and in some dim way, +warned probably by a terrible knowledge handed down to them from their +ancestors, both baby swimmers knew. Terror--real terror, of the +white-livered, surrender-or-stampede-blindly-at-any-price kind--could +never, it seems to me, come into those fine, regal eyes; but the +nearest approach that was possible occurred in that instant, and they +swam. Ah, how those infant lions swam! What had gone before was mere +paddling; and whether or not they had ever swum before in their short +lives--and I doubt it more than a little--there could be no question +about them now; they swam like practiced hands, and almost as fast. + +Followed a pause, terrifying enough in all conscience, and then, +slowly, silently as a submarine's conning-tower goes under, so dived +those knobs, and vanished almost, not quite, without a ripple. + +The cool night-air showed the breath coming from the broad, brave, +water-frilled cubs' heads in gasps. The silence gave away their +frantic panting. You could literally see them straining every baby +nerve and muscle, could note the jerks with which they fairly kicked +themselves along. And the opposite bank, a black wall of bush and +reeds, was very near now, yet far--oh, how far, to them! + +Ssee-shhrr-r-rr-r-shrhh! + +As a torpedo hurtles hissing along barely below the surface of the +water, so hurtled the head--the head with its wicked eyes on knobs; the +head with its vast, scaly, long snout, its raised nostrils at the tip, +its shuddering array of jagged teeth, its awful, armed, diabolical +aspect of conscious power--straight at the king's son. Without warning +had it come, and with still less had it attacked. + +Swim, oh, swim, little king's son, for your very life! But the king's +son did not swim--at least, not in that sense. He turned. Yes, that +is right--turned; and the monstrosity of the armed snout, that same +being a crocodile, of course, was upon him even as he did so. There +would have been no time to turn after--no life! Still, the king's son +may not have known that. Maybe he turned, as a man attacked by a dog +does, because he felt, in a cold, nervy sort of spasm all up his spine, +the terrible defenselessness of his hind-limbs. And as he turned, he +struck--bat-bat!--struck with all his talons unsheathed; struck with +every ounce and grain of power, and force of brain to back that power, +in his system; struck as only a cornered cat can strike; struck like +a--lion. + +The result was astounding. + +The crocodile had aimed, true to a hair--you bet, he being a croc.--to +grab the king's son's hindlegs, and pull him under. He had not +reckoned on the turn, and the turn did it. His snout struck hindlegs, +which were not where they ought, by his calculations, to have been, but +were four or five inches away to one side. + +Quick as only a reptile can be, he canted, to remedy the error, but the +impetus of his ten-foot bulk was still upon him; it carried him by. +You cannot stop ten feet of bulk and five-feet-seven of girth of flesh +and bone and muscle and armor-plates, going at Old Nick may know how +many knots, in half-a-yard, you know; and it was the half-a-yard that +did the trick. + +The king's son was aware, as he half-rose and delivered that desperate +blow, of a mighty bulk shooting by, of an overpowering, sickening +stench of musk, and of eyes, through the foam and the water--two +little, wicked, unspeakably cruel eyes on knobs. + +_His chance_! And, quick as light, he took it. Ough! + +The rest was chaos. + +And that is about all, I think--unless you would like to know that +their mother, the king's consort, who had been working grimly along on +their trail since dusk, slid swiftly down the bank in that crisis, a +fiery-eyed, long, gliding shape, and plunging into the watery inferno +utterly recklessly, brought out, one by one, dripping, shivering, and +by the scruff of the neck, first the king's son, then the king's +daughter, and stopped not till she had placed them high up the bank, +safe among the thorn-scrub, where they crouched together, side by side, +listening to the cataclysmal threshings of the blind devil down in the +black waters below there; and their father, the king, came +up--pad-pad-pad-pad--behind them, to thunder out defiance at all the +world above their sturdy, broad, intelligent heads, and purr his joy at +their return. Moreover, he looked proud as he stood there in the +moonlight, that royal beast; and I like to think it was not all looks +either. + + + + +XI + +THE HIGHWAYMAN OF THE MARSH + +There was some sort of violent trouble going on down in the reeds +beside the dike. The reed-buntings--some people might easily have +mistaken them for sparrows, with their black heads and white +mustaches--said so, swaying and balancing upon the bending reeds, and +calling the makers of that trouble names in a harsh voice. + +And all the rest of the reed-people were saying so, too. It was an +amazing thing how full of wild-folk that apparently deserted reed-patch +was. Each bit of the landscape, each typical portion, is a world of +its own, with its special kind of population. This one produced +unexpectedly a pair of sedge-warblers and a reed-warbler, atoms who +gyrated and grated their annoyance; a willow-tit, who made needle-point +rebukes; a water-rail, with a long beak and long legs, running away +like a long-legged pullet; a moorhen very much concerned as to her +nest; a big rat very much concerned as to the moorhen's nest, too, but +in a different way; a grass snake, who glistened as if newly painted in +the sun; and a spotted crake, who is even more of a running winged +ventriloquial mystery than the corn-crake of our childhood's hay-times. + +All of them were on thorns--though on reeds, really--and evidently +highly rattled and in a state of nerves over the trouble in the reeds. +And not much wonder either, for, judging by the sounds, murder was +being done in there among the secret recesses of the swishing green +stems--murder cruel and violent, in spite of the sunshine and the light +of day. + +And then, all of a sudden, in the midst of almost a gasp of silent +horror, a moment of speechlessness on the part of the wild lookers-on, +out came the trouble, rolling over and over and over upon the soft, +short-cropped grass of the dike-bank, and--they all saw. Also, they +all, except the little warblers, who were safe, more or less, and +stayed to blaspheme the public nuisance, instantly and at the same +moment remembered appointments elsewhere, and went to keep them with a +haste that was noticeable and wonderful. + +There before them was a hare. But a hare is a gentle and altogether +negligible wild-person. This hare, however, was fighting, and fighting +like several furies, and grunting, and making all sorts of unharelike +motions and commotions against another beast; and that other beast was +most emphatically not a hare. + +It--or, rather, he--was big, as we count bigness among four-footed +wild-folk in Britain to-day. Probably he could stretch the tape to +twenty-three inches, of which about sixteen consisted of very long, low +body, with sturdy, bear-like, dumpy legs, the rest being rather thick, +furry tail; and, though nobody--without steel armor--might have cared +to take on the job of weighing him alive, he would have turned the +scale at about two pounds eight ounces, or perhaps a bit more. Not a +big beast, you will say; but in the wild he ruled big, being snaky and +of a fighting turn, so to say. He was, in fact, the very devil, and he +looked it--hard as nickel-steel. A dull, tawny devil, with a peculiar +purplish sheen in some lights--due to the longer hair--on his short, +hard coat, turning black on his throat, legs, and tail--as if he had +walked in black somewhere--and finished off with patches of creamy +white on head and ears. There was an extraordinary air of hard, tough, +cool, cruel, fighting-power and slow ferocity about the beast--a very +natural born gladiator of the wild places. + +Men called him polecat, apropos of nothing about him, apparently, for +he had no connection with poles or cats; or foumart, apropos--and you +wouldn't have needed to be told if you had got to leeward of him just +then--of his _very_ unroselike smell--that is, fou--foul, mart--marten, +his nearest relation; or, again, fitchett, as our forefathers termed +him. + +But never mind. What's in a name, anyway? A big sloe-hare, with a +leveret or two _not_ for sale--and that doe's leverets must have been +in the rushes somewhere--may, upon occasion, show unexpected +fighting-powers. And this one did. The polecat was kicked in the +stomach, and kicked and scratched in the ribs, and thumped on the nose, +and kicked and scratched and thumped on the head, before he could get +in the death-stroke, the terrible lightning-thrust at the brain's base, +which, like the sword-stroke that ends the bull-fight, dropped the +victim as if struck by electricity. + +And then he had whirled, and darted headlong for the reeds. He +galloped in an odd, jumpy, sidelong gallop, as if he were a sort of +glorified wild dachshund. + +It did not take him long to inspect the reed-patch, to search it from +end to end with his nose. His mind was soon made up to the fact that +the wretched leverets had vanished, and that no scenting of his keen +nose could find them. They had gone, evidently, quitted, like the pair +of obedient children that they were, while their mother was cleverly +holding the foe, and making demonstrations in his front. And now the +pair of them were probably far away, lost past all finding among the +mazes of the fields. And there was nothing for him to do but go and +dine upon the old hare, which he did, taking, according to his custom, +little more than a bite and a sip before passing on. + +Then he turned and meandered off on the war-path. And this was a +serious business, and a busy one. It was downright hard labor, for he +worked his ground properly and for all it was worth, having a lot to +kill, and not much time to kill it in. + +At times he sat bolt-upright, and stared knowingly around--because his +short legs gave him such a limited view otherwise. At times he climbed +a mole-heap. At other times he hunted head down--and again one noticed +the hound-like manner--in every possible direction, questing, casting +here, casting there, working back, throwing forward, describing +circles, and poking into and out of every reed-patch, bramble-heap, +furze-clump, or other bit of cover that that coverless land offered. + +And then suddenly he stopped. And then suddenly he ran forward. And +then suddenly, the scent carrying him right smack-bang out into the +open, he dropped flat and began to crawl. + +He crept and he crept and he crept across that absolutely bare, flat +ground, with never a tuft of fur or a feather of a single live thing +upon it to be seen, till one might have thought that he had gone mad, +and was stalking an illusion--as many, not beasts, have done before +him; only they were men, and blew their brains out--or went bankrupt +instead--afterwards. + +Finally he stopped. And this was the oddest thing of all, because, if +any creature could show intense excitement without showing it--that is +to say, without muscle, eyelid, hair, or limb moving--that polecat did +then. And yet, stare as one would upon the absolutely bare grass, +dotted only here and there with a stone, or a rat's skull, or a +daisy--all looking alike in their whiteness from a distance--not a +living, breathing thing was to be seen. + +And yet there was a living, breathing thing there. Indeed, there were +several. It was only the eye that was deceived, not the nose--at +least, not the polecat's nose--by motionlessness. + +Right in front of the polecat, within spring, still as the very ground, +the huffish, whitish check of a peewit, lap-wing, or green plover would +have been mistaken for one of the many stones; the thin, curving +top-knot for a stem of the thin, harsh grass: the low curve of the dark +back, with its light reflections in green, for no more than the natural +curve of the close-cropped turf. And she was on her nest, which was no +nest, but a scrape, backing her natural assimilation with her +surroundings to see her through. + +And the polecat knew she was there, and he knew she was on her +nest--she would not have been fool enough to keep there otherwise. His +nose told him--not his eyes, I think, for that was nearly impossible. +The thing was, he wanted her to move. That was what he was waiting +for. No more than the twitch of an eyelid would do to show which end +was head and which tail; for he could only smell her, and, in a manner, +would have to pounce blind if she did not move. + +She did not move, however, and in the end he had to pounce blind, +anyhow, so suddenly, so unexpectedly, when it did come, shifting like a +streak, that there seemed to have been no time to shout even, or gasp. + +Yet that peewit found time in that fraction of a second to rise, open +her wings, and get two feet into the air. And then the polecat took +her, leaping with unexpected agility, and pulling her down out of +limitless freedom and safety. There was just a rush, a snap, a +wild-bird squawk, and down the pair went, to the accompaniment of +furiously fluttering wings and in a cloud of feathers. + +She had made a slight mistake in her calculations, that peewit, a +matter of perhaps a quarter of a second, but enough. Nature has not +got much room for those who commit slight mistakes in the wild, I +guess; they mostly quit the stage before passing that habit on, or soon +after. + +For a moment there was a horrible, strenuous jumble of fur and feathers +on the ground, and then the polecat's flat head rose up on his long +neck out of the jumble, his eyes alight with a new look, and his lifted +upper lip stained with a single little bright carmine spot. The peewit +was dead. + +He pivoted upon his shanks and examined the nest. It was empty. + +He got to his feet with rapidity, and, in great excitement, dropped his +head and began hunting. In a minute a mottled pebble seemed to get up +under his nose and run. He snapped at it, and it fell upon the grass, +stretching out slowly in death--a baby peewit. + +He circled rapidly, stopped, swerved, and, at the canter, took up +another scent. Suddenly, in a tussock of marram, his nose and he +stopped dead. Nothing moved. Then he bit, and a second +buff-and-black-mottled soft body stretched slowly out into the open as +death took it--a second baby peewit. He circled again, fairly racing +now, and so nearly fell over a third pebble come to life that it +scuttled back between his legs; but he spun upon himself like a snake, +and caught it ere it had gone a yard. He snapped again, held it, +dropped it, and another downy, soft, warm chick thing straightened, +horribly and pathetically, in the unpitying sun, and was still--a third +baby peewit. + +But there were no more. He hunted around and around for the next ten +minutes, but never struck a trail. Evidently there had been only +three. And all the time father-peewit, who had just come back from +dinner, swooped, and stooped, and dived, and rocketed, and shot down +and around, his wings humming through the still air above as he went +clean mad, and seemed like to break his neck and the polecat's back in +any and every one of his demented abysmal plunges, but somehow never +did quite. + +And all the time, also, the polecat, without seeming to take the +slightest notice of him, was watching him out of the corner of his eye, +waiting, hoping for a chance while he hunted. + +But this was not intended as an exhibition of "frightfulness," though +the beast had slain far more innocents than he could eat. It was part +of his duty; and though men have accused his kind of being possessed of +a joy of killing, the accusation is by no means proven. And, in any +case, the accused might reply to civilization, "Same to you, sir, and +many hundreds of times more so." + +Anyway, he now picked up a young peewit and made for the nearest dike; +then along this, and presently into the water and across to the other +side, swimming strongly and well; then along a smaller dike, hugging +the reeds as much as possible, and pursued by a running fire of abuse +from the sedge and marsh and grasshopper warblers, from wagtails, +meadow-pipits, reed-buntings, larks, and all the small-bird population +of those parts, till he came to the sea-bank, called by the natives +"sea-wall." This was a high, grass-bearded bank designed to constrain +the waters of the estuary, and there, in a hole, curtained by a +dandelion and guarded by the stiff spears of the coarse marram grass, +he stuffed his victim. + +The burrow was not empty when he came to it, for it already contained +two moorhens' eggs; but there was still room for more, and one by one +he fetched the remainder of his victims, mother and all, that way, and +stuffed them into the burrow, with a plodding, steady, exact doggedness +of purpose that was rather surprising in a mere wild beast who, if seen +casually, would have appeared to the ordinary man to be merely +aimlessly wandering about the landscape. And, mind you, this was not +quite such a simple and "soft" job as it looked. Grit was needed to +accomplish it, even. + +There was, for instance, the sudden, far too suggestive, swirl in the +water as he crossed the dike for the third time, loaded, that gave more +than a hint of some unknown--and therefore the more sinister--haunter +of those muddied depths of pollution, who took a more than passing +interest in the smell of blood, and must, to judge by the swirl, have +been too big to be safe. And that was probably a giant female eel, as +dangerous a foe as any swimmer of his size--though he ate eels--might +care to face. Then there was the marsh-harrier--and the same might +have been a kind of owl if it wasn't a sort of hawk--who flapped up +like some gigantic moth, and dogged his steps, only waiting--he felt +sure of it--for the polecat to slip, or meet a foe, or have an +accident, or something, before breaking its own avine neutrality. +Then, too, there was the stoat, or, rather, not the stoat only, but the +stoat and his wife, who would have murdered him if they had dared, and +took to shadowing and watching him from cover in the most meaning sort +of way. And, finally, there was the lean, nosing, sneaking dog, the +egg-thief, who had no business there with his yolk-spattered, +slobbering jaws, plundering the homes of the wild feathered ones--he +who was only a tame slave, and a bad one at that. But the dog followed +the polecat into a jungle-like reed fastness, and--almost never came +out again! When he did, it was to the accompaniment of varied and +assorted howls, and at about the biggest thing in the speed line he had +ever evolved. He was no end glad to get out, and the distant haze +swallowed him wonderfully quickly, still howling every yard of the +way--for, mark you, that polecat's teeth, once felt, wore nothing to +laugh at or forget. + +These things he accomplished as the night was beginning to fall, and +the solemn eye of the setting sun--such an eye of such a setting sun as +the estuary alone knows; bloodshot, and in a sky asmoke as of cities +burning--regarded him as he finished and stood back outside as one who +considers. He was a grim figure of outlawry and rapine, alone there in +that lonely place, amidst the gathering, dank gray of the marsh mists, +the red rays touching his coat and turning it to deep purple, and his +eyes to dull ruby flame; a beast, once seen, you would not forget, and +could never mistake. + +But his work was not yet done. He was hungry again, but for him there +could be no more food yet, and he turned with the same immutable and +dumbly dogged air that characterized so many of his actions, and made +off down the "sea-bank." Once he hid--vanished utterly would better +express it--to avoid the passage of an eel-spearer, an inhabitant of +the estuary almost as amphibious and mysterious as himself. Once he +very nearly caught a low-flying snipe as he leapt up at it while +cutting low over the top of the "bank"; and once--here he sprang aside +with a half-stifled snarl and every bristle erect--he was very nearly +caught by a horrible steel-toothed trap, set there to entertain that +same dog we have already met, by reason of the small matter of a late +lamb or two that had suddenly developed bites, obviously not +self-inflicted, in the night. Then he crossed the dike at the foot of +the sea-wall, shook himself, sat down to scratch, and straightway +hurled himself backwards and to one side, as something that resembled a +javelin whizzed out of six straggling, upright, faded, tawny reeds at +the water's edge, by which he had sat down. The javelin struck deep +into the little circle of lightly-pressed-down grass where his haunches +had rested, and he caught a glimpse, or only a half-glimpse, of weird +onyx eyes, and heard strange and shuddery reptilian hissings. Eyes and +noises might have belonged to a crocodile, or some huge lizard thing, +or snapping turtle, but the javelin was clearly the property of no such +horror, and was very obviously a beak--now, by the way, withdrawn. + +Followed the harsh rattle and the swish of big feathers and vast +wings--he felt the draught of them--the dim outline, as it were, of a +ghost, of some great shape rising into the gloom, and as instantly +vanishing over the sea-"wall," and he was alone, _and_--there were now +three upright and faded reeds in the clump near which he had sat him +down by the water's edge to scratch, _not_ six. The Thing, the +portent, the apparition, or whatever you like to call it, had been the +_other_ three; yet you could have sworn to the six reeds before it +moved. And the worst of it was that he did not know from frogs and +fresh water what the Thing was. He had never glimpsed such a sudden +death before, and had no burning desire to do so again, for he was +shrewd enough to know that, but for that fling-back of his, the javelin +would have struck him, and struck him like a stuck pig, perhaps through +the skull! Oh, polecat! The bird was a bittern, relation of the +herons, only brown, and if not quite so long, made up for it in +strength and fiery, highly developed courage. + +Caution is not the polecat's trump card, as it is the cat's, but if +ever he trod carefully, it was thence onwards, as he threaded the +dike-cut and pool-dotted gloom. He came upon a lone bull bellowing, +and gave him room. He came upon something unknown, but certainly not a +lone bull, bellowing too; it was the bittern, and he gave that plenty +of room. He came upon two moorhens, fighting as if to the death, but +_he_ was the death; and slew one of them from behind neatly, and had to +go back with it, past both bellowings, to a second burrow in the +sea-bank, where he put it; and later he came upon only seven great, +mangy, old, stump-tailed, scarred, horrible ghouls of shore rats, all +mobbing a wounded seagull--a herring-gull--with a broken wing. + +The gull lived, but that was no fault of the polecat's, for she managed +to run off into the surrounding darkness what time he was dealing +warily but effectively with one of those yellow-toothed devils of +murderous rats--whose bite is poison--in what dear, kind-hearted people +might have said was a most praiseworthy rescue of the poor, dear, +beautiful bird. (The poor, dear, beautiful bird, be it whispered, had +herself swallowed a fat-cheeked and innocent-eyed baby rabbit whole +that very day, before she was wounded; but never mind.) + +The polecat, after one wary sniff, did not seem to think the rat worthy +of a journey to the sea-bank and decent burial, and passed on, the +richer for a drink of rat's blood, perhaps, but very hungry. He came +upon a redshank's nest in a tuft of grass. + +The redshank, who has much the cut of a snipe, plus red-orange legs, +must have heard or seen him coming in the new, thin moonlight, and told +all the marsh about it with a shrieking whistled, "Tyop! tyop!" But +the nest contained four eggs, which the polecat took in lieu of +anything bigger, carrying two--one journey for each--all the way to the +sea-bank, to yet another hole he had previously scraped, or found, +therein. One of the other two eggs he consumed himself, and was just +making off with number four, when something came galloping over the +marsh in the moonlight, splashing through the pools, and making, in +that silence, no end of a row for a wild creature. + +The polecat stood quite still, with his long back arched, his sturdy, +short forepaws anchored tense, and his short, rounded ears alert, and +watched it come, not because he wanted to, but because there did not +happen to be any cover thereabouts, and to move might give him away. + +When he saw that the beast was long and low, and short-legged and +flat-beaded, his long outer fur began to bristle. Those outlines were +the trade-marks of his own tribe--not his own species only--and were, +he knew, more likely to mean tough trouble than anything else. Then he +realized that the path of the new arrival would take it right towards +him, and that was bad, because to move now and get out of the way was +hopeless. Also, he could see the size of the beast now, and that was +worse than bad--some ten inches to a foot worse. + +The beast held a wild-duckling in its jaws, and the little body, with +its stuck-out webbed feet, flapped and flopped dismally from side to +side, as the animal cantered along with a somewhat shuffling, +undulating gait. And then the polecat became transfixed. He had +recognized the new-comer. He knew the breed, and would have given a +lot not to have molested that redshank's abode and be found there. + +The strange beast--palpably a large, sinuous, and wicked +proposition--came right up to the polecat, standing there rigid, erect, +motionless, and alone in the moonlight, with the fourth egg between his +paws, and then stopped dead, almost touching him. Apparently, it saw +him for the first time. Certainly it was not pleased; it said so under +its breath, in a low growl. + +The polecat said nothing, perhaps because he had nothing to say. + +The beast was an otter, and an old one. Also, it appeared to be +suffering from a "grouch." + +The polecat felt uncomfortable. He was eyeing the other's throat, and +marking just the place where he meant to take hold, if things came to +the worst; but he knew all the time that the otter, although its eyes +had never been removed for a fraction of a second off his face, was +really watching the egg. The otter was a female; probably she had +young to feed; the presence of the duckling darkly hinted at it. If +so, so much the worse for the polecat. + +Then the otter put down her duckling, and growled again; but the +polecat might have been carved in unbarked oak for all the sign of life +that he gave. Then--she sailed in. + +It was really very neatly and prettily done, for, as an exponent of +lithesome agility, the otter is--when the pine-marten is not +by--certainly quite It. The polecat seemed to side-twist double, +making some sort of lightning-play with his long neck and body as she +came, and--he got his hold. Yes, he got his hold all right. The only +thing was to stay there; for, as he was a polecat and a member of the +great, the famous, weasel tribe, part of his fighting creed was to +_stay there_. + +When, however, hounds fail to puncture an otter's hide, any beast might +be pardoned for losing its grip; but he did not. Between the tame +hounds' fangs and his smaller wild ones was some difference--about the +difference between our teeth and a savage's, multiplied once or twice; +and the old she-otter, who had felt hounds' teeth in her life, realized +the difference. Also, it hurt, and the polecat did not lose his hold. + +Then, maddened, wild with rage, the rage of one who expects a walk-over +and receives a bad jolt instead, that old she-otter really got to work. +She recoiled like a coiled snake, and the polecat felt fire in one loin. + +It looked like the contortions of one big, furry beast twisted with +cramp, by the moonlight. You could not possibly separate the +combatants, or tell that there were two. But the polecat only fought +because he dared not expose his flank with the foe facing him. Now, +however, as they both rolled he-- + +Hi! It was done in an instant. At a moment when the roll brought him +on top, and when the otter was shifting her own hold for another, and +more deadly, which might have "put him to sleep" forever, he +miraculously twisted and writhed, eel-fashion, and with one mighty +wrench--a good strip of his skin and fur had to go in that pull, but it +couldn't be helped--he had broken the other's hold, leapt clear of the +clinch, and was gone. + +The otter was up before you could guess what had happened, and was +drumming away on his heels; but she soon pulled up, realizing that a +polecat may be slow in the books, but not so slow in real life, with +her to assist speed. Anyway, she seemed slower; and, in any case, she +could not hope to follow him in the intricacy of holes and cover he was +sure to take to, like a fish to water. Moreover, she was spitting up +blood, result of friend polecat's neat and natty strangle-hold on her +throat, and felt more in need of the egg--which she had won, at any +rate--than a wild-goose chase. + +Like a thin, wavy line through the night, friend polecat betook himself +to the sea-bank, to a hole in the sea-bank, to the very depths of that +hole; and there, in the shape of two angrily smoldering, luminous orbs +shining steadily through the pit-like dark, he stayed. Most of the +time, I fancy, he used up in licking his wounds. They needed it, for, +though clean, the punctures from the otter's canines had gone deep, and +a red trail of drops marked the polecat's route to his lair--one of his +lairs. + +Not, be it noted, that he was entirely ignored. Blood-trails are +always items of interest in the wild, especially in the dark hours +while man sleeps. Thus there once came to the mouth of the hole +scufflings, and the noise as of an eager, inquisitive crowd--rats, who +hoped for a chance to get their own back on a detested foe. But one +evil snarl from the wounded beast removed them, convinced that the time +was not yet. + +Once, also, something sniffed out of the stilly night, and that was a +fox; but one snap from within, a perfectly abominable smell, and the +narrowness of the accommodation proved too much for brer fox, and he, +with an insolent cock of the brush, retired. + +Then, too, there was a rabbit, not looking where he was going, who got +half-way down the burrow before he realized the awful truth, and went +out backwards, like a cat with a salmon-tin on its head. + +But along towards dawn there came an altogether different sort of +sound, somehow--a sort of a little chuckling sound; and the polecat, +answering it, came out. He looked rather less awful now than when he +had gone in. A form was standing outside--a dark, low, long form, like +himself; and, like himself, you could easily become aware of it without +seeing it, even with your handkerchief to your nose. + +It was his wife, smaller, but no less dangerous, than he. She was +carrying an old hen-redshank in her jaws, its long beak and one of its +wings clearly silhouetted against the moon. And apparently she would +be very pleased if her husband would come out of the hole and make room +for her to stuff the redshank into it. + +Then, together, they moved at their indescribable, undulating +gait--they looked like a snake between them in the moonlight--along the +sea-bank, till they came, with caution and many clever tricks of +vanishing, in case anybody might be watching, to yet another burrow, +screened completely and very neatly guarded by the splayed leaves of a +bunch of frosted sea-holly. + +Both beasts went into the burrow, at the end of which was a nest +containing live things, which squirmed and made little, tiny, infant +noises in the darkness. They were the polecats' children, four of +them, all quite young, and all very hungry and very lively indeed; and +they explained a good deal of the reason for the stores of food set by +in other burrows in the "sea-wall." + +But they did not explain quite all, for, unless Mrs. Polecat liked her +dinner high--and there was nothing I could find in her methods to show +that she did--or unless Mr. Polecat had got a craze for collecting +specimens and eggs, or forgot where half of his trophies were hidden as +a natural habit of absent-mindedness, one cannot quite see the reason +for hiding so much so soon, before the young could feed upon the +"specimens." + +However, I suppose the two beasts knew their own business best. The +old male polecat seemed to, anyway, for just as the first flicker of +dawn was paling the eastern sky he went off down to the mist-hidden +dike, and, in no more than ten short minutes, returned with an eel, +protesting violently in that horrible way eels have, which he promptly +proceeded to decapitate and eat. + +The afternoon had still some little time to run, when the waving grass +down the side of the sea-bank and the half of a glimpse of dull tawny +gave away the male polecat leaving his "earth" for the war-path once +more. Was he ever anything else than on the war-path if he moved +abroad at all? + +That, even from above, was, I swear, all the indication he gave of his +exit. Now, although it is a rule in the wild that self-advertisement +is most unhealthful, there may be times when a beast like the polecat +may not advertise itself enough. And this was one of those times. + +Far overhead, circling grandly on effortless, still, great pinions, +swimming, one might say, in the dome of the sky, a big bird, known as a +buzzard, was staring downwards with the flashing, sheathed glance of +all birds of prey--and aviators--at the world below. She, too, had +young, and simply had to find a meal. The hour was late, and her +success _nil_. Perhaps that accounted for much. Perhaps, however, all +she saw was that half-glimpse of dull, tawny fur, which accounted for +still more; that is to say, she probably made a mistake. + +Anyway, the polecat was suddenly aware of a sound like the swish of a +lady's skirt in the air above him, and of a dimming of the light. He +sprang forward first, and glanced up second--knowing the rules of the +wild. But he was too late, for instantly the long, hooked talons of +the bird came down through the grass, and gripped. It was an awful +handshake, for the bird was a buzzard, we said, who is a sort of +smaller and less kingly edition of the eagle, without the imperial +power. + +For a few seconds there followed an awful struggle--great wings beating +mightily downwards, beak hammering, and fangs meeting the hammerings +with audible clashings. It seemed that the bird could not quite lift +the beast, and that the beast could not quite retain connection with +solid earth. + +And then the bird rose, slowly, strainingly, with her vast pinions +winnowing the air with deep "how-hows!" Like mighty fans rose she, +still gripping the struggling polecat hard by the back in a locked +clutch of steel--up and up, and out over the estuary, growing slowly +from a great bird to a medium-sized one, to a smaller, and a smaller, +all the time fighting, it seemed, like a mad creature, to gain the +upper air, to climb to the clouds, as a drowning man fights his way +upwards in the water. And there was reason--the old polecat's jaws +were fast shut in a vise-grip, as of a Yale lock, upon her throat. + +Never a sound broke the silence that brooded forever--in spite of the +wind--over the lake-like, flattened expanse of the estuary save the +deep "how-how!" of the buzzard's superb pinions as she climbed slowly +into the sublime vault of the heavens; never a sound from bird or from +beast. The beast hung on, dumbly dogged, with fangs that met in the +flesh beneath the stained feathers; and the blood of the bird mingled +with the blood of the beast as it trickled slowly down over his mangled +head, upon which one fearful claw of the buzzard was clutched in an +awful grip. + +The bird struggled dumbly also, upwards, ever upwards, gasping, with +open beak and staring eyes, fighting vainly for the breath she could +not draw, till at last the two were no more than a speck--one little, +dark, indefinite speck, floating athwart the great, piled, fleecy +mountains of the clouds. + +And then, quite suddenly, so suddenly that it was almost like pricking +a bladder, the end came. The magnificent, overshadowing pinions +collapsed; the bird reeled, toppled for an instant in the void, and +then slid back and down, faster and faster and faster, turning over and +over, in one long, sickening dive back to earth. + +[Illustration: "Turning over and over, in one long, sickening dive back +to earth"] + +A watcher, had there been one, might have seen, just as the last rays +of the setting sun touched the steely reaches of the estuary, turning +them to lakes of crimson, something, somebody--or bodies, truly, for +they were locked together--suddenly appear, streaking down headlong +from out the heavens. There followed a single terrific splash far out +over the tide, an upheaval of waters, a succession of ripples hurrying +outwards, ever outwards, to tell the tale, and then--nothing. + +Next morning, as the sun rose, a party of mournfully shrieking +black-backed, herring, common, and black-headed gulls were gathered +around the soaked and bedraggled carcasses of a polecat and a buzzard, +stranded by the falling tide upon a mud spur, and still locked savagely +and implacably in death. + +Half a mile away, in the darkness of her burrow, the she-polecat +stirred uneasily in her sleep, and, waking for a moment, stared out at +the still, silent, secret marshes, wondering, perhaps, why her mate had +not returned. + +And ten miles away, far up in their great nest among the boughs of a +mighty Scotch fir, three downy, but already fierce-eyed, buzzard +nestlings craned their necks upwards, calling hungrily, and wondering +why their mother had not returned; while their father shot and swerved +backwards and forwards over the tree-tops, mewing and calling, uneasily +and lonelily, to the clouds for his wife, who had so mysteriously +disappeared. And so--fate and the end. + +This only remains to be said--the female polecat and the male buzzard +did, in spite of Fate, manage to rear their young. And if the +gamekeeper and the collector, the sportsman and the farmer, have not +been too cruel, those young are alive-to-day. + + + + +XII + +THE FURTIVE FEUD + +There was a sun. You could not see it much because of burning, dancing +haze, but you could not get anywhere without feeling it. Almost +everything you touched--sand, rock, and such like--blistered you; and +the vegetation, where it wasn't four-inch thorns and six-inch spikes +and bloated cacti, was shriveled yellow-brown, like the color of a +lion. Perhaps it was a lion, some of it. How could one tell? + +Lizards, which were bad; and scorpions, which were worse; and snakes, +which were worse than worse, lay about in the sun, as if they were +pieces of leather drying. You could not see them--which was awkward, +for some of them held a five-minute death up their sleeve--partly +because they matched their surroundings, partly because they were +still. They were colored burnt to hide in a burnt land. + +Yet it was possible to be bright and gay and unobtrusive in this place, +too--if you were cold-blooded enough not to boil dry and explode before +getting a drink--for under some trees lay, in the old-gold, yellow, +black-shade-streaked, tawny-red grass, a sleek and glistening, banded, +blotched, and spotted, newly painted python. Yes, sirs, a python +snake; and you couldn't see it in its new levee uniform--the old one +lay not fifty yards away--any more than you could see the other, and +plainly attired, bad dreams--so long as it did not move. Its length +was not apparent, because it was coiled up; but it would have uncoiled +out into something most alarming if stretched, I fancy. + +The jackal made no sound as he came, tripping daintily, graceful and +light as a rubber ball, into the scene, blissfully oblivious, +apparently, of the fact that any other next step might awake a volcano +under his feet. + +He was a black-backed jackal; red-tawny sides, fading to nearly white +under-parts; black back, grizzled with white hairs, neatly ruled off +from the rest of him, like a big saddle; large, wide-awake ears; long, +thin legs; bushy tail; very knowing eyes, and all complete--part wolf, +part fox, and yet neither and something of both. No one living could, +perhaps, have been agile enough to measure him, but he looked over two +and a half feet from nose-tip to tail-root; and you can add, possibly, +a third of that for the tail. But he was all there, whatever his +length, every short hair of him, and none of the swarms of buzzing +flies around seemed anxious to settle upon him. + +He picked his way across to the shade of the trees, slouching quite +casually, apparently; though how he avoided treading upon any of the +sudden deaths variously thrown about seems a mystery. And just short +of the shade of the trees he stopped. He had spotted, or scented--the +latter is most likely, for the smell beat a chemical-works, a +slaughter-house, and a whaleship rolled into one--the big snake. + +The big snake remained motionless, and made no sign. Goodness knows +whether it was asleep, if snakes ever do sleep. It certainly had its +horrible eyes open, fixed in an evil stare at anything, or nothing, +after the fashion of snakes, who are cursed in that they cannot shut +their eyes to things. (Imagine the position of some people in this +world if they were afflicted like the snakes!) + +For about a minute that jackal stood like a carved beast in wood, with +the original bark left on his back. Then he began to sink, slowly, +gradually, till he lay as flat as a punctured bladder. And the picture +of that little black-backed fellow--that _Canis mesomelas_, if you like +official terms--all alone there, and surrounded by a dozen deaths at +least, and all nasty, doing the stalking act upon that python was +great. He stalked. My! how he stalked! And with reason, for he was +taking on, perhaps, the biggest thing in the hunting line that he had +ever tackled, and it was a million to one that, if he did not win, he +died, and horribly, too; and he knew it. Ordinarily he would have been +the python's prey. + +[Illustration: "That little black-backed fellow doing the stalking act +upon that python was great"] + +There was a little snicker, as it were, in the air as his fangs closed, +and the python, waking one-twentieth of a second too late, lifted its +head. Then, short and crisp--snap! + +Talk about tweaking a lightning-flash by its tail! It would have been +a wake to what followed then. + +The jackal knew what to expect--by instinct, I suppose. Anyway, he did +not wait longer than it takes to scrunch as hard as possible with +canine teeth as sharp as knives, and leap clear. + +Ho did it, however, and stood well back, with his ears cocked and his +head on one side. It was as if he were panting, "Now, let her +rip"--and she did. + +A hurricane in a cage, a volcano in an eligible house-lot, a geyser in +a water-jug--what you will; but they were all tame alongside that +python, after the little black-back had got his fangs home. + +You know the size of pythons? 'Bout the biggest things in snakes there +are going, bar two; and this one was not a baby. But nobody can +properly measure their strength. This one unwrapped itself in one +awful swiftness, and wrapped itself up again more awfully swiftly and +in worse knots. Then things became hazy, and one could only tell by +the dust, and the sand, and the grass, and the leaves, and the other +things flying around that something was happening. + +But the jackal did not seem to care. He only sat well back, with jaws +open and very red tongue lolling, obviously doing a dog-laugh to +himself. Perhaps it touched his sense of humor to think that so small +a beast as he, with just one scientific bite, should create such a deal +of disturbance. But the--er--aroma could not have amused even him, and +he was, as you might say, salted to stenches; for, though he was on the +up-wind side, even there it was enough to knock flat anything that the +python's tail could not reach. It was a most stupendous stench--a sort +of weapon of defense, or danger-signal, that these big snakes have. + +Now, perhaps it was the reek that drew the purr. Purring is generally +looked upon as a nice and comfy sort of a sound, but _this was not_. + +The jackal just heard it intruding upon the confusion of the python's +last contortions, as if suddenly, and it seemed to come from the +ground, and the sky, and the surrounding scenery all at the same time. +There was nothing nice and comfy about it at all. The jackal removed +himself, at sound of it, about four yards in as many bounds, and every +grizzled scrap of fur along his black back stood on end. If we had +heard it, we should have reached for our rifle, and felt tingly all +down our spine, for that was the sort of purr it was--a horrible, +hungry, suggestive, cruel, and blood-curdling sound of ghoulish +pleasure. + +The jackal ceased to dog-laugh, and his tail was between his legs, for +he knew that purr, and its name was death. Death angry is bad enough, +but death pleased-- + +Louder and louder the purr became, till it seemed, as the python began +to lash out the very last of its life, apparently, to fill the whole +place. Finally, it became real, and--a shape walked slowly out of a +thorn-bush. + +It would be blatant exaggeration to call that shape a lion. +It--he--had been one. He was now a walking hat-rack. Never have you +seen such a lion. Never had the jackal seen such a lion, even; and he +had done business--of the snatch-and-run order--with lions all his life. + +However many years that lion had lived, to kill mercilessly, Heaven +alone knows; but how on earth he had contrived to avoid for some time +being equally mercilessly killed by hyenas, or wild hogs, Heaven and +himself alone knew, too. He was a very, very old lion, a derelict of a +lion, a shadow of a ghost of one, mangy, tottering, toothless--come +down to eat snakes killed by others, even by jackals. + +Then the jackal went away, dejected and disgusted. He was honestly +proud of his slaying of that python. + +It was the biggest screw-up of courage he had ever accomplished in his +life, and to be done out of his rewarding big feast by that purring +skeleton of a king of beasts! It was too much even for his pessimistic +philosophy. + +"Yaaa-ya-ya-ya-ya!" he howled, with his nose pointed to the brazen sun, +and melted away among the accursed thorn-scrub with a look about him +that said, as plainly as words, "And that's what comes of hunting in +daylight." + +The jackal, after a long skirmish and a drink, retired homewards +towards sunset, when suddenly, from a tuft of grass ahead of him, a +shadow shot and vanished. He picked up the trail at once, diagnosed it +as that of a hare, and gave chase. + +It was a fine chase, characterized by every aspect of first-class +trailing, and carried along at such a speed that the quarry never got a +chance to stop and get its second wind. Indeed, the quarry never had a +chance to stop at all, until it was stopped, and the manner of that +happening was strange. + +Whether designedly driven, or whether by chance, one cannot tell, but +the fact remains that the hare took a "line of country" which, if +persisted in, would lead her close past the jackal's lair, or, rather, +his wife's lair. This was important--for the jackal. + +Once, indeed, our hunter all but overran a small--but quite big +enough--boa-constrictor, which must have aimed to drop from a tree upon +the hare passing below, and missed. It was in an even more evil +temper, in consequence, than snakes usually are, and struck at the +jackal with its head and shut mouth. The jackal quietly side-stepped, +snapped, missed, and made off after his quarry, and about five hundred +yards farther on he came up with "puss"--dead. + +The jackal sat on his bushy tail, stuck out his fore-feet straight, and +stopped as quickly as ever he could. Then he snarled, and full right +had he to snarl. + +The hare was lying on her back, weakly kicking out the last of her life +with her hindlegs, and a stocky, short-nosed, evil, leering, +side-striped jackal was standing over her. _He_ had done the deed. +And our black-back knew that side-stripe, had met him before. The two +families lived only a few hundred yards apart, and it was Mrs. +Side-stripe who was responsible for our friend's wife's crippled +condition at that moment. This was a typical side-striper, one of the +creeping, hunting-by-surprise-and-pounce sort, and it may be that he +had never run down any prey worth speaking about in his life. In a +way, he was the very opposite from our black-back, who was mostly legs, +and a bit of a sportsman, and, I believe, really delighted in a good +ringing hunt. Wherefore there was not much cause for surprise at the +bitter blood-feud that had gradually grown up between them, till now +things had come pretty well to a head. + +The other beast folded back his lean upper-lip till his teeth +glistened, and grinned at him--a menacing grin. I don't know if he +guessed that it was, by all the laws of the chase, the black-back's +hare, but he knew that he had pounced upon her as she passed--pounced +like a cat, as was his way, what time he was profiting by his enemy's +absence to keep that enemy's lame wife indoors, and from hunting even +for insects or fruit, by prowling round her lair, and threatening her +with growls. Perhaps he had designs upon her puppies. Perhaps his +wife had. And perhaps Mrs. Mesomelas knew that. It is difficult to +tell. + +There was a sort of a blackish-tawny line drawn to the +side-stripe--whose other and learned name was Adustus--and back. It +scarcely seemed possible that the black-backed little chap had moved, +but he had--leaped in and out again, chopping wickedly with a +sword-like gleam of fangs as he did so. The other pivoted, quick as +thought, and counter-slashed, and, before you could wink, Mesomelas was +in and away, in and out, once, twice, and again. One bite sent a +little flick of the other's brown fur a-flying; one missed, one got +home, and the side-stripe's ugly snarling changed to a yap to say so. + +Twice the two beasts whirled round and round, like roulette-balls, the +black-back always on the outside, always doing the attacking, dancing +as if on air, light as a gnat. Once he got right in, and the foe +sprang at his throat. He was not there when the enemy's teeth closed, +but his fangs were, and fang closed on fang, and the resulting tussle +was not pretty to behold. + +Mesomelas cleared himself from that scrunch with very red lips, but +never stopped his whirling, light-cavalry form of attack. He was +trying to tease the other into dashing after him, and giving up the +advantage which his foe had in size and strength, but it was no good; +and finally Adustus suddenly scurried into cover, redder than he had +been, and our black-back, too, had to bolt for his hole, as an +aardwolf, clumsy, hyena-like, and cowardly, but strong enough for them, +scenting blood, came up to investigate. + +Mercifully, the side-stripe seemed to attract the more attention, or +shed the more blood, and while the aardwolf was sniffing at his +hole--not intending to do anything if the jackal had a snap left in +him, which he had, for the aardwolf possessed the heart of a sheep, +really--the black-back managed to dash out and abscond to his hole with +the hare. When the aardwolf came back, and sniffed out what he had +done, he said things. + +Our jackal's head appeared at his hole next dawn as a francolin began +to call, and a gray lowrie--a mere shadow up among the +branches--started to call out, "Go away! go away!" as if he were +speaking to the retreating night. A gay, orange-colored bat came and +hung up above the jackal's den--well out of reach, of course--and a +ground-hornbill suddenly started his reverberating "Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" +and, behold--'twas dawn! + +The jackal scuttled down to the river to have a drink, which he got +rather riskily among the horns of drinking, congregated hartebeests, +impala, and other antelope, and returned with the leg-bone of a +bush-buck, which had been slain the night before by a leopard, and he +went to ground very quickly, for the great spotted cat could be heard, +grunting wrath, at his heels. + +Then the day strode up, and the light, creeping in, showed our jackal, +curled up and fast asleep, in his lair, as far away as he could +possibly get in the space--two ant-bears', or aardvarks', holes run +into one--from his also curled-up wife. + +Later--for it was quite chilly--he came out to sleep in the sun, under +a bush, till the sun, in turn, half-baked him, and he retired again to +the den. + +The days were, as a rule, for the jackal, a succession of sleeping +blanks, but at the end of this day it was the fate of a small +python--small for a python--to hunt a pangolin--who was as like a thin +pineapple with a long tail, if you understand me, as it was like +anything, or like a fir-cone many times enlarged, only it was an +animal, and a weird one--into that den of thieves. + +Mrs. Mesomelas, she appeared to shoot straight from dreamless slumber +on to the pangolin's back in some wonderful way, and Mr. Mesomelas, he +bounced from the arms of Morpheus into--the jaws of the snake? No, +sirs; on to the nape of that snake's neck, if snakes may be said to +have napes to their necks. But to get hold of the neck of a python is +one thing, to keep there quite a different, and very risky, affair; and +our jackal, who was no pup, knew that. If that legless creation of the +devil could only have got his tail round something, our jackal might +have been turned into food for his food, so to speak. Wherefore, +possibly, he was frightened. It was like taking hold of a live wire by +the loose end. Moreover, the space was confined, and there were the +whelps and all, and I rather fancy black-back was more frightened to +leave go and stay than he was to hold on and run. + +Anyway, he held on and ran. + +An old, fat zebra stallion, round-barreled and half-asleep, snorted +suddenly, and stared with surprise at the sight of a black-backed +jackal galloping as fast as circumstances would permit him, with the +wide-mouthed head of a python in his jaws, and the remaining long, +painted body trailing out behind. The snake was not going with any +pleasure, and his wriggling tail was feeling for a hold every inch of +the way, and if he could have got one--oh, jackal! But he could not, +for the jackal kept on going, and the snake's after-length kept on +trailing out straight, like a loose rope behind a boat, through the +perishing glare and the heat-flurry that seemed to be making the whole +world jump up and down, as it does when you look at it over the top of +a locomotive-funnel. + +Snakes take a long time to die, or to _seem_ dead, even with a double +set of glistening sharp teeth scrunching as hard as their owner knows +how into their neck. At last, however, after a final series of efforts +to get, and keep, in the shape of a letter S, the python's tail +gradually ceased to feel for a hold, and the writhing strain in the +jackal's jaws relaxed. Still, our Mesomelas was taking no chances, and +he galloped home with his capture before he stopped, as proud and happy +an old dog, rascally jackal as ever cracked a bone on a fine day. + +He was a little puffed, and more than a little puffed up, and it may +have been that he did not keep his eyes all round his head, as a jackal +should always do. Anyway, there, in the gathering shadows of night, +came a waiting, watching shadow, that was presently joined by another, +and the two--their eyes glinted once in a nasty metallic fashion--stood +head to head, watching him. + +By the time Mrs. Mesomelas had hobbled out to view the "kill" for +herself, and snarl her appreciation--truly, it was a strange way of +showing it--with thin, wicked ears laid back, and more than wicked +fangs bared, the waiting, watching shadows had crept forward a little, +on their bellies, head up, and--Mrs. Mesomelas, with the quick +suspicion of motherhood awake in her, saw them. + +The snarl that she whipped out fetched the jackal round upon himself as +if stung. Then he saw, and understood, and rage flamed into his +intelligent, dog's eyes. It was the side-striped jackals, Mr. and +Mrs., plotting to loot his "kill." + +It was the black-back who attacked. Perhaps he knew that one secret of +defense is swift and unexpected offense. Anyway, he attacked, sailing +in with his dancy, chopping, in-and-out skirmishing methods; and Mrs. +Mesomelas, on three legs and with the bill for the other to be settled, +helped him. + +It was very difficult, in the tropic dust, to follow what exactly +happened next. For the next few minutes black-back was here, there, +and everywhere, leaping and dodging in and out like a lambent flame. +The human eye could scarcely follow him, but the human ear could hear +plainly the nasty, dog-like snarling and the snap of teeth. + +The side-stripe, as I have said, was the weightier beast, but the +black-back never gave him the advantage, which he sought, of the +close-fought fight. + +More than once he was chased, but only to lead his foe into the open, +where he could play his own game to his own liking; and at last, when +the moon rose, and his mate had the female black-back driven back to +her last ditch, so to speak, at the entrance to her lair, the +side-stripped jackal, spouting blood at every joint, it seemed, +collapsed suddenly, and apparently gave up the ghost. + +Now, our black-backed jackal was not a young beast, and he was up to +most wild-folks' games--which was as well. He approached the corpse +with caution, and as he poised for the last spring the corpse was at +his throat. Black-back, however, was not there, but his tail was, and +the side-striped one got a mouthful of the bushy black tip of that. +Whereupon Mesomelas recoiled on himself, and for a moment a horrible +"worry" followed, at the end of which the other dropped limply again, +this time, apparently, really done for. + +Very, very gingerly the black-back--himself a red and weird sight in +the eye of the moon--approached, and seized and shook the foe, dropped +him, and--again that foe was a leaping streak at his throat. + +Mesomelas side-stepped, and neatly chopped--a terrible, wrenching +bite--at his hindleg in passing. It fetched him over, and he lay +still, the moon shining on his side, doubly and redly striped now. + +This time it was Mesomelas who sprang at his throat--to be met by +fangs. But in the quarter of an instant, changing his mind after he +sprang, he shot clean up in the air, and came down to one side, and, +rebounding like a ball, had the other by the neck. + +For one instant he kept there, hung, wrenching ghastlily, then sprung +clear, and, backing slowly, limping, growling horribly, flat-eared and +beaten, the side-striped jackal began his slow, backward retreat into +the heart of the nearly impenetrable thorns, where the winner was not +such a fool as to follow him. And the black-backed jackal never saw +him again. Living or dead, he faded out of our jackal's life forever. + +And when he turned, his wife was standing at the entrance to the +"earth" alone. The other, the female side-striped jackal's form, could +be dimly seen dissolving into the night--on three legs. + +"Yaaa-ya-ya-ya!" howled Mesomelas. + + + + +XIII + +THE STORM PIRATE + +The sea-birds were very happy along that terrible breaker-hewn coast. +Puffin, guillemot, black guillemot, razorbill, cormorant, shag, fulmar +petrel, storm petrel perhaps, kittiwake-gull, common gull, eider-duck, +oyster-catcher, after their kind, had the great, cliff-piled, +inlet-studded, rock-dotted stretch of coast practically to +themselves--to themselves in their thousands. Their only shadow was +the herring-gulls, and the herring-gulls, being amateur, not +professional, pirates, were too clumsy to worry too much. + +Then came the rain-shower. Not that there was anything in that. +Rain-showers came to that land as easily as blushes _used_ to do to +maidens' cheeks--rain-showers, and sudden squalls, and all manner of +swift storm phenomena. But behind the rain-shower, or in it, maybe--it +blotted out cliff and inlet and sandbar and heather-covered hills, and, +with the wind, whipped the sea into spume like an egg-whisk--came he, +the storm pirate. + +A guillemot--you know the guillemot, the fish-hunter, who flies under +the waters more easily than she flies the air above the waters--had +risen, and was making inshore with a full catch, when the squall caught +her without warning. For a little she faced it, her wings whirring +madly, her body suspended in mid-air, but she not making headway one +inch against the sudden fury of a forty-mile-an-hour wind. Then, since +she could no longer see the shore, which was blotted out with hissing +rain, she turned and ran down-wind, like a drawn streak, to the lee of +a big stack of rock. + +The next that was seen of her, she was heading out to sea at top speed, +in wake of the rain-shower and the squall, which had passed as suddenly +as it had come; and behind her, pursuing her with a relentless fury +that made one gasp, shot another and a strange bird-shape. Its lines +were the lines of the true pirate; its wings long and sharp-cut; its +beak wickedly hooked at the tip; its claws curved, for no gentle +purpose, at the end of its webbed feet; its eye fierce and haughty; its +uniform the color of the very stormcloud that had just passed--dun and +smoked cream below, and sooty above. True, he was not big, being only +twenty-one inches--two inches less than the herring-gull. But what is +size, anyway? It was the fire that counted, the ferocity, the "devil," +the armament, and the appalling speed. Just as a professional boxer of +any size can lay out any mere hulking hooligan, so this bird carried +about him the stamp of the professional fighter that could lay out +anything there in that scene that he chose--almost. + +The guillemot flew as never in all her life had she flown before, and +every known artifice of dodging she had heard of she tried, and--it all +failed. The terrible new bird gained all the time steadily, following +her as if towed by an invisible string, till at last he was above her, +his wonderful wild scream was ringing in her ears, his cruel eyes +glaring into hers, his beak snapping in her very face, his claws +a-clutch. + +No, thank you. In sheer terror she opened her beak and dropped her +fish. It fell like a column of silver, and in a flash her pursuer was +gone--nay, was not gone; had turned, rather, into a second column, a +sooty one, falling like a thunderbolt, till he overtook even the +falling fish, and wonderfully snatched it up in his hooked bill ere +ever it could touch the waves, without a word or explanation of any +kind whatever. + +That, apparently, was his manner of getting his living; a strange +manner, a peculiar way--the way of the pirate on the ocean. + +Despoiled, but safe, the guillemot rattled away "for another cast"; but +the foe settled, riding lightly on the lift and fall of the +bottle-green waves. + +Here he was no longer a wonderful phantom spirit of the storm, but just +a bird that might have been passed over at first glance as simply a +seagull. But not at a second glance. + +Men called this strange bird Richardson's skua, or Arctic skua, or +lesser skua, or, officially, _Stercorarius crepidatus_, or, most +unofficially, in the vernacular, "boatswain," or "man-o'-war," or +"gull-tormentor." Apparently you could take your choice what you +called him. But he did not belong to Mr. Richardson really. He +belonged to nobody, only to himself, to the wind and the rain, that +seemed to have begot him, and to the grim north, from which he took his +other name. He might have claimed the gulls as his near +relations--they loathed him enough. + +For a long time he sat on the lifting, breathing swell, floating idly. +There was nothing else on the face of the lonely waters except himself +and a flock, or fleet, I should say, of razorbills and guillemots, very +far away, who alternately showed all white breasts, and vanished--as +they dived and rose all together--like white-faced, disappearing +targets, and one gull, who wheeled and wheeled in the middle distance, +with one eye on the divers and one on the skua, as if, gull-like, +waiting on a chance from either. + +Then at last the skua rose again, and swept hurriedly out to sea to +meet a small black-and-white speck that was coming in. It was a +little, rotund, parrot-beaked puffin, loaded with fish--sprats--four of +them set crossways in his wonderful bill. He seemed to know nothing +about the skua till that worthy was upon him, and then, as he fled, +after a furious chase of about three minutes, he suddenly surrendered +by letting fall all his spoil. + +The skua caught up one sprat before it hit the surface, but, being too +late to overtake the rest, seemed to take no further notice of them, +but swept on, to settle upon the water a mile away and preen himself. +And this was where the waiting, watching gull came in--the +herring-gull. He sprang to strenuous life, and, arriving swiftly at +full speed over the spot, snatched up off the surface, and by clumsily +attempting to plunge, two more of the sprats, before the skua could +intervene. + +Then it was that a terrible and a totally unexpected thing happened, +and yet, if one comes to think about it and study the matter more, the +most natural in the world; probably, also, on those wild seas, even +common-place. Only, you see, there was no interval at all between the +skua sitting placidly on the lap of the waves, eyeing the gull +vengefully, and that same skua shooting straight upwards, all doubled +up, on the top of what appeared to have been a submarine mine in a mild +form in active demonstration. + +[Illustration: "Shooting straight upwards on the top of what appeared +to have been a submarine mine in a mild form"] + +This submarine mine, however, in addition to the burst and heave of +torn and upflung falling waters and foam, had a visible heart, a great, +shining, wet, torpedo-shaped body, which rose on end beneath the +stricken bird, and fell again with a splintering crash that shot up the +heads of the diving birds half a mile away. It might have been a +thresher-shark, or some other northern shark, or it might have been a +dolphin, which is bad, or a killer whale, which is a good deal worse, +if it had not been a great gray seal seeking dinner; and its effect on +the luckless skua was the effect of a battering ram, and the skua that +fell back again with the fall of snarling water was to all intents and +purposes a corpse. + +But it was a good thing that he was so. Had it been otherwise, had he +tried to get away or fluttered, there would have been no more of him. +That is to say, the head of the seal came up--or its wet and suggestive +big nose did--and poked about, trying to find the bird. It had +evidently meant to grab him, to engulf him utterly and forever in the +first rush; but something--some unlooked-for lift of a wave or turn of +the bird--had made the shot miss, or nearly miss, so that the bird had +been hit by the bloated six-footer's nose, instead of being crushed in +its teeth--its terrible long and glistening array of murderous teeth. + +All the same, the nose blow was bad enough. It was like being hit by +the beak of a torpedo at full speed, fit almost to bash a boat in. + +The seal was quite evidently looking for the bird, and, equally quite +evidently, seemed bound to find him. To know why it did not at once +see him is to know that the seal's view, from below the surface, of the +world above is about a twelve-foot circle of white-gold light, that is +all; and the skua, floating limp and floppy, had been, by chance, till +then always carried hither and yon by the waves just outside that +circle. But that chance could not last. + +Then came the other seal. Came she easily and gracefully, as a seal +should in her element, effortlessly gliding along, her head from time +to time up like a dog's--some gentle dog's, say a mild-eyed +spaniel's--looking about. She was just a female seal. She knew +nothing of the bird or her companion, who were at sea-level, and more +often than not hidden in the trough, till she came sliding down the +slope of a round-barreled swell, practically on top of them. Then it +was too late to avoid mutual recognition. + +Quick as sound she had seen, had realized, had spun on her apology for +a tail, and had gone, leaving a little trail of foam behind her to +prove her speed and her coyness. But, quick as light, the magnificent +male seal had sunk from sight, leaving a little chain of bursting +bubbles behind to mark his speed. And the last that was seen of that +lady seal was a speck far on the horizon, going like a masterless +torpedo, alternately leaping forward through the air and shooting along +on, or just under, the surface--switchbacking, they call it; and that, +I dare to fancy, if it proves anything, proves that the coyness was +only make-believe, and that she had allowed the daring admirer to catch +her up and force her to act as if she were already vanquished and using +the last arts of swift swimming she knew. + +It left the skua, however; left him still floating, floating, floating +up one long breaker's side, and sliding down its other side to its +fellow behind, towards the shore--always towards the shore. It is true +that the tide was falling offshore, but that made no difference to the +currents of those parts, which were independent currents and of a great +force. They were shouldering the skua steadily to land, and if you had +dropped a line overboard there, with an ordinary lead on, you would +have felt them pulling at it, and taking the lead along like a live +thing. And the currents were Fate, so far as that bird was concerned. + +There was a little inlet, and a little bay in the inlet no larger than +a good-sized dining-table, and seaweed, green and red, upon the +rock-bowlders that encircled it, and old-gold patches of sand between +the rock-bowlders, and green grass behind the rock-bowlders, and +brown-plush furze behind the green grass, and a patch of blue sky over +all. And in the middle of the little bay in the inlet, bob-bobbing on +the lap-lapping of the littlest waves, that--sifted out by then, as it +were--had found their way so far, floated the skua, the Richardson's or +Arctic skua, dead, to all appearances, as the proverbial door-nail. +But that was not the rub. The rub was in the--ah! + +"He-oh!" pealed down the clear, ringing bugle-cry from above, and a +shadow floated upon the reflections a-dance on the surface in the +little bay in the little inlet--floated and hung, so that it exactly +covered the skua like a funeral pall; floated, and hung, and came down. +As its claws scraped a bowlder, and it furled its long, narrow vans, it +was revealed as the big herring-gull--him we left out upon the face of +the waters, watching and waiting on chance. + +His spotless expanse of head and neck alone marked him, gave him away, +a speck you could see for a mile. His size--just on two feet--proved +what his snowy hood proclaimed, in case there were any doubts. A +smaller gull, an uncommon common gull--of eighteen inches--came and +looked, to make quite sure--and went away again. The herring-gull, in +spite of his silly name, has a reputation, and a "plug ugly" one. + +And the herring-gull, he--did nothing. That is the strength of the +herring-gull--doing nothing. He can do it for an hour, half a morning, +or most of a day. His battle-cry might well have been, "Wait and see," +but he must be one of the few living, breathing things on this earth +who have made the game pay, and--lived. He might have been a lump of +chalk, or a marble carving, or a stuffed specimen, or asleep, or dead, +for all the signs of living that he gave. One began to wonder if he +ever would move again. He had been a bird, but was now the life-size +model of one cut in alabaster, with clear pebbles for eyes--they were +quite as hard and cold as that, his eyes. + +And all the time the body of the skua floated, and danced, and drifted, +and lifted in, making an inch on one wavelet, to lose three-quarters of +it on the next, but still, unnoticeably perhaps, but undoubtedly, +gradually, surely, for all that, drifting in. + +Somebody has written somewhere that gulls never touch a carcass on +land. Sometimes they touch things on land which were not carcasses +before they touched them. This gull, however, did not wait for any +landing. Perhaps he knew that, once stranded, the gray crows might +come to assist him in their own peculiar way, or a raven, who would not +assist him at all, except into the next world, if he did not relinquish +all claim to the feast. Anyway, whatever we poor mortals may kid +ourselves into thinking he did or did not know, or what we may think he +ought to have known, he began operations as soon as the skua came +alongside, so to speak--that is, drifted against the particular bowlder +upon which the sphinx-like herring-gull happened by chance--always by +chance, of course--to be standing. + +Now, there is no particular joy in having your eyes hammered at by a +blunted sharp instrument, like a herring-gull's beak, for instance, +even if those eyes happen to be shut, as I think the skua's were, and +the instrument wielded with the extreme clumsiness of the half-trained, +as I know the herring-gull's beak was. But, all the same, it was the +kindest thing that could have happened, for, had it not been for that, +the skua was like to have drifted in that fashion from that little +inlet out upon another sea; not the one connected with the inlet, but +one where you can drift forever, and whose name is Death. The physical +pain, however, brought him round. He was only stunned, and the agony +of the eyes, or eye, rather, was acute. + +He opened the other eye--a wonderful, piercing, fierce orb. He +contracted his feathers. The world grew from a mist in that eye to a +little bay in a little inlet, with the seaweed-covered bowlder-rocks, +the old-gold sand, the green grass, the brown-plush furze, and the +patch of wonderful blue sky over-top. Then it took in the spotless, +gaunt form of the herring-gull, and--he remembered that he was a skua, +only some twenty-one inches long, 'tis true, but still a skua, to be +treated and respected as such. + +Wherefore, who so surprised as that big father of herring-gulls when +the bedraggled, smoky-hued thing under his bill, which he may, or may +not, have taken for a corpse, woke up, returned to life suddenly, and +erupted into his very face, with the yells of a fiend, the weapons of a +fury, and the rage of several devils? He yelled, too, that +herring-gull, not entirely with rage, and did his best to get under way +as quickly as might be, but became, before he knew where he was, +altogether too busy even for that. + +Not being in the habit of performing optical operations upon Arctic +skuas as a rule, he had nothing in his memory to warn him of what +followed, nothing to put him up to the absolutely diabolical fury of +the onslaught he had to meet in the next few seconds. He certainly did +his level best with such weapons as Nature had given him, but his +blunt, hooked beak and the claws he had not got seemed suddenly meager +against the hammering, tearing, stabbing, rending dagger weapons of +his--"meal." + +The skua saw red, and the herring-gull saw mainly red skua, as he was +hurled back and down under the first rush, and instantly, without a +second to recover, was hurled, equally helplessly, the other way, +shrieking for his very life, and decorating the air and the old-gold +sand with a pretty little cloud of his spotless feathers. + +He fought with the desperation of almost all the wild-people, when +there is no help for it; hammering, too, but wildly and clumsily. The +skua fought with the cunning and precision of the professional, plus +such a rage as can only be described as berserk. + +It was not a long fight. Perhaps the skua felt that, after his +collision at sea, his bolt would be soon shot, and he had better do +what he was going to do as quickly and thoroughly as possible. +Certainly he did appear to do so; and when at length he drew back, +rocking and gasping like a drunken creature, the famed purity of that +herring-gull's uniform was a thing of beauty no longer. That part of +him, indeed, which was not red was mud, or sand, or green slime, and in +his eyes was the most worried and tired look you ever saw. + +He rocked, too, in his gait, as he ran and blundered, and he gasped +with his beak open. When he rose, which he did without any sort of +procrastination, he rocked worse than ever, and twice nearly fell, and +once hit the water, before finally slowly dragging himself away upward, +flapping low and heavily across the little waves. + +With the one available eye--the eye left him in working condition by +the herring-gull's clumsy efforts--flaming like a live-coal, that +implacable skua watched him go. He may or may not have known it, of +course, but I feel pretty certain that he would a few thousand times +rather have been standing there upon the old-gold sand, with only one +eye doing duty and an unspeakable agony in the other eye, than be that +herring-gull in the condition he was then, going back to the bosom of +his tribe. It is not a thing to dwell upon in polite society, but I +tell you that the gull-folk do not always treat their wounded well, and +there would be no chance, no earthly chance at all, of his finding a +place in all that vast horizon of sea and sky and island where they, +the ceaseless, never-resting "White Patrol," would not eventually find +him. + +Then the skua lay down, and thereafter surrendered himself to that +utter reaction which birds, who live more intensely in action than +almost any other creatures, have brought to an apparently exaggerated +pitch. He did not sleep, but he did not move, and every muscle in him, +every fiber, every nerve, faculty, organ, was surrendered utterly to +rest. + +Night came fluttering her sable wings across the scene, breathing and +sighing audibly in the first silence that wild landscape of storms and +squalls had known throughout the day, and the skua moved. His neck +went up straight, and his head turned, looking sharply this way and +that, fierce apprehension written upon him. + +There was nothing one could see to give cause for this. A flock of +curlew were passing, wailing one to the other, across the sunset; a +string of late gulls trailed athwart the sky; and a wedge of those +beautiful little wild-duck known as wigeon was letting itself down to +the shores of the inlet. Far out to sea a black line, which might have +been a sea-serpent if it hadn't been scoter ducks, trailed undulating +over the waves, and a single great white gannet plunged from aloft into +the deep at intervals with a report like a sunset gun. But they were +all innocent, except in the opinion of the fish and shell-fish, and no +manner of folk to trouble the pirate skua. Set a thief to catch a +thief, however. And, besides, there was blood on the bird and around +him, or the taint of it, and blood is the devil and all in the wild. +There was nothing to be _seen_. No. That was the worst part of it. +It was what was unseen that the skua was thinking about. + +Wherefore, then, our friend of the pirate rig rose and walked stiffly +to the summit of one of the bowlder-rocks right at the water's edge. +He was by no means recovered yet, or in any condition for a fight in +that desolate scene, and had to select the most strategic position he +could crawl to. He did, and awaited Fate's reply. + +The day died, and the moon came out to wink and dodge and play a +foolish game of hide-and-seek in and out among the clouds. She showed +the skua, a black knob atop of the black blob of his bowlder, +apparently fast asleep, invisible if we did not know he was there. She +showed black dots bobbing upon silver lanes, which were sea-duck of +various kinds--scaup, long tail, scoter, and the rest. She showed a +line of old, rotten posts, broken off short by the waves, along a +sand-ridge, which were wild-geese; and she showed three big, white +swans--wild-swans, wilder even than the geese--floating like ghosts in +the enchanted light. + +But she also showed other things, indistinctly, 'tis true; but +enough--quite enough. She revealed for an instant, as she shone on the +spot on the sand where the skua had sat, the fact that the sand seemed +to be alive, horribly alive, as if the pebbles had taken legs and ran +about. It was a sudden, ghastly flashlight, hidden as soon as seen, +and it gave one the shudders. Those pebbles were crabs mad with +hunger, as crabs always seem to he. + +They had arrived there as if by magic--been creeping in ever since +dusk, probably (one of the things that were unseen); but whether blood, +or feathers, or taint of blood, or what horrible, ghoulish system of +espionage drew them, is not for me to say. They were there, anyway, +and--and--well, and then they were not there. The next flashlight of +the moon showed that some others had taken their place. This was +ghastly, for the others were bigger than any shore crabs, and they +hopped, and they sat up hunched, like hobgoblins, and--they scratched! +This last identified them, for the soulless, shelled crab-people are +not given to scratch much--at least, not in _that_ way. They were +rats--shore rats. The last designation is necessary, for there are +rats _and_ rats, all bad, but the shore rat is the worst. How many +sleeping birds, wounded, tired, or unalert, die at his hands, or, +rather, his teeth, in the course of a year would amaze anybody if +known, and the shell-fish he relieves of life are legion. + +The hard, horny carapace of a retreating crab scraped, in the dead +silence, against the rock-bowlder on which the skua sat. He made no +move at the sound, the suggestive sound; but his feathers were shut +down quite tight, and he looked far smaller than usual. When birds +shut down their feathers in that fashion they put on an armor coat, as +it were, through which very little can pierce. It showed that he was +ready. + +And you think that the mere shore crabs could be nothing to him. But a +few hundred ravening shore crabs, with their lives for sale--all +digging pieces out of you in the dark--are not so easy a proposition to +dispose of as people may think. Try it. + +One of the rats turned suddenly and faced towards him. The skua could +see its little, cruel eyes gleaming like gimlet-holes in the wall of a +lighted room. Then another, and another, and another did the same. + +The skua was scarcely bleeding at all now, but he had left enough of a +trail for _them_--they who make a specialty of the job. And they +followed it. Hopping grotesquely across the mottled, hurrying patches +of moonlight they came, one behind the other, and without noise. + +The skua remained as still as the bowlder he sat upon. In that +position, even peering closely, you would never have seen him, unless, +like ourselves, you knew he was there. But he was drawn together, +drawn in all his muscles like a tense spring, and--though this his +persecutors could not know--he was recovering from his hurts rapidly, +with the wonderful power of recuperation of all the wild-folk, who pay +their price for it in clean, hard living. + +Then suddenly there was a scuffle below him in the dark. One of the +rats squeaked a little, acknowledging receipt of a crab's pincers +closed upon him, or her. Followed the sounds of some scuttering, +confusion, and the horrible slide and scrape of horny shells upon +stone. Then silence, and the skua knew that, in that wonderful way +they have, the crabs, at any rate, were gone--for the moment. + +Remained, however, the rats, and one peered up over the bowlder the +next instant, its eyes glinting in a momentary splash of moonlight +fiendishly. Also, his quick ears could hear the soft creepings of the +others on every side of the bowlder, back and front. They had +surrounded him, and, like wolves, would now rush, and then--and +then---- They had gone. + +Yes, there could be no shadow of doubt about it. There had come an +instant's furtive, hurried movement, a glimpse--no, half a glimpse--of +hunched forms hopping through the dark, and they were no more. + +The skua stared, and as he stared a great terror seized him. What more +deadly form of death than themselves had they suddenly become aware of, +to cause them to invite themselves into nowhere in that magic fashion? + +In the dead silence that fell, he could hear nothing, see nothing. Yet +he felt--indeed he knew--something seemed to tell him, that a deadly +foe was at hand. + +Hours passed. They were minutes really, but they seemed hours to him. +Nothing happened; nothing showed. But the rats did not come back. +Therefore, whatever incarnation of death it was that removed them must +be there still. He knew that. That lonely, wounded bird knew that. +And he was right. + +Behind him, practically invisible, flat to the ground, a long, low, +narrow, dark shape was lying crouched, creeping, creeping, creeping +towards his tail. Slowly, almost painfully slowly, it drew upon him +gradually, so gradually that the distance between them could scarce be +seen to lessen. And soundlessly, so soundlessly that even his quick +ears, trained far beyond the quickest human aural perception, could not +hear it. + +Then, so quickly that the eye could not follow it, the crouching form +made its rush. + +The skua was sitting motionless, with his head looking straight in +front of him. The dark form came from behind, and there would have +been no time for the skua to move before the thing, whatever it was, +had him by the back of the neck, and dead, save for one little tiny +fact. As it propelled itself forward, in the first bound, the claws of +the beast's hindpaw's scraped upon a stone. It was only a little +sound, and it gave the skua barely a fraction of a second's warning; +but, he being a wild thing, it was enough. + +Quick as light the bird had half turned upon one side, and flung up one +claw and wing to cover his neck, whilst his head jerked round hindpart +before in the same atom of time. + +Thus it happened that the beast, unable to stop, found himself with his +head and eyes being dug at by a hooked beak, and his jaws closed upon a +skinny leg instead of upon the skua's spinal column, as he had +intended, which would have put the skua out of life like turning out a +gas-jet. + +And it was then, in that instant, that the moon chose to dodge from +behind a cloud and reveal the beast as a big, long, lean, and hungry +dog-stoat. Probably he had thought that the skua was a gull, and a +wounded one. There is a difference, however, between the skuas and the +gulls, though they bear a family likeness. He discovered the +difference now, and for the next few minutes was not overjoyed at the +knowledge. + +One cannot do much blood-sucking to weaken one's prey out of a scrawny +leg that resembles a twig wrapped round with leather. And the stoat +found this out, too, and he would have shifted his hold to the bird's +body like a flash, if he had been given a chance, but he never was. + +Before he knew what was happening, he was blinded by the beating of +vast wings, his claws began to slip and slide, and--oh, horror!--still +slipping and sliding, he found the bowlder going from him. It went +from him, receding downwards with terrifying rapidity, and the dancing, +silvery, sparkling water was sliding below, too. + +Being a stoat, he hung on with V.C. doggedness and courage; but it was +the worst thing he could have done. Moreover, as it was, he forced the +bird to attempt reprisals in mid-air--a terrible proceeding. + +Now, this was difficult, might almost seem impossible; but the skua is +one of the most wonderful flyers that haunt the seas even--and most of +the best are there--and what he could not execute in the air was +scarcely worth mentioning. It included in this case a perfectly +diabolical scraping of the foe's head with his available claw, and +after that, since the dogged stoat did not leave go, and the pain was +excruciating, a wonderful bend forward, and, at a pronounced and +dangerous angle, a fiendish stabbing at the stoat's head with his +murderous beak. This last involved a drop of nearly a hundred feet, +but it did the trick. + +Blinded, dazed, shaken, and maddened by the agony of blows upon his +sensitive nose, the stoat opened his jaws to grip higher up the leg; +and in an instant he was gone, turning over and over, down, down, down +to the hungry waves below. + +Ten minutes later the skua was calmly and safely asleep upon the top of +a frowning black stack of rock, untroubled, I think, even by dreams of +the terrible things he had gone through. + + * * * * * * + +Next morning, an apparition of wonder and fierce beauty, the skua, +quite recovered except that he had a lameness in one leg and a weakness +in one wonderful eye that would last him a lifetime, came racing +down-shore out of a stormcloud into the full gold of the sun at some +seventy miles an hour. He was in pursuit of a common gull who, with +more luck than judgment, had caught a fish. + +The gull held on for a few minutes, on and in and around the horizon, +going like the wind up and down and around, as for his life, with +friend skua ever close to his tail, before a wild yell, which he could +not mistake, sounded in his ear, and he dropped the prize. The skua +executed his wonderful dive, and caught the gleaming silver thing +before it reached the waves, and shooting up again, was just about to +continue his course, when a constant and peculiar flickering above the +beach caught his telescopic eye. + +He checked, flung up, came round beautifully effortless, and headed +towards the sight. Probably he knew what it was, had fathomed it even +from that distance. It was a gang of gulls flying round and mobbing a +hapless wounded gull on the beach. + +It was a foul thing to do, a horrible, blundering, clumsy murder, done +slowly; but even so, it was all over before, with a scream that rang +like the battle-cry of a Highland chief, and set the murderous heads up +in wild alarm, the skua came shooting, twisting, turning, diving, and +darting right into the heart of the crowd. + +And they went circling, and wheeling, and hurling down-wind like sheets +of paper, those murderous sea-birds, dispersed and scattered over the +face of the waters, and were gone almost without a word. + +Then the skua came lightly down, rocking on the wind, and settled +beside the poor, draggled, white body, no longer white, upon the +shingle, which had been so foully done to death by gulls of various +clans. He may, or may not, have known it, but I can tell _you_ that +the gull was the self-same herring-gull who had tried to kill him the +day before. Now he--but we will draw a curtain here. + +Next day the skua went away, and the fishing wild-folk breathed a sigh +of relief as they watched him go, and for three days peace brooded over +the winged fishers of those parts, so that birds could feed upon what +they caught, nor be in fear of getting hunted for it. But upon the +fourth day the skua came back. And he was not alone. A dusky, nearly +brown--for they vary much in color--female skua came with him. And in +due course they built them a home on the ground among the heather, and +they guarded their treasured eggs and reared with amazing fierce +devotion their beloved young. + +Before his advent that strip of wild sea-coast had been, mercifully, +without its skuas. Our bold buccaneer, however, having won his +footing, took care to see that, so far as one bird could accomplish the +great task, it never should be again. + + + + +XIV + +WHEN NIGHTS WERE COLD + + And the Northern Lights come down + To dance on the houseless snow; + And God, who clears the grounding berg, + And steers the grinding flow, + He hears the cry of the little kit-fox + And the lemming on the snow.--RUDYARD KIPLING. + +A snipe rose suddenly, and began to call out; a capercailzie lofted all +at once, with a great rush of winged bulk, above the snow-bound forest; +and a white hare slid, like a wraith of the winter, down a silent +forest aisle. + +Then came the White Wolf of the Frozen Wastes, the terror of the +blizzard, ghost-like, enormous, and swift. In dead, grim silence came +he, loping his loose, tireless wolf's lope, and stopped at a windfall, +where two forest giants, their decaying strength discovered by the +extra weight of snow, lay prone, one across the other. + +For a moment he paused, nose up, testing the still, cold air; then he +leapt upon the upper fallen tree. He had, seen up there and clearly, +an enormously thick and woolly coat, that magnified his already record +size. You see him trotting along the tree-trunk. Then he stopped and +stared down into the dark hollow under the upper tree. Then he +sniffed--audibly. Then he licked his nose--and very red was his +tongue. Then--but this he couldn't help, I verily believe, as he +balanced there with his pricked ears and bright eyes--he whined. + +And instantly his little, impatient, dog-like whine was answered by a +deep, deep growl, that seemed to come out of the bowels of the earth. + +He was just in time, as he leapt lightly off the windfall, to avoid the +rush of a vast brown bulk, reeking of carrion, furry, terrible, with +live-coals for eyes, and threshing the air with claws Heaven knows how +long, which hurled itself like an avalanche out of the hollow at him. +And that thing was a bear. + +Now, bears do not, as a rule, without extraordinary reason, in that +land, rouse themselves out of their winter sleep for the mere whine of +a wolf. They are impregnable where they are, and know it. The +extraordinary reason, however, was present. The white wolf was +sniffing at it now--the bear's blood-trail to the windfall. Bruin had +been roused once before that day--by beaters. He had then been driven +forward, shot at by hunters, wounded, escaped, and returned to his den. +But--but, I give you my word, if those beaters, those peasants, had +known the White Wolf of the Frozen Waste was out, nothing in the wide +world would have induced them to beat for bears or anything else in +that vicinity. + +The white wolf stretched himself to a canter, and slid away through the +forest, dropping the trees past him like telegraph-poles past a +railway-carriage window. He looked like the very spirit of winter, the +demon of the snows, and stood for that in the ignorant minds of the +sparsely scattered people--perhaps because at a short distance he was +nearly invisible. His white coat, which was simply a conspicuous curse +to him when there was no snow--which was one reason, maybe, why he +retired from the limelight to some lonely fastness during summer--was +an incalculable asset to him in winter, and he knew it. + +He ran, with his smooth, loose, effortless lope, perhaps a quarter of a +mile, then stopped, and putting up his head, howled a howl so full of +hopeless, cruel yearning, so vibrant with desolation, that it sounded +like the cry of a soul doomed forever to seek something it could never +find. It was a lugubrious yowl there, in that setting, and it made +one's scalp creep all over one's cranium. + +And instantly almost, even as the last, long, horrible echoes died, +sobbing adown the blue-haze perspective of the forest glades, the +answer came--a far-away, fluttering, wandering howl, like the moan of +the wind in its sleep. + +The white wolf waited a moment, then howled again, and the ghastly +sound came back to him, louder and nearer this time. + +A third time he howled, and the forest cringed under the reply. + +Then at last the shadows between the ranked tree-trunks took unto +themselves life, and eyes, eyes in pairs, horribly hungry, cruel +port-holes of brains, with a glary, stary, green light behind them, +suddenly appeared everywhere, like swiftly-turned-on electric lamps. +There was a whispering rush, as if giants were swiftly dealing cards in +the silence, and--the White Wolf of the Frozen Waste was away, racing +like a cloud-shadow, rapid and impetuous as a greyhound, at the head of +a pack of one hundred and twenty-nine empty-stomached wolves. + +They made no sound as they tore, compact as a Zulu impi, over the +spotless white, because they had no trail to follow, only this huge +devil of a leader; and they had their work cut out to follow him, for +he was the longest-legged male wolf any of them had ever set eyes upon. + +Straight as a twelve-inch shell the white wolf headed back to the +fallen trees and the bear's den. When he reached them, he stopped so +abruptly that the wolves behind him almost sat on their haunches in the +effort to pull up. Those that failed fell sideways under a rain of +wicked snaps from him, that followed one another quick as the stutter +of a machine-gun. + +The pack did not stop--at least, not the flanks of it. They swept on +without a pause, out and round, like flood-water round a knoll, joined +at the far side, and--were still. As a maneuver, a military maneuver, +swift, unexpected, faultless, and silent, it was perfect. + +For as long as a man takes to light a pipe there was dead silence, +broken only by the quick motor-like panting of the pack. And one +hundred and twenty-nine pairs of eyes regarded the fallen trees. + +Then the white wolf, all alone, with hackles up, stepped forward and +leaped upon the trunk of the tree that was poised upon its fellow. He +ran lightly up it till he was exactly above the hollow formed by the +junction of the two trees, then stopped, looking down. + +Half-a-dozen of the older and more cunning wolves followed him; the +pack surged forward until both trees became lined with a row of wolves, +without breaking the circle of the main pack outside, and then stopped. +All this in silence. + +Then--but you could almost hear the trees breathe while he did it--the +white wolf yawned very deliberately, and whined, insolently and very +audibly. + +The answer was instant. + +Something rumbled within the den, deep down, like a geyser. + +The white wolf whined again, and sprang aside just as the bear, +maddened with the pain of a .450-caliber rifle bullet in his stomach, +and seeking a sacrifice, hurled out of the dark and up over the +tree-trunk, striking, with appalling nail-strokes, right and left; and +the quickness of those strokes was only a less astonishment than the +agility of the wolves getting out of the way of them. But--but he had +come out to abolish one wolf, that bear; not one hundred and +twenty-nine. + +The white wolf dropped without a sound upon the bear's great, broad +back. The half-dozen old wolves followed him like figures moved by a +single lever. The pack sucked in with the rush of a waterspout. The +bear vanished under a wave of fangs and tails, as a sinking boat +vanishes beneath the billows. And the rest was the most diabolical +devils' riot that ears ever heard. + +The bear unwounded, even if he had been induced to come out at all, +might have fought his way home again; but the bear wounded and cut off +was a different matter. He battled as only a cornered bear can battle; +but the exertion of it gave the .450 bullet its chance, and he +died--horribly--as they die who are pulled down by the starving +wolf-pack, and that is not printable at all. + +He took three wolves--smashed-in-heads and chests--with him to the +other world, that bear, and left three others well on the road there. +_All six_ followed him by the path he had gone when the pack had done +with him; but the losses might not improve the temper of the pack, +though they partially stayed the hunger of a few. And the white wolf +seemed to know that. Full devilish indeed was the cunning of that +brute. + +Scarcely was the last bone cracked, scarcely the last wisp of skin +snapped up, than the white wolf, wet, and red and wringing over the +head, was away again, at full speed--and his full speed was a thing to +gasp over--with a wild and rousing howl that gave the pack no time to +ponder on its casualties. + +This time also there was no trail, so the pack had full leisure to +concentrate all its energies upon the job in hand, or paw, I should +say--namely, galloping. No, racing would be the only word; for the +white wolf, knowing his kind, perhaps, gave the pack no leisure to grow +dangerous over its losses or its hunger. Only idleness gives time for +questions to be asked about leadership, and he kept them busy; and if +they wanted to keep up with him at all, they must needs extend +themselves to the full. + +Soon he led them to a clearing running, straight as a railway cutting, +through the forest. Out in the clearing, he dropped his head, howled, +flung half round, and began to follow tracks; but the scent was enough +for him without the tracks. They were the footprints, the +sleigh-trail, and the hoofprints of the beaters, the hunters, and the +pack-horses, loaded with game from the hunt of the day that had just +gone. + +For a moment the pack, even _that_ pack, his pack, the pack of the +White Wolf of the Frozen Wastes, checked a little, shied, and were +dumb. They were used to his leading them upon some hectic +murder-raids, but never one quite so blatant as this. + +Quickly, however, the real pain in their empty stomachs got the better +of them, and they swept round and began to follow--half-a-dozen here +and there--with whimpers. And then, the excitement spreading, they all +rushed in, and breaking out, with a blood-curdling rush, into the +full-throated chorus, "Yi-yi-i-ki-yi!" of the wolf-pack in full cry--an +M.F.H. who had never heard wolves might have mistaken it for the music +of a pack of hounds if he had listened to it from a distance--they +swept on after the vanishing white brush of their leader, like some +great, hurrying, dark cloud-shadow, up the trail. + +Anon, going always at their tireless wolf-lope that no beast in the +world can outdistance in the end, they came to a village. Some of the +beaters lived at this village, and had remained there. The wolves +swept on and round the miserable place--some actually raced through the +snowed-up street--and took up the continued trail on the other side. + +Anon they came to an open plain, where the trail split, many of the +beaters that were left striking away to another village where they +lived; but the white wolf tore straight on along the main trail, the +trail of the hunters, the attendants, and the pack-horses. And the +shadows of the wolves in the moonlight kept pace with them all that +terrible way. + +The plain looked flat, but was gently undulating, like some gigantic +ocean petrified; so that, in due time, the pack, still giving tongue +wildly and terribly, saw before them, far, far ahead, a procession of +dots straggling along over the endless, unbroken white. And instantly +their music shut off as if at the wave of an invisible hand. + +Then, as the quarry ran from scent to view, they raced. All their +long, loose, nickel-steel-limbed, tireless gallop before had been +nothing to their flying speed now. The taint of the blood of the +slaughtered game from the chase was in their sensitive nostrils. It +was like the sight of rare wines to a drunkard. Shift! Say, but the +way those long-legged demons ate up the distance between them and their +prey was awe-inspiring. It was uncanny. It was almost magic. It was +awful. + +Then things happened, as you might say, with some rapidity. + +Three shots rang out in the silence--three shots in quick succession. +They were fired at the wolves by the only man in the group who had an +efficient rifle, but were really meant to recall the sleighs with the +sportsmen _and_ the rifles, which had gone on. + +The wolves spread out into a long line; the ends of the line crept +forward swiftly on either hand, and the whole pack raced to the attack +in the formation of a Zulu impi--in the shape of a pair of horns, that +is. When the points of the horns got on the far side of their "prey," +they rushed together, and turned inwards, still at full gallop. + +At this juncture the sleighs came back--at the gallop, too. +Four .450-caliber Express rifle bullets, one .375-caliber magazine and +one .315-caliber magazine bullet, arriving among the wolves in quick +succession produced no confusion. Not a wolf stopped. Each beast +continued its tireless gallop, swerving and dispersing as it raced, and +without uttering a sound, till, almost before you could realize what +had happened at all, there was a dwindling crescent of gray specks in +the background, and four or five other gray shapes--two kicking--lying +about in the foreground. + +But--and this is where we come in--neither there in the distant +snow-haze nor close in by the crowding hunting-party was the white wolf. + +He had been last on view far in advance of, and heading, the point of +the right-hand horn of the swiftly encircling pack--his usual place, by +the way--but from the moment the returning sleighs hove in sight, and +the bar-like gleam of the moonlight could be seen upon the ready +rifle-barrels--he had seen that, too, and knew its meaning--he had +been--nowhere. + +Now, before the encircling horns of the pack closed round, one of the +pack-horses, maddened with fear, had stampeded and got clear away. +That horse was galloping now madly across the plain, hidden from view +by a gentle swell of ground, and--the white wolf was racing alongside +of it; and away behind--for few could keep up with the tremendous speed +of the white wolf--another, and an ordinary gray wolf was gliding in +their tracks. That was a female wolf, who more than once before had +found it a profitable investment to keep her eye upon the doings of the +great white leader. + +She saw the white wolf leap, beheld his wrenching side-stroke at the +terrified horse's throat, heard the horse scream, and watched it bound +forward. Followed another leap of the relentless giant white shape; +the horse seemed to stumble in full gallop, and next instant came down +headlong. The rest was a whirl of snow, flying hoofs, and a horrible +worrying sound. Then all settled down, and as she tore up she found +the white wolf feeding ravenously against time, bolting his meal as +only the wild members of the dog tribe, hyenas, and vultures can. She +was starving, that she-wolf, but she halted upon her hams, such was the +reputation of the white leader; but when he failed to snarl at her, +she, too, fell to, and bolted her meal like a crazy thing. + +Directly he had fed enough the white wolf flung round upon his heels, +and, with a single quick whimper, was gone, streaking over the plain +away from the hunters, away from the scattered, discomfited pack; away, +away, as he had never galloped before. But, then, before he had always +been the hunter. This time, if he knew anything of "Pack Law" and the +temper of the pack over this bad defeat and heavy loss, coming on top +of the bad bear "break"--this time, I say, it was he who was, or, at +any rate, might be, the hunted. And he had reasons--very sound and +private reasons--why he must not meet even one wolf of the pack in +combat. Wherefore he streaked, stretched flat, and doubled into a bow, +his shadow chasing him, and the she-wolf--afraid to be left +alone--chasing his shadow. + +Very often before the white wolf had caused the pack to run into +dangerous and decimating trouble, but always with a feed at the end. +He had never before sold them a pup, as the saying is, like this one. +Moreover, he felt that his slaying of the horse secretly--and they were +bound to scent out and read that--would not improve matters. Wherefore +he guessed that, after years of restless rule, it was about time to +quit, and he quitted. But unfortunately there is only one thing harder +than becoming leader of a big wolf-pack, and that is, ceasing to be +leader and--live. + +Five miles over the desolate waste of white--and what is five miles, or +ten, or fifteen, to a desperate wolf?--the two beasts ran into a +river--literally into a river. Ice stretched far out from the bank, +yet the river was so wide that they could scarce see the opposite bank. +They could see the grinding, growling ice-blocks floating all round +them which they plunged in, however, and they could feel the icy bite +of the water--water that would stop the action of a man's heart. + +But the white wolf did not attempt to swim to the opposite bank, or +mean to. He made a detour, and landed upon the same side he had +started from. He did that three times, the she-wolf always following +faithfully, because she had now become too frightened to stay alone and +do anything else; and then he started upon another mad gallop of miles, +but this time along the bank of the great river. + +Finally he stopped and stared out over the ice, the thick water, and +the gnashing pack-ice. Far away, it seemed, through the snow-haze, he +could see a wooded height, an immense island, round which the river +looped in two great arms. + +He knew the spot--trust him. + +No beast in its senses would try to swim the long distance across to +that island, but from time to time a hunted deer had made the attempt, +and a few of those that tried it had survived the ordeal and populated +the island. More than once, in heavy snow, the white wolf himself, at +the head of his pack, had hunted a deer down to that very spot, and had +watched its head fade across the water into the distance. Once he had +started to follow; but the pack had turned back, and he at length after +them, snarling at their heels. Now he knew how long the swim looked +from the deer's point of view. + +It was an ugly proposition. But--he turned his head in the stillness, +broken only by the multitudinous voices of the ice, and heard a far, +far distant multitudinous murmur, and that was no ice, and it settled +him. It was the united voice of the pack _on his trail_! + +He paused, ran up and down, gave an odd, little, deeply expressive +whine, like a puppy afraid to take its first bath, plunged in with a +rush, and struck out. Soon he was out upon a piece of drift ice, +shaking himself, and began leaping from one lump of floating ice to +another. It was tricky, slippery, slidy work, and a fall might mean a +broken leg or a crushed skull; but anything was better than dissolving +like mincemeat in the jaws of the slavering pack. + +Once, when a long way out, he looked back, and beheld the she-wolf, +whining piteously as if she were being thrashed--and wolves are dumb +beasts when "up against it"--following him. + +She, too, had heard that wild, terrifying, implacable music of the +wolf-pack following them; and although I, personally, doubt if they +would have touched her--unless it was the other she-wolves that did +it--she seemed to have been smitten by panic, and to prefer the deep +sea, or the river, rather, to that pack of maddened devils. + +And so, slipping, sliding, splashing, swimming, scrambling, the white +wolf, after the most appalling struggle of his life, managed somehow, +blindly in the end, with sobbing breath and pounding sides, to make +that terrible passage, and collapse as he landed in a stiff white heap, +the water frozen in icicles upon his body as he landed. + +For a long time he did not move, and it began to seem as if he had +burst his heart. But at last he dragged himself to his feet and turned +drunkenly--to find the she-wolf lying at his side. + +Thoughts came back slowly; but at length he shook himself, and stood +erect at his full, immense height. He had given the wolf-pack +something tricky in the way of trails to unravel, but he knew what he +had taught them too well to build too much on that. And he was right, +for presently, from far, far across the water, came the unutterably +terrible baying clamor of the pack, moving swiftly along--then it +stopped. + +For a long while he waited after that, straining ears and eyes out over +the moving ice, and the water, and the night that was there; but +nothing could he see, and nothing more he heard except at last, far +away, one last, long, lonely, ghastlily lonesome howl--the howl of +defeat. + +Then it seemed--but truly it may only have been a trick of the +moonlight as he snarled, revealing his white fangs under his +wickedly-curled-back lip--it seemed, I say, that the White Wolf of the +Frozen Waste grinned. And good reason had he to grin, for the life of +the white wolf had been nothing more nor less than one long, bad, bold, +blustering, bullying _bluff_! What's that? Yes, sirs--bluff! And in +this wise. + +Firstly, his extraordinarily long legs gave him a height out of all +proportion to his real hulk; secondly, his abnormally long and woolly +coat gave him an apparent bulk which was out of all proportion to fact; +thirdly, his actual bulk was really scarcely larger than that of any +very large wolf; and, fourthly--but this concerned him only now--he was +really quite an old wolf; one long past his prime, one quite unable to +face any really full-grown fine young wolf, one retaining only his +matchless speed by reason of his abnormally long legs, and his +leadership by terrific and cleverly acted ferocity on the strength of +his apparent giant dimensions. That was all, but it was enough; wasn't +it, boys? Would you care to have changed places with the old rascal, +and played that bluff out against _those_ odds, in _that_ company, for +years as he had done? I _don't_ think. No, nor I, either. It was +some gamble, that. What? + +At last the White Wolf of the Frozen Waste turned, with an insolent +flourish of his brush, and trotted up the bank on the heels of the +she-wolf, who had come to life again and preceded him into the dense +tangle of the woods, which swallowed him up, him and his darned bluff, +utterly. + + + + +XV + +FATE AND THE FEARFUL + + We are the little folks--we! + Too little to love or to hate.--RUDYABD KIPLING. + +No one ever accused him of not being all there. The job was to see +what was there. + +A tiny alderman of the red bank-vole people, whose tunnels marched with +the road through the wood, taking the afternoon sun--a slanting copper +net, it was--at his own front-door under the root of the Scots fir, was +aware of a flicker at a hole's mouth. He looked again, and saw the +mouth of that hole was empty. He blinked his star-bright eyes in his +fat, furry, little square head, after the manner of one who thought he +had been dreaming. But catch a bank-vole dreaming! Besides, how about +the squirrel overhead? He was hanging over a branch where the flicker +had been, swearing fit to slit his lungs, and old squirrel wasn't much +given to make mistakes, as a rule. + +The bank vole turned back into his hole, knowing the law against taking +chances in the wild, and the first stride fetched him up short in +violent collision with another bank-vole--otherwise red-backed +field-mouse, if you like--coming the other way. + +The blow, full on the forehead, did not break his neck; but it ought to +have done. It cast him clean over backwards out of his own front-door, +where he fell down the bank, and was received, all his little short +paws scrambling for a hold, by a thistle, and would have told all the +world, with a thin, high squeak, what he had sat on, if the squeak had +not frozen between his chisel teeth. + +There had shot out of the hole, and back, a Thing. It might have been +the thick end of a whip-lash or a spring, and, like a spring, as it +recoiled it coiled, and was still. + +The bank-vole saw. Most entirely did he see, and felt no joy in the +seeing, either. Indeed, there was no room for mistake in the zigzag +black chain down the back, in the unspeakably cruel, fixed stare of the +glassy, lidless eyes, in the short head and flat cranium of the true +viper--viper, adder, or whatever you like to call the calamity without +legs, whose other name is death. + +Now, bank-voles know all about vipers. They have to; they die, else. +They die anyway; but no matter, for they are small and very many. +Also, vipers know all about voles, field and bank; they specialize in +'em! + +But our bank-vole knew all about the "freezing" game, too, and he +"froze." My word, how that little beggar was still, so utterly bereft +of movement that a fly settled upon him--about the first and the last +that would, I should judge! And if a learned native had come along the +road at that moment--on tiptoe, of course--he would have said the viper +had hypnotized friend vole with fear. Hypnotize your grandmother! But +you may take it from me that serpent thing was playing his game, too. +He was "freezing" to induce the quarry to move and give himself away, +because, since the vole was motionless, he had no idea where the little +fellow was, although he seemed to be looking straight at him--in that +execrable way snakes have of seeming to look straight at everything. + +You think it was a battle of patience? W-e-ll, maybe. Maybe, too, it +was a battle of nerves. I like to think so, anyway, for that +snake-servant of the Devil had none, and the bank-vole had; and the +bank-voices broke under the awful tension--or seemed to--and the +bank-vole broke the terrifying spell. Also, he broke the silence. + +Away down the ditch he went, bouncing like a tiny ball of dark +thistle-down, all in and out among the vegetation, which, worse luck +for him, the ditch being under the accursed shadow of the firs, was +scanty. And as he galloped he squeaked three times--like a little +needle stabbing the late afternoon silence, it was. + +His removal was one kind of quick dodge in the art of quitting; that of +the viper another, and a very beastly one. The crawling thing was not +much more than one-tenth of a second after the poor bank-vole in +getting under way, and the rest was a--was a--oh, anything you please! +I call it a sliding flicker that you rather "felt" than saw. Also, the +thing rustled horribly, and Fact can say what she likes. I swear it +shot along quite flat, crawling, not undulating; but, ough! what a +lightning, footless, legless crawl! No wonder the poor little devil of +a bank-vole squeaked! The wonder was he didn't faint on the spot, for +he knew what was coming. + +Up the bank he pattered, and into that, to him, great subterranean +highway which seems to be conjointly kept up and used by all the +mysterious little four-footed tribes of the field, and which runs the +length of practically every bank and hedgerow. The place was dark and +cool and echoing, and bare as the palm of your hand, and far cleaner +than many palms. It might have been cleaned out that very day by a +fairy vacuum-cleaner; but it hadn't. It was always like that, clean as +the proverbial new pin. Heaven alone knows who did the "charing" +there, but those little furry tribes might have given lessons on health +in trench warfare, I reckon, at a guinea a time--and cheap at that. +They had found out that dirt meant disease, you bet. + +Down that tunnel drummed the bank-vole, seeking to foul his trail with +just any other creature; and, the highway being, as I have said, a sort +of public affair, he met first a mouse gone astray, then a mole asleep, +then a long-tailed wood-mouse, then a short-tailed field-vole, then a +shrew about as big as your little finger. But they must have heard the +scrape of the snake's scales down that echoing tunnel following hard +behind, for they avoided our bank-vole like the plague, and dived up +one or other of the thousand and one side-tunnels, which opened on to +the main one, too quickly for the viper to catch them. + +Then the poor, little, panting bank-vole found himself once more in the +open. His beady eyes shone like microscopic stars as lie paused in a +copper bar of setting sunlight and looked about for a refuge. It +seemed, by the piston-like throb of the whole body, that his heart +would burst and slay him out of hand before the hated snake could, if +he did not jolly soon find one. + +Then a hedge caught his eye, and he climbed it, being a good acrobat in +his spare time. Beyond, however, bringing down upon himself the pecks +of several birds, he did no good, for it seemed that, whithersoever he +could go, the snake could follow, and--help!--the flat, terrible head +was not a yard from him now. + +Worse was to follow, though. He dropped to earth again, already a +beaten beast; and, to complete the catastrophe, by a miracle he had +landed where there was not a mouse or mole or vole hole, or any other +cover, within reach. Only one big clod of earth there was, and round +that he flung himself, with that stub, scaly snout weaving at his very +tail, and rolled over and over and over--done, too utterly spent even +to squeak. + +Then Fate lifted her finger, and things happened. All that had gone +before didn't count, it seemed. + +The little bank-vole was dimly aware of rolling under a big, warm, live +shape. He was also aware of a funny little fussy grunt in his ear, and +that a set of very white and business-like teeth flashed for an instant +in the sun, as they chopped surprisedly at him going under them, and +missed. Thereafter the shape sat down, nearly stifling him; and in the +same instant the whole air seemed to fill with the sudden, long-drawn, +venomous, terrifying hiss of the viper close at hand. Evidently the +limbless death had come round the corner too quickly, and had all but +rammed the shape that grunted. + +I can give you my word, though, that the vole was not happy one bit. +He appeared to be between the Devil and the deep sea. He had no +confidence in the deep sea, or any other thing that he could think of +in his world. Moreover, the deep sea, besides keeping all the air off, +was most horribly bristly, even on the belly. Wherefore that vole made +haste to quit station, so to speak. But in a second, it seemed, before +he could clear himself, that unspeakable serpent's hiss appeared to +sound in his very ear, and the deep sea, folding upon itself, made the +poor vole yell as if he had touched off a live-wire. He had not, of +course; but it was like being struck with a dozen pins at once. He +would have got out if he could, but to move was to discover more pins, +and he just had to keep where he was, squealing fit to burst. + +And that saved the vole, probably. + +Not that there was any magic or rubbish of that kind, of course. It +was simply that the viper, shooting his every inch round the corner in +the effort to grab the vole's hindlegs then or never, had hit, full +pelt and nose first, the nice little array of pointed arguments carried +on the back of the neck of a hedgehog, snuffing under the clod, +pig-fashion, for spiders. The hedgehog, whose phlegmatic disposition +and special armament allowed him the luxury of never being surprised at +anything, promptly and literally shut up, so that long before the viper +thing had unhooked his nose and was waving his forward part about over +the hedgehog, with murder in his eye and death behind his flickering +tongue, looking for a place to strike home, old hedgehog was rolled up, +and snuffling and snoring away inside there, like an old man chuckling +when he has just cried "Mate!" at chess. + +This trying position continued for perhaps five minutes. It seemed +like five days to the wretched bank-vole. + +Then the slow temper of the funny old hedgepig smoldered gradually +alight. His eyes grew red in the foxy head of him, his snout "worked," +and he snuffled and grunted faster and faster. He made up his mind to +fight. And the extraordinary combat began. Lit by the blood rays of a +setting sun, from a sky all raw and red, backed by the blue-gray haze +of the watching woods, the silence broken only by the ghostly whisper +of the snake's scales and the tiny pig-like grunting of the +hundred-spiked hedgehog, that duel started. + +Peering out of a peep-hole in himself, the hedgehog waited for an +opening. It was no blunderer's game, this. Death was the price of a +slip. He knew, however, and accepted the risks deliberately--a plucky +enough act, when you come to think of it, for a beast no more than a +foot long and one and a half pounds heavy. + +The opening came. Quicker than you could realize, the hedgehog half +unrolled, and side-chopped with his glistening teeth. Quick, too, and +quicker, the venomous, flat serpent head writhed aloft and back-lashed, +swift as a released spring; but the hedgehog had ducked, or tucked if +you like, more than instantly back into himself. Followed an infernal, +ghastly writhing and squirming of the long, unprotected mottled serpent +body as it struck--too late to stop itself--simply spines, spines only, +that tore and lacerated maddeningly. Whip, whip, whip! flashed the +deadly reptilian head, pecking, quicker than light flickers, at the +impassive round _cheval-de-frise_ that was the hedgehog, in a blind +access of fury terrible to see; and each time the soft throat of the +horror only tore and tore worse, in a ghastly manner, on those spines +that showed no life and said no word, and defied all. It was a siege +of the wild, and a terrible one. + +Probably this was the first time in his life that anything had dared to +stand up to that viper. He acted as if it was, anyway. Usually his +malignant hiss, so full of hateful cruelty, was enough of a warning. +And those who ignored that did not generally live to repeat the +omission. He seemed utterly unable to understand that anything could +face his fangs of concentrated death and not go out in contortions. +And there were no contortions about this prickly foe, only an +impassable front, or, if you love exactness, back. + +Wild things, unlike man, are rarely given to lose their tempers. It +isn't healthy--in the wild. But if ever a creature appeared to human +eyes to do so, it was that snake. He struck and he struck and he +struck, impaling himself ghastlily each time, and using up his small +immediate magazineful of venom uselessly on--uncompromising spikes! + +At last he drew back, a horrible affront to the fairy scene, and, in +the snap of a finger, the hedgehog had unpacked himself, run forward--a +funny little patter it was, much faster than you would expect--slashed +with his dagger fangs, and repacked himself again in an instant. + +The snake, writhing afresh under the punishment, threw himself once +more upon the impassive "monkey-puzzle" on four legs, but beyond +tearing himself into an even more ghastly apparition than before, he +accomplished nothing. Finally he broke away, and slid off, a rustling, +half-guessed, fleeting vision, and there was fear at last in those +awful eyes, that could never close, as he went. + +Then it was that the quiet, unobstrusive, retiring, self-effacing +hedgehog threw off the mask, and hoisted his true colors. And yet, if +one came to think of it, there was no cause for surprise, for was he +not a member of the strange, the mysterious, the great Order of +Insectivora, which includes among its members probably the most +pugnacious, the most implacable, the most furiously passionate fighters +in all the wild? He fairly flung himself, unrolled, and running with +an absurdly clock work-toy-like gait, whose speed checked the laugh +that it caused, was after that viper in considerably less than +half-a-second, his eyes red as the sun they glinted in, his fangs bared +for action, his swinish snout uplifted at the tip in a wicked grin. No +beast to bandy words with, this. It was a fight to a finish, with no +surrender save to death. + +The bank-vole had already fled; but it was in the direction that the +fight finally veered that he had gone, and so, peeping from between the +weed-stems at the mouth of a hole, he saw all. He saw the viper, his +head swaying to and fro, come sliding along, making for that very hole; +he heard the sudden quick rustle in the grass behind that followed, +beheld the dusky, squat form that it heralded pounce. He watched the +snake's head whip round, and drive with all its power in one last +desperate stroke; watched it straighten out suddenly, and recoil in an +awful quivering spasm, like a severed telegraph-wire, as the hedgehog's +razor-sharp teeth cut through skin and flesh and backbone; and, +trembling from head to foot, he witnessed, half-fascinated, I think, +the awful last threshing flurry of the viper that followed. + +Later, when the moon peeped out of a hole in the clouds, and the +bank-vole peeped out of one in the bank, together--and his beady eyes +were not much behind the moon for brightness--when the tiny, long-eared +bats were imitating black lightning overhead, and a single owl was +hooting like a lost soul seeking a home, away in the black heart of the +woods, the bank-vole witnessed the burial of that hated viper. It was +not a big affair. Only one person--the hedgehog--took part in it, and +he was singularly unhurried, for he ate that poisonous fiend all up, +beginning at the tail, and thoughtfully chewing on from side to side to +the head--twenty inches of snake--as if he, the hedgehog, had been +inoculated in infancy, and was poison-proof. + +Then, still grunting, he went away, slowly, nosing here and there, +rustling loudly in that stillness, an odd, squat figure in the +moonlight; and the bank-vole thought he had seen the last of him, and +came out to pass about his "lawful occasions," as per custom. + +Now, if you or I had taken our meals after the fashion of that "wee, +timorous beastie," we should probably have departed this life from +indigestion or nervous prostration inside a month. + +He came very cautiously from his hole, and the first thing his fine +long whiskers telegraphed him the presence of was an oak-gall--one of +those round knobs that grow upon twigs like nuts, you know, but have a +fat grub inside instead of a kernel. At the same instant a leaf +rustled, and--flp!--there was no bank-vole. + +Allowing one minute for the passing of whoever rustled that leaf, and a +cloud-shadow, and there he was again, back at the gall, his shining +eyes, that mirrored the moon, being the only visible part of him. He +rolled the gall over and sniffed, and--that was quite enough, thank +you. No nut there, and he knew it--by scent, I fancy. In that moment +something trod softly, ever so softly, somewhere, and a spray of laced +bracken swayed one quarter of an inch, and--the bank-vole was not. + +Again about a minute's pause, and three bank-voles came out together. +Our friend was the last, and another was the first, to discover a +little hoard of seeds that some other tiny beastie--not a +bank-vole--must have collected and forgotten all about, or been killed +in the interval. + +In the wild, it is the law that "they should take who have the power, +and they should keep who can." It isn't a bad law, because it has much +to do with that other law called the "survival of the fittest," but it +is apt to come expensive if persisted in. + +Our vole hopped promptly towards the other vole, and made out that the +seeds were his; but before any kind of ultimatum could be delivered, a +twig fell, as twigs will sometimes, for no special reason that one can +see. The noise it made in that stilly wood was astonishing, and ere +the twig had reached the earth there wasn't a bank-vole above ground. +And yet so astonishingly quick and evasive are these little creatures +that in less than thirty seconds there were the two disputants, each +erect upon his haunches, with little hand-like forepaws held up and +joined under the chin--as if they were actresses having their +photographs taken--fighting, like little blunt-headed furies, for +possession of those seeds--so it seemed. I say "so it seemed" +advisedly, since close by, and almost invisible because sitting quite +still, was another bank-vole, who looked as if she were waiting for +something; which she probably was--a lover. + +It was, however, death that came, and he is a too attentive lover. The +battle had been going on some seconds without apparent result, possibly +because the voles had to bite upwards, shark-fashion, owing to the fact +that their fighting-teeth are wedge-shaped incisors, instead of +stabbing fangs, when there was a hrrr! That is all, just like +that--hrrr! + +Then there were no voles; but there seemed to have been no going of the +voles, either. They just were, fighting and watching the fight--then +they just were not. Instead of them, on the very spot where they had +been, a sheeted ghost, with wings that flapped and flapped, and never +made any noise, with the face of a cat, and big round eyes that +gleamed, and a snore most horrible, had simply been evolved from +nowhere, and under its claws was the little red-backed lady who waited +for a lover. + +Now, the coming of that apparition, whose wings did not say +"Hough-hough!" or "Whew-whew!" like other birds' wings do when they +fly, thus proving itself, or rather herself, to be an owl, and the +fight of Mr. Hedgehog and the poisoned death, had a direct connection +with, and a bearing upon, the little bank-vole's life, although they +may not have seemed to have at first. If the snake had not run amok +against the hedgehog, the latter slow personage would have been well +out in the meadow by that time, reducing the worm population, instead +of hanging about and coming up the ditch at that moment, with the hot +and worried air of one who is late. + +What he saw was the owl on the ground, flapping her great, soft wings +about, within a foot of the nicely, neatly, nattily roofed-in nest +where he and his lifelong wedded wife thought they had hidden cunningly +their four soft-bristled, helpless babies. What he thought he saw was +the owl engaged in turning one of those same babies into nourishing +infant owls' food, or "words to that effect." And the hedgehog, like +most of the order Insectivora, is cursed with the temper of Eblis, too. +Naturally, therefore, things happened, and happened the more +hectically, perhaps, because Mrs. Hedgehog chanced at that moment to be +away--attending to the last rites--shall we say?--over the form of an +expiring young rat. + +The little pig's eyes of him went red in his funny, bristle-crowned +head, and just as a clockwork toy charges, so he charged, with a quick, +grunting rustle and far greater speed than any one who knew only his +usual deliberate movements would have given him credit for. + +The owl had only time to turn her cat-like face and--hiss. But though +that hiss would have been good enough as a bluff to frighten creatures +who wouldn't upset a snake for anything, she was out of her reckoning +upon this occasion. The hedgehog, who dealt in snakes as a game-warden +deals in tigers, had no nerves that way. He just sailed in under the +baffling, great, flapping wing, and, ere ever the bird of the night +could spring aloft, had struck. It was a ghastly form of warfare, this +low running in and wrenching snap. It landed right under the armpit, +so to speak, and left a nasty round hole. And it is worth noting, by +the way, that precisely the same sort of hole, and in the same spot +almost, but lower and farther back, was to be seen upon the body of the +deceased young rat that Mrs. Hedgehog was even then attending to--the +trademark of the hedgehogs, that hole. + +All the immediate world of the night wild, watching from grass-tuft and +root and burrow, heard the rasping tap of the owl's beak hammering +helplessly at the spines on the back of the hedgehog, now beside +himself with rage. Not one of them, too, that did not jump with +terror--engrained by the bitter experience of hundreds of +generations--at her fiendish scream. Then, in a flash, that owl was +upon her back, wielding hooked beak and stiletto talons, as only she +knew how to use them; and the hedgehog, who had, in the blindness of +his rage, run in to finish the job, shot up clean on his hind-legs, +taking the clinging, flapping owl with him, while, for the first time +that night, he uttered a cry other than a grunt--an odd, piercing +little cry, vibrant with rage, or fear, or both. This was rather odd, +because ordinarily the hedgehog is a dumb beast, who suffers +"frightfulness" in grim silence. + +The tables were turned now. The shoe was on the other foot, or, to be +precise, the foot was on the underside. That is, the owl had got the +foe where he lived, below water-line, if I may so put it, where, like a +battleship, his armor did not run, and he was soft and vulnerable as +any other beast. Moreover, he had not trained himself in the art of +throwing himself upon his back, as the owl, who was like a cat in this +particular also, had apparently done, and since he could not prance on +his hindlegs, unicorn-fashion, forever, he had to come down again, +belly and throat first, on that infernal battery of talons and beak. + +And he got it all right enough. I give you my word that spiny one got +it; but, save for that one first little cry, he took his punishment in +grim and terrible silence, fighting with a blind fury that was awful to +behold. What happened to him underneath there in those few brief, +terrible seconds no one will ever know--and that, we may guess, is as +well perhaps, for there is no sense in dwelling upon horrors. What he +_did_, in the short time he was given by Fate, is a little more clear. +Butting madly down, oblivious of all things, even that unspeakable +fish-hook beak, grappling like a thing demented--and I think he was +nearly that--he bit deep, deep down, through feathers and skin and +flesh, _home_--once, twice, and again. + +Then, blindly, brokenly, smothered in blood, red-visaged and horrible, +he half-rolled, half blundered free of that frightful clinch, and +instantly rolled up! 'Twas his habit, the one refuge of his life, so +long as he breathed; his last, and usually, but not always, his first, +hope. + +The owl struggled somehow, in a cloud of her own feathers, to her feet. +The beautiful, fan-like, exquisitely soft wings flapped and beat +frantically. There came a peculiar musky sort of smell into the air. +She rose, all lopsidedly, perhaps two yards, flapping, flapping, +flapping with frenzied desperation, before toppling suddenly, +helplessly, pathetically, as the big pinions stopped, and she collapsed +sideways back to earth again, where, blood-smeared and glaring, lit by +the merciless, cynical moon, she crouched and coughed--as I live, +coughed and coughed and coughed, a ghastly cough like a baby's, till it +seemed as if she would cough her heart up. + +Then silence--that wonderful, mysterious, waiting, echoing, listening +silence of the woods at night--shut down, and darkness swept over all. + +When dawn came stealing westward silently over the still canopy of +leaves, both combatants were still there; and they were still here, +too, when the sun, silting in through a rift in the foliage, found and +bathed them. The owl was crouched as she had been when the moon left +her--crouched, and with her wings just a little open, like a bird about +to take flight; but she had already taken wing on the longest flight of +all. The hedgehog was, too, just as the moon had left him, rolled up +in a spiky ball, apparently asleep; but his sleep, also, was the +longest sleep of all. And over them both, in the heavy silence, could +be distinctly heard that horrible "brr-brr-brr" of flies that told its +own story. + +Now, that was in the morning, soon after sunrise; but long before that, +indeed the moment the hedgehog had first attacked the owl and forced +her to turn her attention to him, the little female bank-vole, who by +some mischance or miscalculation, had evaded the first terrible +handshake of the owl which spells death, had rolled clear of the fight, +and dashed for her life to the nearest tussock of grass that offered +shelter; and the first thing she fell over there was our bank-vole, +"frozen" motionless. He was there because the scene of the fight was +between him and the holes in the bank, and for the life of him he could +not muster up courage to run the gauntlet past those dread, struggling +forms. + +In the end, there being scarcely sufficient room in the tussock for +both to hide effectually, and there seeming to be some danger of the +combatants trampling them flat where they lay, he led the way up a +tree, whose gnarled bole took the ground barely six inches away. It +was one of those great-great-great-grandfather oaks, which, if it had +been in a more public spot, would certainly have been raised to the +dignity of one of the few hundred trees that hid Prince Charlie. It +was not, however; but it had another peculiarity, as the voles found +out later on. + +Scared out of their little wits by the fury of their enemies below, and +afraid to go down and bolt across the open, even after the cessation of +hostilities, past those appallingly still, crouched bodies, who, for +all they had guarantee to the contrary, might be in fiendish, alliance +crouched there, waiting for them to descend, the two voles explored +gradually, in their own dainty, little, deprecating, creeping way, +branch after branch of the great spreading patriarch, till suddenly, at +the very tip of the longest and biggest limb of all, they +vanished--into ivy. What had happened was quite simple, however. +There was no trick in it. It was all above-board. It was simply that +the mighty tree at this spot grew close to one of those outcrops of +cliff that formed, as it were, broken-off pieces from the main cliffs +which bordered the river and the valley on one side farther up, and one +of the oak boughs had gradually been annexed by the ivy--itself of +great age--that clothed the face of the cliff. + +Climbing steadily upwards through the network of ivy-stems--he had no +wish to go down now, for he could hear the river talking to itself +directly underneath him, and a false step meant a clean drop into the +swirling black depths thirty feet or so below--the bank-vole, with his +companion in close and trusting attendance, presently came out on top +of the cliff. He found himself upon a space all clothed with +vegetation, bushes, and stunted trees, some hundred yards long. +Beneath him, as he peered over, he could see the roof of the wood, all +laid out like a green tablecloth, and here and there, through gaps, the +river, now shrunk to no more than a stream, by reason of the fact that +men, for their own purposes, had dammed its waters about a mile farther +up the valley, and constructed a reservoir there. + +The voles knew nothing about any dam--then. They were satisfied to +explore the cliff-top and the crevices, to discover the tiny eggs of a +coal-tit, and remark on their flavor; to nose into every crook and +corner that came in their way; to learn the excellent facilities the +place offered for setting up housekeeping; and to discover that no +other bank-voles appeared to have found their way up there. + +This took time, for they naturally had to flirt in between, and so it +happened that the sun had been up some while before they finally set to +improvising a home, in a partially earth-filled rocky cleft, with their +own sturdy forepaws. They had got so far as to dig in out of sight, +turning every few seconds to push out the loose earth, when the dam up +above broke, and a few hundred, or thousand, for all I know, tons of +water dropped into the valley--crash! + +And thus it happened that, when the sun set, those two little, +big-headed, blunt-nosed bank-voles, looking out upon an endless sea of +water, above which the top halves of the trees in the wood rose like +mangroves, were, save for a few that had climbed into trees and would +starve, the only bank-voles left alive, to repopulate that valley with +bank-voles, out of all the teeming thousands whose burrows had +honeycombed every bank in the vicinity. Verily, how strange is Fate, +"who makes, who mars, who ends!" + + + + +XVI + +THE EAGLES OF LOCH ROYAL + + He makes a solitude, and calls it--peace.--BYRON. + + He comes, the false disturber of my quiet. + Now, vengeance, do thy worst.--SHERIDAN. + +The rising sun came striding over the edge of the world, and presented +the mountain with a golden crown; later it turned the rolling, heaving +mystery of the mists below into a sea of pure amber. A tiny falcon--a +merlin--shot up out of the mist, hung for a moment, whilst the sun +transformed his wings to purple bronze, and fell again, vanishing +instantly. Next, a cock-grouse, somewhere below the amber sea, crowed +aloud to proclaim the day, and a raven mocked at him hoarsely. + +Then, and not till then, the Chieftain awoke. The Chieftain showed as a +chocolate, golden-brown, wedge-shaped mass of feathers, perched on a +lonely pinnacle of rock, and, his appalling, razor-edged claws being +hidden under the overhanging feathers of his legs, he was scarcely +striking. Next moment he opened his eyes, and was no longer mean, for he +was a golden eagle, and the eyes of a golden eagle are terrible. In them +are written hauteur, pride, and arrogant fierceness beyond anything on +this earth; there is also contempt that has no expression in speech. He +shot out his neck, clapped his talon-like beak, and gazed out, over the +mist that hid Loch Royal, to the south shore of the loch, where lived his +son. The loch was, as it were, their frontier, the boundary-line that +divided the hunting-grounds of father and son, and it was seldom crossed +by either bird. + +A little wind rose somewhere in a mountain gorge, and went shrieking +down, rending the mist asunder, as a man rends carded wool. And behind +the wind slid Chieftain, who know the value of a hidden descent. He shot +through the rent, racing down with the sun's rays to earth, and surprised +a cock-grouse at his breakfast, nipping off the tender heather-shoots +daintily one by one. So swiftly did Chieftain fall that the grouse never +knew what had killed him; he was dead--in a flash. The great eagle swept +on with the grouse in his claws, and, without stopping, beat upwards +again. + +Suddenly, without any warning, a bullet came singing over the rolling +heather, and passed, with a whine, close to Chieftain's head. Later came +the blasting report of a rifle. As for Chieftain, he gave one amazed +scream of outraged and startled dignity, dropped his grouse, and went; +and when an eagle goes in that way, it is like the passing of a rocket. + +A few minutes later Chieftain was whirling round high up among the crags, +calling imperiously for his wife, as a king might call. And she came, +she came, that huge, fierce bird, with a trickle of blood dripping down +her neck, and a fire in her eye that was unpleasant to behold. She, too, +had been fired upon and grazed by a bullet, and she said so in no +measured tones. Now, the laird of Loch Royal deer forests had never +allowed his eagles to be fired at or killed. They were part of the +family possessions, as it were--always had been for generation upon +generation; and, moreover, they kept down the grouse on the deer +forests--which was useful, since the grouse is the red deer's unpaid +sentinel, and give him warning of the crawling, creeping stalker. + +Wonderfully the two eagles circled round one another in mighty, +still-winged glidings, effortless, majestic, masterly, sometimes +together, sometimes apart, drawing ever away northward with scarcely a +wing-flap, without, it seemed, any visible force to drive them, till they +swam, like specks on the eye-ball, miles away and upwards round the +white-mantled peaks. + +Here, so easily can birds pass from scene to scene, they were in another +world, an Arctic land, silent as the Arctic, bare as the Arctic, cold as +the Arctic, and, at first sight, desolate and uninhabited as the Arctic +appears to be. But this was only an example of Nature's wonderful magic. +Desolate it was. Uninhabited--no. + +So far as the eagles could see, there was only a raven, cursed with a +far-advertising blackness, who sat upon a splintered fang of rock and +mocked them hollowly. But he was not the only creature there. + +Sweeping down with a hissing rush over a giddy slope of shale that looked +perpetually upon the brink of a general slide down _en masse_, with their +immense shadows underrunning them, the eagles startled suddenly by their +unexpectedness a great red beast into motion. There was a clatter of +antlers, a click of hoofs, a little shower of stones, and away went a +superb stag, a "royal," a "twelve-pointer," lordly and supercilious, +picking his way without a slip on that awful incline. But until he +moved, even he had been quite invisible, bang in the open though he was. + +The eagles, following him and swooping at him with imperious savagery, +because they were still angry and upset, though never really coming near +him, bustled him into taking that awful path at a loose hand canter, not +so much, I think, because he, the king of the forest--and this, this +lost, lone scene, was part of the local conception of the word +"forest"--cared the sweep of a "brow-tine" for the eagles, as because he +was startled and uncertain as to what was supposed to be happening. And +the stones spurned by his neat hoofs--he seemed to kick most of them down +behind him as he finished with them, each making for itself its own +miniature avalanche--helped to add to the sudden confusion. + +Then it was as if a shell burst in front of him--right under his haughty +nose--and he moved exactly eight feet one inch without touching the +ground; also, in doing it, he cleared a five-foot-seven-inch bowlder, so +absolutely without the slightest sign of an effort that he seemed to have +been blown upwards. It is worth noting, because twenty seconds before he +had been too lazy to clear a four-foot heather-bush, and had gone +_through_ it. + +The "shell" had been a party of ptarmigan very much flustered and upset +by being all but galloped over; not the white and frozen ptarmigan of the +cheap poultry warehouse, but the "live" proposition of that name in their +gray, or usual, disguise, posing as stones among many thousand that lay +around the summits. + +Wild horses would not have put the ptarmigan on wing in face of those +terrible, sliding, underrunning shadows of death--indeed, one had been +lying within two yards of the Chieftain, as he slid back low to ground +after stooping at the lordly stag--but this crashing avalanche of shale +with the king of the forest atop was too much for them, and they went +down the "hill" into the nothing and the far distance that lay, so to +speak, almost at one's feet, like a spatter of shrapnel. + +At the same instant two gray shadows evolved themselves out of the very +ground, and slid away, swift as scudding clouds, up the slope; and a +third gray form, also apparently sprung from nowhere, rose from before +them, and dropped like a spent projectile into the low-lands. They were +two mountain hares and an old sinner of a gray crow; but the thing that +caught the Chieftain's stabbing eye most was none of these. + +Both eagles had, with half-shut wings, dropped like mighty barbs towards +the dim, blue distance of the vale, after the hurtling ptarmigan; but in +an instant their great vans respread, their big, wedged tails swiftly +fanned, and with every available brake on, as it were, they fetched up +almost short. Then they both described a single, gliding, calm, +lazy-looking half-circle, and settled upon a turret rock that shot +fifteen feet up from the mountain's shoulder. + +Above them, the snow shimmered and glistened blindingly. Below, the warm +mists of the dales steamed off under the beating sun. Loch Royal lay +like a mighty, burnished shield to the southward; and northward, peak +rose behind peak in everlasting grand perspective. + +Near them was only the lonely slope, bare now, it seemed, of all life. +But they thought otherwise. Their unspeakably fierce gaze was focused +upon what looked like a grained slab, like any other grained slab, if it +had not all at once begun to twitch, and so--even then one could only +make out the faint outline of a body--turn gradually into a wild cat +asleep on his side. The twitching was not the result of a fit, but of +dreams. Probably he had not meant to go to sleep at all--in a land of +golden eagles! He had merely meant to bask in the sun, within instant +spring of a handy hole between the stones if anything in the enemy line +turned up. That very sun, however, had conspired with drowsiness to +betray him, and--something in the enemy line _had_ turned up. + +Even so, I doubt if the golden eagles, with all their wonderful prismatic +binocular vision, made out the cat, as man could. Birds have not that +power, as man has. The twitching they were instant to see. The cause of +it they must have, equally instantly, suspected. Certainly, however, was +a long time coming to them. Precisely when it did, no man knoweth. They +remained like carvings or very fine figures cast in bronze, and as +immovable as the same, for the best part of an hour, if you please; and +during that time all the sign of life that either of them gave was to +wink a yellow eyelid, as quickly as an instantaneous shutter winks, +several times. + +At the end of that period a rain-squall came racing and howling round the +summit. It passed in a few seconds, and left mist--cloud, if you +like--damp, dank, and chilly, and a dead calm, in its wake, and--the +Chieftain had vanished (I told you he knew the value of a hidden +descent). But goodness and his own arrogant self alone knew when or +where; in the squall, most likely. But he had certainly vanished. + +The Chieftain's mate sat on, as stolid, and as solid, and as statuesque +as ever. She had not moved when he evaporated, or given any sign +whatever. + +With the coming of the mist, the cat woke up. The cold probably awoke +him. He was not pleased. He had come to get warm, not cold. He arose +and stretched himself, baring all his claws and fangs with lazy +insolence, for any whom it might concern to see. + +Then--he collapsed, falling as if the slab on which he stood had slidden +from under him, and remained--flattened tense, wide-eyed, and dangerous. + +The Chieftain's wife had jerked her head and sneezed. At least, she had +yanked her cranium quick as quick, and made a noise. It seemed like a +sneeze. For the rest, she remained as motionless and expressionless as +bronze Buddha, her wonderful orbs scowling at the wild cat. + +Then that cat got off that slab of rock. I say got off, but it would be +more correct to say that he slid off sideways on his tummy--flat. One +had difficulty in seeing that he moved. His inscrutable, wide, sinister, +yellow-green eyes were fixed upon the Chieftain's wife. The whole of his +attention was fastened, focused, concentrated upon the Chieftain's wife. +And there he made his mistake. He forgot about the Chieftain himself, +but the Chieftain had not forgotten about him. In fact, the Chieftain +was there, on the spot, or over it, rather, exactly above the wild cat's +head, five hundred feet above, and very slowly revolving upon wide, +outstretched pinions, as if hung by invisible, slowly swung wire from +heaven. + +If the cat had looked up! But, then, the cat would not have been a wild +four-footed animal if he had. In all the aeons four-footed wild-folk +never seem to have learnt to look up, and, for the omission, die some +painful deaths that might otherwise be avoided. I do not say that none +of them _ever_ look up--they do, but it is seldom. + +Indeed, finally this wild cat did look up; he could not well help it. +There was a sound like the swift descent of a smiting sword above him. +But he was seconds too late. + +Seconds before, the Chieftain had vanished again. Nay, he had changed. +His wings had shut, and--he had turned into a line, a dark streak drawn, +almost as lightning draws itself, from heaven to earth, +thus--wh-r-r-r-ssss-sh! + +It was then that the cat looked up--just in time to receive the +Chieftain's black tiger-talons, upon brilliant yellow claws, clashing +against his own ivory fangs, and--well, in his eyes. + +The Chieftain's wife flung from her strange self her immobility, flung +out a scream, flung open her pinions, and--shifted. She could not have +arrived upon the scene more than three seconds after her lord--but not by +any means master. She was certainly not half that time getting to work. + +I am not going to describe the struggle that followed, in deference to +certain good, kind, and well-meaning people who are unable to face the +stern realities of life, or--to save their country. Such things, +however, must be; and they would not happen if it were not for a hard, +though very sound, purpose, among beasts as among men. Nature is +far-seeing and very wise. Moreover, she hates hypocrisy, and--well, we +may not all be butchers, but most of us eat meat. + +It was certainly a very great confloption, for, of course, that wild cat +fought like a--like a wild cat, which is like a Welshman, and I cannot +say more than that. And in the end the whole inferno, being upon a very +sharp slope, began to slide, and slid, dragging a welter of dust and raw +earth and feathers and fur after it, in an avalanche of its own, till it +fetched up in a tangle of mountain-ash roots and furze two hundred feet +below, where it furiously and fearfully, in one wild, awful, whirling +flurry, ended. + +After that the Chieftain dragged what was left of that wild cat out of +the bushes, where he had tried to jamb and crawl and burrow himself, out +into the open--well into the open--so that the eagles could look all +round, which they like to do, being birds of high degree--also vermin, or +counted as such by gamekeepers of low degree. + +The pair--Heaven and the laird alone know how long they had been good and +faithful partners in life--thereupon set to hooking at one another with +their horny, dragon-like beaks, gripping with black-taloned yellow claws +that even a Hercules would shake hands with just once, beating with +monster wings that would knock you or me silly, snapping horny, +resounding snaps, and generally "not 'arf a-carryin' on" in the approved +and correct modern matrimonial manner. So it appeared, at least; but +among eagles--within the royal circle, that is to say--such things might +be their way of paying compliments, for you cannot expect feathered +couples of the royal blood to behave like a pair of mere love-birds. + +Then came the bullet. + +It was a neat, long, nickel-jacketed, lead-nosed bullet of some +.300-caliber, and its own report was chasing it. It sang a high-pitched, +plaintive little song all alone to itself as it traveled along through +the fine, champagne-like mountain air, at about thirteen hundred feet per +second, and it was aimed to hit the Chieftain exactly in the full of the +chest. That was why, I suppose, it hit the wild cat smack in the +backbone, and killed that poor beast all over again. But you can never +tell with bullets. + +It might be mentioned here that just as turtle-soup is to their worships, +so is wild cat to golden eagles--a _bonne bouche par excellence_, so to +say. They do not get it every day, or every month, for the matter of +that--at least, not in these islands of enlightenment, for the wild cat +shares with them the honor of being a martyr of Fate, and it is on the +_index expurgatorius_ of the gamekeeper also. + +But, I give you my word, those two mighty birds left that wild cat +uneaten. I say "left" him advisedly, for it was rather a matter that +they had left him than that they did leave him. Anyway, they were not +near him, not anywhere near him, and I suppose they went. There had +arisen a noise as if all Regent Street had at that moment rustled its +combined "silk foundations," and--there were our eagles far, far away, +and in opposite directions, melting quicker than real sugar-knobs in hot +grog into the haze of the distant sky. + +And after that the Chieftain and his wife glided up into the setting sun +till it swallowed them in a red glory, and when the sun had burnt itself +out, swam--swam stupendously and wonderfully--through ether down to bed. +Bed with them that night consisted in sitting, regally enthroned among +clouds, upon a black, rock bastion exactly above a clean drop of not much +more than six hundred feet, and rocked by "the wracked wind-eddies" of +the mountain-tops. The good God who made all things--even the animal +that had fired at them--alone knows what they dreamt about, that superb, +intolerant, fierce, haughty, implacable couple. + + * * * * * * + +Now, the man, the--er--lord of creation, who had fired that shot--in +fact, all those shots that day--was Pig Head, the back-to-the-lander from +the South. Pig Head argued that deer forests are farms lying idle. And +the laird had offered to rent him a farm at one-and-nothing-three the +acre to disprove it. Pig Head had taken the offer. He disapproved of +lairds as unrevolutionaries. He hated red deer because they were too +smart for him to kill wholesale, and he loathed golden eagles because +they were the pride of the "hills." But he kept his opinions to himself, +because he valued his neck. The People of the Hills would have stretched +it very much longer than his own long tongue if he hadn't. In his heart +he also hated the "oppressed" People of the Hills for that they loved +their laird, regarded deer-stalking as a religious rite, and--wore kilts! + +As a matter of fact, Pig Head's farm never grew anything more than some +clinging heather, a little cross-leaved heath, patches of furze, a clump +of storm-bent Scotch firs or so, and rock--mostly rock. + +Pig Head had only been able to get what he thought was his own back upon +that day by firing at the eagles, because the laird and the stalkers, the +gillies, the keepers, and the People of the Hills, were away, all away, +at a sheep-dog trial, or a clan meeting, or something. After that he had +to work in silence, and he did. + +There are always people who will buy a golden eagle "British caught," and +those who don't want live ones will take 'em dead, and have them stuffed. +They like to be able to set 'em up in the hall among other stuffed birds, +and boast that they shot 'em. Other people of it like decayed mind come +and look at them, and offer money for them at sales out of jealousy. +That's collecting. + +Now, somewhere, somehow, sometime during his checkered career, Pig Head +had heard, or read, of a way of catching golden eagles. He proceeded. + +Upon an unholy and cold shaly slope well up among the clouds, the mist, +and the ptarmigan, Pig Head had hollowed him out a hollow, roomy enough +for himself to crouch in. He was the sort of man that crouched--and +"grouched." Over the top he put a nice big slab; the walls were of piled +stones, and at one end was an aperture eight inches or so long by about +one foot. Being made of its surroundings, the hiding-place did not look +at all suspicious--from a bird's point of view. + +Finally, upon the morning after the unsuccessful shooting, and before it +was light--this was necessary, for there is no knowing how far the eyes +of eagles can see--Pig Head ensconced himself in this hiding-place. It +was perishing cold, and Pig Head, who did not smoke, and never drank +whisky--only gin--was blue of nose and numb of hand. A good plaid would +have helped him, but he abhorred plaids. + + * * * * * * + +The dawn came up over the mountains, the mists sank down to the vales, +and the dawn wind, lean and searching, went whispering over the hills. + +Then a speck grew out of the heights, out of the west and the dark, and +growing and growing momentarily, became a rustling, sinister, untidy, +heavy shape, which anon settled upon a rock, and croaked, "Glock! glock!" +twice, almost like a bark, in a deep and sepulchral voice. To it was +added another sable form, coming down from the lonely stony heights, and +the two sat together, remarking, as they looked--but their wonderful eyes +must have seen it very far away--at the bait. It was the wild cat turned +inside-out, and other things, on a slab outside the aperture before +mentioned, that was at one end of Pig Head's hiding-place. And the black +specters were ravens. + +"Ou!" they said; then "Aw!" then again "Ou!" One remarked "Augh!" and +the other agreed--or, it may have been, disagreed--with an "Au!" + +Evidently the wild cat, in a disguise in which he would not have known +even his own self, looked very enticing, and he and the situation +generally were being discussed from all points of view. + +I say from all points of view advisedly, because, although the ravens +discoursed much over their council of war, they would not come within a +hundred yards, and it was a voice from the semi-dark, or western, side +which finally stayed them in the very act of unfolding their big, rounded +wings to fly away. + +"Krar-krar-krar!" rasped the voice; and the ravens folded their wings +again to wait and see! + +It was a gray crow, and the ravens knew that never was gray crow an +innocent lost in the wilderness. + +If the gray, or hoodie, crow--always remembering that crows, gray or +black, are servants of the Devil, just as ravens are, and very +cunning--if the crow, I say, thought that here was food without some +horrible form of hidden death lurking behind it, then the chances were +the gray crow was right. They knew "hoodie," you see. Anyway, if they +let him go first, and he was wrong, then it would be _his_ funeral, not +theirs. + +Wherefore the gray crow went first to the bait, and Pig Head, half-dead +with cold and peering out of a tiny peep-hole, called down blessings of a +weak and watery nature upon his black head. And well he might, for if +the gray crow had shied at the bait, then everybody else would have taken +his tip. + +They took his tip now, for in a few minutes there was a "hurrr-hrrr-hrrr" +of wings, and, one after the other, down came the ravens. + +Anon the ravens were joined by a third, volplaning from some +cloud-covered peak, where he must have been watching all the time; and +the crow was joined by four accomplices, who just drifted up from nowhere +special, as gray crows have a habit of doing when there is carrion afoot. + +But Pig Head had not come there to entertain ravens, nor was he at that +moment laying up a store of lumbago for the purpose of gratuitously +feeding disreputable gray crows. He had other quarry in view. The gray +crows, however, were his best asset. They quarreled, and were +loquacious, and, in fact, they made a most infernal noise; and he had +stated that the noise was necessary to his success. This would seem as +if eagles hunt by sound as well as by sight. Pig Head was the first +person I ever heard that suggested so. But, be that as it may, the +racket increased as the sun, robed in purple, gold, and crimson splendor, +rose over the mountain-tops; and with the sun came the only bird, so the +ancients tell us, who can look the sun full in the face without +blinking--_Aquila_, the eagle. + +But--make no mistake about this point--he who came then, grandly, proudly +sweeping over the blue, dim ridges, was not the Chieftain himself, for +this was not the Chieftain's territory, but the Chieftain's son; he who +lived, as you will remember, upon the other, or south, side of Loch Royal. + +Haughtily, statelily, as a king might go to his throne, so did the +Chieftain's son let himself down, in stupendous hundred-foot spirals, to +a pinnacle of rock, jagged, saw-edged, and perpendicular, about two +hundred yards away; and the ravens and the gray crows, who saw him +coming, made great and sudden hostile outcry at first, and then, as he +folded, foot by foot, his immense pinions about him, and sat there erect, +with his piercing, scowling gaze bent upon _them_, they were dumb. + +And Pig Head, aching with cramp and cold in his hiding-place, knew that +_the_ quarry was at hand. But if you think, because the eagle was at +hand, that the time was at hand too, you don't know eagles. They may be, +upon occasion, as quick as the spring of death, but they can also be as +slow as the wrath of Heaven. And that bird there, the great, grand, +haughty, unbending _Aquila chrysoetus_, that golden eagle, sat. I say, +he sat. And there, so far as he was concerned, appeared to be an end of +it. He might have been a carven copestone of the very granite fang he +sat upon, for all the appearance of life he gave, except that +occasionally--say at fifteen-minute intervals--he winked a yellow-lidded +wink. And the wink was almost as unlifelike and uncanny as the bird. + +And the gray crows and the ravens gulped and quarreled, with one eye upon +the eagle and one upon their job; and Pig Head--Pig Head sat and cursed +that eagle, from his horny beak to his barred tail, through +chattering--and aching--teeth. But the eagle never moved a feather. + + * * * * * * + +We are told that Alexander sighed for other worlds to conquer. So it was +with the Chieftain, who was not Alexander. + +After his wife had gone a-hunting eastward--a wonderful and gigantic +silhouette floating and dwindling into the furnace of the rising sun--the +Chieftain sat upon his ledge of rock, staring across the gleaming, +painted, glassy expanse of Loch Royal, southward, to the dominions of his +son. + +He had seen his son, a speck in the dawnlight, invisible to our eyes, +sailing from peak to upflung peak. He had seen him suddenly check and +circle downwards. And then--he had not seen him. + +He had waited two hours, with that patience which birds and reptiles +have, and still he had not seen him. Yet, if during that time he had +risen, the Chieftain must have seen him. And the Chieftain knew that. +He knew also that a golden eagle very rarely makes a "kill" so big that +he has to remain with it two hours. The alternative, therefore, would +seem to be death or carrion; and the way in which he had circled down +would seem to suggest carrion. And it is written among the laws of the +king of birds that when carrion is about, the strict rules and +regulations as to the inviolability of the frontiers may be, in some +degree, broken. + +Therefore the king unfurled his overshadowing vans, and launched himself +down the lake with mighty, slow, powerful strokes, like the steady thrust +of marine engines. He would go and see. + +Five minutes later the Chieftain was as motionless as his son, perched, +like him, too, upon a rock, watching the highwaymen and footpads of the +moors squabbling over the bait--they had no eyes to see what they were +doing, for they had to keep one eye upon each eagle--and about two +hundred yards away on the other side. + +This may have hurried matters somewhat, for within only about another +half-hour the Chieftain's son rose, and, with heavy wing-flaps, flew down +to the bait, sending the ravens and the crows up in a cloud, like blown +bits of burnt paper, as he came to anchor. And it was curious that, in +stooping to meanness, the royal bird's aspect was no longer grand. He +flew heavily and clumsily to the spot. He settled without grace, and +almost overbalanced on to his Grecian nose. He clutched, and tore, and +gulped, and gorged like a vulture. Thus Nature always dresses her actors +for their parts. You may have noticed it. + +[Illustration: "He clutched, and tore, and gulped, and gorged"] + +But Pig Head--Pig Head was chuckling. He had silently and softly removed +the clod of peat that blocked the aperture before mentioned. Running +through this aperture he had a cord whose other end was fastened to the +bait, and every time the great eagle wrenched and tore at the flesh, he +very, very gently pulled the bait towards him. He did not move when the +mighty bird had his head up, gulping, you will note; for even Pig Head +knew that an eagle nearly standing on his head and tugging, and not +feeling the difference between his own tugs and the tugs on a cord, is +not the same as an eagle with his head up and eyes stabbing everywhere at +once. + +At last the victim had been drawn, upon the bait, within reach, and Pig +Head, slipping his hand through the opening, grabbed the thick, powerful +legs of the bird, and pulled. There was one mighty upheaval of vast +vans, and--no eagle! What happened down inside the hiding-place was more +or less private. There were sounds as if a young earthquake were getting +ready to be born in that place; but in the end the Chieftain's son had +his legs tied, and suffered the indignity of being ignominiously thrust +into a filthy sack. He said nothing during that argument, but his looks +were enough to kill anything with a thinner hide than Pig Head. + +Immediately Pig Head got ready for the Chieftain. What's that? Yes, the +Chieftain is right. That great, haughty bird had not moved. You see, +eagles are not educated up to seeing their full-grown sons disappear into +the bowels of the earth without explanation or warning given. There is +nothing in their experience to meet the phenomenon. Consequently they +don't tumble, as a rule, and--well, listen for yourself. + +In a short time--a short time for an eagle; not less than half-an-hour, +really--the Chieftain flapped heavily to the bait, and fed--beastily, if +the truth must be told. + +He was bigger than his son, and heavier, and knew more about the world, +and Pig Head was longer in seeing a fair chance to make a grab at the +royal legs. At last, however, the chance came, and Pig Head grabbed. +The Chieftain naturally lost his balance, and before he knew what had +happened he was inside Pig Head's "booby-hutch." + +The Chieftain, however, was not an ordinary bird, not even an ordinary +eagle. Moreover, he must have been a great age, older even than Pig +Head. Be that as it may, the Chieftain believed mightily in the wild +maxim which says, "They should take who have the power, and they should +keep who can." + +And upon that he acted. + +It all happened in a flash. Like lightning his right wing came round +with a terrific flail-stroke, and hit Pig Head in the face at the precise +instant that the surgical instrument he carried as his beak sank deep +into one of Pig Head's calves. The Chieftain was upside-down at the +moment, and his legs were tied together, but that made no difference to +the savagery of the blow. + +Pig Head uttered one howl of agony, and tumbled backwards, and his devil +saw to it that he should tumble backwards upon the very sack wherein lay +the Chieftain's son, squirming with rage. The Chieftain's son was a son +of his father, and hearing the young hurricane of his father's wings, and +feeling the intolerable weight of Pig Head sitting involuntarily down +upon him, struck for the cause like a good un--struck, with his cruel, +hooked bill, through sack, through trousers, through pants, and home +through flesh, and Pig Head rebounded into the air considerably quicker +than he had gone down, hitting his head against the roof, a resounding +whack, and yelling fit to awake all the devils in cinders. And he did +not go alone. Upon one calf, and upon--another portion of him, the +Chieftain and the Chieftain's son went with him. + +Very few men have ever left a powder-magazine on fire in quicker time +than did Pig Head leave his hiding-place, and none could have made more +noise in the process. The Chieftain stuck to him lovingly, and the +Chieftain's son, sack and all, seemed determined never to leave him; and +Pig Head was nearly demented with pain as he leapt out, caracoling +wildly, into the light of day, and into the arms of--only the laird, the +head stalker, four gillies, and two collies. + +They had come to find him, these stern-faced, long, lean men, on account +of "information received." And they had found him. But they did not +speak. They were Scotch. Nor did they screw out a smile among them. +They were Jocks! They acted--being Highlanders. + +Four hands like iron claws seized Pig Head, and tipped him on end, even +as he had tipped the eagles. Two knives went "snick" as they opened, +then "wheep-wheep" as they cut. Several pieces of cord and bits of +sacking flew into the air. There was one colossal upheaval of wings, a +feathered whirlwind hurling everybody every way--and the Chieftain and +his son, released and scandalized, offended and enraged beyond the rage +of kings, rose swiftly into the air with mighty, threshing strokes that +simply hurled them aloft like powerful projectiles--into the heavens, as +it were terrible avenging spirits of the tempest. A chaos, a rush, a +mighty blast of air, and--they were gone! + +Then the laird turned to Pig Head, and, "Mon, ye dinna ken th' laird. If +ye did--w-e-e-l, Ah'm thinkin' ye'd understand." + + + + +XVII + +RATEL, V.C. + +Between the clumps of the stunted acacias the sun beat down with the +pitilessness of a battleship's furnace, and it was not much better in the +acacias themselves. Save for a lizard here and there, motionless as a +bronze fibula, or a snake asleep with eyes wide open, or the flash of a +"pinging" fly, all Nature seemed to have fled from that intolerable +white-hot glare and gone to sleep. + +But the hour of emancipation was at hand, and the dim caverns of +shade--what there was of it--stirred strangely. A hundred yards away a +blotch of shadow beneath a group of stunted trees swayed and broke up +into several zebra moving off to water. Fifty yards distant the inky +shade that carpeted the earth under a bare outcrop of rock gave up a +single gnu antelope bull and a Grant's gazelle whose lyrate horns were as +wonderful as his consummate grace. + +Thereafter came sound. Till then there had been only heat, the first +hints at movement, and the terrifying silence of the wilderness. Even +the birds had been dumb. Now came "a feathered denizen of the grove" +with a peculiarly arresting, grating chatter, a noise no one could +overlook, and few could help investigating. And finally, brazenly, +impudently, excitedly flitting from branch to branch, the chatterer +evolved slowly out of the ragged bush-choked landscape, a dusky little +bird, seemingly a bird of no importance, scarce larger than a lark. + +Putting personal appearance aside, however, this feathered one, who dared +to shatter the slumber of the everlasting wilderness, seemed to be under +the impression that he was of vast importance. Moreover, his business +appeared to be pressing and urgent, so that he could neither brook delay +nor take "No" for an answer. It was as though he was under a desperate +need to take you somewhere or show you something, and YOU must follow +him--_must_; there was nothing else for it. + +But nobody cared. The zebra trooped off without turning their striped +heads; the gazelle, weighted under his horns, and the gnu bull stalked +away unattending; the lizards remained fixed in a permanent attitude of +attention; and the snakes continued to stare at nothing. No one took the +slightest notice. + +Then came the reply. + +It was as if a person or a thing, deep down in the bowels of the earth, +hearing the bird, stirred in its sleep, and shouted up, "I come." And it +came. + +Heralded by a peculiar, quaint, little, chatty, sibilant, hissing, +whistling chuckle, there emerged from a regular cave that he, or an +ant-bear, or some other burrower had constructed under an ancient bush, a +beast--a most remarkable beast. + +It was long--about three feet. It was low; it was stumpy, clumpy, +sturdy, bear-like, and altogether odd. It had no ears that any one could +find, and it rattled the most murderous armament of claws that you ever +guessed at. But that was not all; not by any means. It, or, rather, he, +had really been colored grayish white in the first place; but Nature had +thoughtlessly dropped him into a vat of black paint on his "tummy," flat, +and left him there to swim about, so that by the time he got out he was +one half, including chin, black, and the other and upper half, including +top of head and back and top of tail, grayish white. And then, for a +joke, it seemed, Nature had painted a white band round where black and +grayish white met, a sort of water-line, so to speak, and let the poor +little beggar go--go, mark you, into a wild where self-advertisement is +something more than unhealthful for the smaller folks. Afterwards, +however, Nature--who is all a woman--had repented, seemingly, and being +unable to undo her own jest, had given to the little, slow, conspicuous +beast, as compensation, a courage surpassing the courage of any other +beast on earth. The result was rather curious--it was also the ratel, or +honey-badger, who had nothing at all to do with rats, but everything to +do with honey, and was self-evidently more than three-parts badger. + +"Kru-tshee! Kru-tshee-chlk! Krue-tshee-chlk-chlk, whee-tshee-tse-tse, +tse-i-who-o-o!" he whistled, and chuckled, and muttered, and fairly sang +to himself as he came trotting along towards the cheeky little bird, like +a dog that answers a whistle. His gait was all his own, as he, too, was +all his own original self, being unlike anything else, although he bore +the stamp of the badger people upon him. + +With a calm, rolling trot, head down, tail up, back a fraction arched, +with something like the slouch of his distant relation, the wolverine, he +proceeded, preceded always by that dusky phantom bird that flitted and +perched ahead of him, like a yellow-hammer down a country lane--calling, +calling, calling. And he, lifting his odd, flat, "earless," sleek head +to it, would whistle and chuckle in reply. They had, it seemed, arrived +at a perfect understanding, these two, during the centuries. "Lead on, +Macduff!" he seemed to say. + +They passed antelopes anchored in the shade; hartebeest, impala, and roan +after their kind. They heard the click of horn and the stamp of hoof, +but troubled not. They passed the place where a leopard lay asleep up a +tree, and saw a devil's whip of a ten-foot mamba snake--and the bite of +that same is a sixty-second short cut to the grave--flee before them as +if they, and not it, were death incarnate. Once a serval cat, all legs +and ears and agility, stood in their path to listen to the funny +chuckling, whistling noises, but fled when it saw the little, low ratel +as if it had seen a ghost. + +But always undeterred by anything in the way, engrossed utterly on the +task in view, the dusky bird flew ahead, calling the ratel on with its +harsh cry; and always the ratel, unhurried and cool, jogged along in its +wake, answering, and whistling, and chuckling away to it, as if convulsed +with inward merriment. Perhaps he was. It was a strange procession, +anyway, and one you don't look for every day in the week, even in Africa, +the land of mysteries and surprises. + +Finally, the bird stopped; and the ratel looked, and saw that it was +flitting round the base of a big mimosa. Enough! He hurried a little at +last. Next moment he was nearly hidden under a continuous stream of +earth and dust flying back from his amazing foreclaws, and a whirling, +whirring vortex of perfectly demented bees, whose nest, that had been +weeks in the building, was dissolving in seconds under the trowel-like +scoopings of those fearful claws. + +Honey! Honey! Honey! + +That was it. That was the magic word the bird, who was a honey-guide by +name, had shouted to the ratel, who was a honey-badger, you remember; and +honey-bees they were that made the air delirious. + +The bird, with the quick eye of a detective, had located the hole of the +nest, but having no trowel, forthwith fetched the ratel, who had, and +together they fed, the beast on honey, and the bird on the grubs in the +combs. + +And the bees? Oh, they don't count! At least, they might have been +house-flies for all the notice the ratel took of them, save now and then +to bunch a dozen or so off his cowled head carelessly. Yet they would +probably have nearly killed _us_. + +It was about this time that the bull-gnu appeared, tramping steadily +towards them; a rugged, rough renegade of the wilderness; a ruffian +kicked--or, rather, horned--out of some herd forever, and, for his sins, +doomed always to face the risks of life alone, or in the companionship of +other male outlaws of soured temper like himself--almost always male; the +female wild seems guiltless of law-breaking, or is under a banner of +protection if it is not. Such "rogues," as men call them, are not +gentlemanly, as a rule. And, by the way, you know the gnu, of course, +_alias_ wildebeest? The head of a very shaggy buffalo, the horsy mane, +the delicate, strong, sloping antelope body, the long, mustang-like tail, +and the strange, twisted, unconventional character, half-fierce, +half-inquisitive. + +He--that lonely one--was going to drink, and he may have been doing it +early because he had only his two eyes and ears, and his one nose, to +warn him of the dozen or two forms of death that awaited him at the +drinking-place, instead of the eyes and ears and noses of all the herd. + +The gnu saw neither honey-bird nor badger till he was within a yard of +them. Then he stopped as instantly still as if he had been electrocuted. + +The ratel, who had himself to feed, and a wounded wife and two young whom +he would lead to that honey-feast anon, looked calmly over his shoulder +at the form of the antelope towering above him. There was no sign of +fear in his straight stare at the shaggy, ferocious-looking horned head. +He had no business with it, and would thank it to mind its own affairs. +And the honey-bird didn't care much, either, she having no young to feed, +because, cuckoo-like, she left other birds--woodpeckers, for choice--to +see to that. + +Wherefore, for as long as a man would take to select a cigarette with +care and light it, there was dead silence and stillness, broken only by +the distant, deep "Hoo-hoo, hoo! hoo-hoo, hoo!" of a party of ground +hornbills. + +Then that devil of meddlesome curiosity which is the curse of the +wildebeests fell upon that gnu, and sanity left him. + +"Kwank!" neighed he. And again, "Kwank!" + +Next instant he had spun, top-fashion, on all four feet at once, and +jumped in the same manner, and was gone, whirling round them, with great +shaggy head down, and in a halo of his own swishing tail, at the rate of +knots. + +It was nothing to be wondered at in that strange antelope that he should +then sink from wild motion to absolute, fixed rigidity, broken only by +the restless, horse-like swishing of the long tail, staring hard at the +ratel. + +Perhaps it was the bees that did it, or perhaps the ratel stood in the +gnu's very own path, or in the way of his private dusting-hole. I know +not; neither did the ratel--nor care much, for the matter of that. But +when the gnu went off again, circling with hoarse snorts, and shying and +swerving furiously and wonderfully at top speed, he sat up on his +hindlegs, the better to get a view of the strange sight. Perhaps he +thought a lion was lying somewhere near that he could not see from his +lowly, natural position. + +Again the gnu stopped as utterly instantly as if he had run into a brick +wall, pawed, stamped, snorted, and went off once more into furiously +insane caperings--a new set--all the time circling, with the little, +black-and-gray, erect figure of the surprised ratel as a pivot. + +And then, in a flash, before any one had a second's warning to grasp the +truth or prepare, with head down, eyes burning in the down-dropped, +shaggy head, and upcurved horn-points gleaming in the afternoon sun, he +charged, hurling himself, a living, reckless, furious battering-ram, +straight at the little ratel. + +Did that ratel quit quick? Do ratels ever quit an unbeaten foe? I don't +know. They may, once in the proverbial blue moon; but I haven't seen +'em. This one didn't. He seemed to know that it is held to be a sound +military maxim to meet an attack by counter-attack, and he did, though he +had only the fifth of a second to do it in. Ah, but it was good to see +that odd little beast trotting out coolly, head low, tail high, singing +his war-song as he rolled along to meet the charging foe so many, many +times his own size. + +Next moment there was a thud--somewhat as if some one had punched a +pillow--and the ratel was flying through the air, high and fine, in a +graceful and generous curve. A thorn-bush--what matter the precise name? +there are so many in those parts, all execrable--acknowledged receipt of +his carcass with a crash, and for a few seconds he hung, like a sack on a +nail, spitted cleanly by at least one thorn, far thornier than anything +we know here, before the thing gave way, and he fell, still limply, this +way and that, hesitatingly, as it were, as each point lovingly sought to +retain him, to a fork near the bottom, where he stayed. + +At last he picked himself out of the fork, and--oh my!--with a whistling +grunt of rage, coolly, calmly, clumsily if you like, but grandly all the +same, trotted forth into the open to look for that bull-gnu again. And +that, sirs, was the sort, of animal _he_ was. + +The bull-gnu, however, who was not previously acquainted with small +beasts that would face his charge--and an aerial journey, _and_ the +thorns--and come back for more, had fetched a curve at full gallop, and +loped off into the landscape. For the first time since the herds +outlawed him, I fancy, he seemed to be quite pleased with himself, and +soon, antelope-like, put the ratel from him placidly, and forgot. But he +was reckoning without his host. If he had done with the ratel, the ratel +had not done with him. No, by thunder--not by a good bit! + +Finding no bull-gnu, the slow little black and grayish-white fighter from +Fightersville returned at a walk, still whistling with rage, to the +unearthed bees'-nest, which looked like a town after a bad air-raid. And +the first thing he did was to patter almost on top of a cobra, a +five-footer, who, having narrowly escaped death by the gnu's flying +hoofs, was what one might call considerably "het" up, or "off the +handle," so to say. + +The servant of the Devil sat up, blew out its beastly hood, and shot +forth a hiss that seemed to run all up and down one's spine, like +lightning on an elm-tree. + +The robber of honey sat up, said "Tchik!" and turned a somersault. +What's that? Yes, somersault is right. + +Followed instantly two thin jets of liquid, as much as anything I can +think of like those lines called "trajectory curves" which ballisticians +do so love to draw in books on rifle-shooting; only, these curved lines +began at the hollow point of Mr. Cobra's poison-fangs, and were meant to +end in Mr. Ratel's eyes. They didn't. Old man ratel, he was standing on +his hind-legs, with his sturdy paws in front of his eyes--like a man who +looks across a sunny land--and seemed just about to turn a somersault +again. He changed his mind, though, when the poison, that would have +blinded him for life--and that life wouldn't have been long in that wild +_then_, I want to tell you--stopped, and he went in at that black-necked, +legless, soulless servant of Satan, utterly and amazingly unafraid. It +was fine. + +Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you that when Nature repented, and gave +the ratel a courage surpassing the courage of any other beast on earth, +she also gave him a skin tough as a pachyderm's, and loose, as if it were +two sizes too large; and that is why that black-necked cobra died quite +quickly, and the ratel didn't, even slowly. Even if the snake's fangs +had got through, which was not in the least likely, that did not mean to +say they would touch Mr. Ratel's person inside. This, by the way, may +explain why being spitted on thorns, like a beetle on a pin, when the +bull-gnu charged, did not seem to worry him much, either. + +The moon was up when the wounded mother ratel, on guard at the mouth of +her burrow, looked up sharply. A side-striped jackal, who kidded himself +she had not seen him lying in wait to find out, when she went hunting, +what she hid in that den, suddenly bolted with a yap; and a hyena, +represented by two burning eyes, who appeared, by some magic of his own, +to guess she was wounded, jumped up and made way for something that +approached. It was her husband and the cobra, the latter trailing along +limply behind, who came that way; and even the hyena had retired, with an +audible sigh--at least, it wasn't a moan quite--when he claimed the path. +After all, there is no sense, if you are the most cowardly beast for your +power on earth, in getting up against the pluckiest thing in creation in +full possession of life and liberty. + +Later our ratel sallied forth to "face the world" again. His wife had +recovered from her wounds--the result, these, of refusing to believe she +was not so good as a twelve-foot python, and a bit better--sufficiently +to walk slowly; but that was not enough to face that wild where +die-quicks, from lions, down through leopards, hyenas, wild-dogs, +jackals, and the rest, are forever hiding, on the lookout for unfortunate +ones flying an S.O.S. signal. No, he must go and do the provisioning +alone, and alone he went. + +For a peaceful beast, one only too pleased to mind his own business and +thank other folks to mind theirs, his subsequent doings were rather +astonishing. This was because he cared for neither man nor beast nor +devil, in the first place, and because the night produced all three, in +the second. + +He got man in the form of the smell of meat--well-seasoned meat, even for +Africa!--what time he was testing a native village, by scent and on the +downwind side of him--and that showed his pluck, my word!--for honey or +fowl. He detected neither out of the few dozen unspeakable stenches, but +struck meat, and following it up-wind, arrived at a piece--a good big +piece--on the ground among grass. + +A civet cat--who is more civet than cat, by the way--a small spotted +genet--who looked like an exaggerated ferret in the uncertain gloom--and +the inevitable black-backed jackal--who must not be confused with him of +the side-stripes--faded out at his approach like steam in a dry +atmosphere. He might have felt proud of this silent respect, if it were +not a fact that these gentry, these village frontier haunters, scenting +danger, thought it a fine "kink" to let the brave one test it first. + +And he did. + +To be exact, that ratel touched off the tooth-jawed trap that was the +reason for that free meal of high and valuable meat in that place, and +when he jumped he didn't get anywhere. Also, it hurt his leg abominably. + +Then the others reincarnated themselves out of the shadows--especially +the jackal, who shouted "Yaaaa-ya-ya-ya!" and called a friend--and waited +for things to happen. They were confident things would happen, for +Africa is not a good place wherein to get caught in a trap--_there is too +much likelihood of being mistaken for the bait_! + +But they might as well have seen a thunder "portent" captured by the tail +as this ratel by the leg; for, instead of instantly and foolishly +abandoning himself to the frenzy of unthinkable fear--the fear of being +trapped is the greatest of all to a free, wild thing--as practically all +others would have done, he said nothing at all; he failed to lose his +head; and, to crown all, he instantly, coolly, slowly, viciously, and +doggedly set himself to struggle, with a grim persistence that was +amazing. And, moreover, from that instant he never left off. + +A striped hyena, seemingly in lifelong terror of his own shadow, turned +up by magic--or perhaps he heard the snap of the trap. Seven times he +bolted, for no earthly reason that one could see, before finally gaining +courage to snap at the ratel at the very end of his reach. It was the +kind of snap that would take half a man's face away, and not nice to meet +when you are trapped. The ratel, however, came calmly at the hyena, trap +and all, and so nearly got his own trap-jaws locked home on the unclean +one that the hyena was glad to go away. + +In the end, thanks to the amazing toughness of his skin, and its +looseness, the ratel managed to, as it were, slide the bone of his leg +between the jaws of the trap, leaving the skin and fur in, and the rest +was mainly determined tugging and strong fang-work. + +Then he coolly ate the real bait, and--the onlookers remembered +appointments elsewhere. None of them, it seemed, was tickled to meet the +ratel when he had finished. He was sure to be crusty; and, anyway, he +had bitterly disappointed them all--he had achieved the apparently +impossible, and, worst part of the lot, was not dead. + +Now, a ratel will do almost as much for honey as a bear for pork, a +leopard for little "bow-wows," or a man for diamonds. This will explain +why he was foolish enough to follow, some hours later, the trail of some +natives who had been out collecting honey from a camp the day before; or +perhaps he knew nothing about the honey till, not too scientifically, he +got into the camp. Anyway, the honey was very good. + +There are, however, from a wilding's point of view, camps and camps. +Most of the inhabitants of the wild, including the lion, who are not born +with a pluck considerably above proof, can discriminate the difference. +The ratel either could not or would not. + +Then the knowledge was driven home. Driven home in the shape of a big, +loose-limbed, deep-jowled brute of a dog, as unlike the ordinary native +curs as it well could be. It did not come silently, or suddenly, for it +growled full warning in a terrible bass; but the ratel showed contempt, +and teeth that glistened beautifully in the red light of the dying fire +the sleeping sentry ought to have seen to, but had not. Moreover, it did +not come alone, for the camp was a white hunter's camp. The dog gave a +thunderous baying rally-call, and almost before that sentry had leapt to +his feet, the ratel vanished tumultuously and suddenly from the public +gaze, under a perfect cloud of dogs. He was, ere any one knew what the +riot might be, literally smothered under dogs--dogs, too, most of 'em who +held up the deadly leopard, and hounded the tyrannical lion, habitually +and for a pastime, mark you. + +Then his devil prompted one of the black sentries to rush up and fire his +rifle. Probably he did not know what was under those dogs; certainly he +thought it would keep there. In any case, he nearly killed a dog, and +the cause of the trouble did not keep there. He came out, miraculously +alive, still more miraculously cool and unhurried. He broke away from +the dogs as if they were little puppies, and, still quite coolly and +slowly, he charged that man. + +The yell that followed could have been heard quite a long distance +through the cloaked night. And, in truth, one cannot wonder, for you may +take it from me that the jaws of a ratel fast home on the calf of your +leg, as our ratel's jaws were on that native's leg, form something to +remember in dreams. + +But it was that very native who saved our ratel's life, all the same; for +his gymnastic display during the few seconds that followed was so +energetic that the pink pyjamas and a revolver, that represented the +white hunter fresh from sleep, had no chance at all of doing any damage +except to the dancing native--which they nearly did; and the dogs, once +more piling themselves on to the ratel, broke his hold, and the whole +fight rolled and raged away into the darkness and the thorn-scrub, out of +sight. + +Later, one by one, those dogs came back, dead-beat most of them, with +tongues lolling and sides pumping. Some limped, and some turned away +every few yards feverishly to lick a wound. All were blood-stained, but +not a drop of it--not one drop--belonged to friend ratel. He, that +superb warrior, was at that moment trotting along, quite unconcernedly, +through the bush about a quarter of a mile away. There was blood upon +him, too--not his, the dogs'--and no other mark; and though he was pretty +sore and sick from internal bruising, his skin, his wonderful loose skin, +was whole, and unpierced by a single fang. He had, however, the decency +to go home and fling himself into a stupor-like sleep, just to prove that +he was a real, live beast of this earth, and not merely a phantom from +other worlds. + +The next afternoon was closing in dull and cloudy, and there were signs +of a dark and bad night to come--just the sort of day wild hunters come +out early in. This was why the grunt sounded then that heralded the +appearance of our ratel above-ground, and he himself appeared, emerging +at his very own slow trot from his hole. For a moment he paused, looking +round, with his funny, "earless," flat head in the air, as if he +expected, or listened for, the honey-guide; but the honeyguide was half a +mile away, leading some natives--who, by the way, were endeavoring to +copy the crooning, whistling replies of a ratel--to honey. + +No honey-guide? Then he must go and search for himself. And he did, +returning, in fifty minutes, for his wife, who, now much recovered--as +only a ratel can recover from the very jaws of death--followed him with +her young to the hole he had torn in a rotten tree-trunk where the bees +were nesting. + +They had proceeded perhaps three hundred yards, when, turning a bush +carelessly, as no other creature would dare to do, the ratel fell almost +on to the back of the bull-gnu. + +There is no need to be surprised that they should meet. The wild is not +an aimless mix-up in that way. Each creature has its beat, temporarily +or permanently, nor seeks to deviate. You may look for the same herd of +antelope, feeding near the same place, about the same hour each day; the +same lion stumping the same beat, as regular as a policeman, most nights; +the same hyena uttering horrible nothings within hearing of the same +hills, any time after the setting of each sun, just as surely as the same +cock-robin asks you for crumbs, the same blackbird awakens you with +inimitable fluting, and the same black cat seeks for both in the same +vicinity each dusk. + +The surprise was in what followed. Perhaps the bull-gnu kicked our ratel +badly as he lurched to his feet, jerked from half-sleep into violent +collision with he knew not what. Perhaps the ratel had a memory. +Perhaps the presence of his family weighed with him. Whatever the cause, +the result was decided enough. He reared and hit deep, and fixed home a +very living vise, where he bit. + +Then things happened, but that which immediately followed was not a +fight; it was not even a spar. The ratel never moved, although he was +moved--astoundingly. The gnu bull did the moving, and produced the most +amazing bit of violent activity one could dream of. It was quite +indescribable. A buck-jumping mustang of the most hustling kind would +have been as a gentle lamb to it. The ground all about looked as if +herds had jumped upon it--bushes, grass, flowers, and all were trampled +down flat. But it did not do what it was designed to do--it did not +break the ratel's hold. Bruised, assuredly, shaken so that he ought to +have fallen to hits, dizzy and blind, he did not let go, and in the +position he held he could not be hammered off. He just glued where he +was, saying nothing at all, till the end--till that grand old bull sank +and was still, exhausted, by loss of blood, and with one great hopeless +sigh his life departed from him, and he died. + +The ratel did not leave go for some little time. He seemed to suspect +that the gnu bull was bluffing, or perhaps he was himself half-stunned. + +It was the sudden and peculiar growling hiss from his wife--sounding all +a-magnified in that wilderness silence after the battle--that made him +look up, at her first, and then almost instantly at _something else_. +His wife was backing slowly towards the "bush," every hair on her body +sticking straight out at right angles, her eyes fixed strangely upon that +something else. His young had taken to cover, not, it seemed, too +readily, but by their parent's order. + +A lion was standing, still as a carved beast, at the far end of that +little clearing--_he_ was the something else. Goodness and his kingly +self alone knew how long he had been there, that great, heavy-jowled, +deep-bellied, haughty-eyed brute. He may have been present from the +first, or the middle, or only at that moment. Being a lion, he was just +there, suddenly, without any visible effect of having got there, a +presence of dread, created apparently out of thin air at the moment, in +that spot, and with less sound than a blown leaf. + +This power of being, without seeming to come, of evolving from nowhere, +is one of the lion's most highly perfected tricks; for King Leo believes +in all the ritual of his craft, and is great on effects, even down to the +minor details. Power, grim and terrible, he has, without shadow of +doubt; but he never forgets to impress that fact--and more--upon the +world, and every action is carefully studied to advertise, not himself, +but his "frightfulness." A very fine play-actor is the king of all the +beasts. + +But the ratel did not move. He had met his Napoleon, and was not--so far +as the watcher could see--afraid. + +Motionless, scowling, with head down, and shrewd, proud eyes smoldering, +the lion stood there like an apparition of doom. He was, I fully +suspect, letting the effect sink in deliberately. He knew his game. +Also, he had a reason. Surely a great poker-player was lost in the lion. + +But the little ratel met that regal stare squarely and unmoved. He whose +proud boast it was that he feared nothing that walked or crawled, or swam +or flew, could not be frightened now. And he who came to terrify was +perhaps all but ten feet long, and he whom he sought to terrify was +barely three feet. It was a comparison to make you gasp. + +Now, that lion did not want the ratel at all, or his wife, or his family, +or anything that was his. He wanted the gnu, and would be very pleased +if the ratel would go away and leave it to him. + +The ratel, moreover, did not want the gnu, being an eater of honey, +locusts, and generally badger-like fare for the most part; and if the +lion had only had the sense to wait a few minutes longer behind the +scenes, the ratel would have gone away and left the gnu. But he would +not be driven; _that_ was the rub. Attacking nobody unprovoked, he was a +grim beast to attack, and gave way before none. Hence the trouble. + +Finding that the bluff of the impressive tableau did not work, the lion +tried a fresh one. Still staring at the ratel, he sank his head to the +ground, so that his great mane hung to the earth all about him. His +forelegs and his shoulders crouched, but his hindlegs and his back were +held at their highest, and his tail began to lash behind. Then he began +to growl tremendously and nerve-shatteringly, and as he did so he curled +his upper lips up and back, till the whole ghastly array of his teeth was +laid bare to view. In this position he looked like a gigantic grinning +mask, with blind eye-sockets where the wrinkles were on the sloping +forehead, his eyes nearly invisible below, and a tail lashing far up +atop. It was a horrible sight, and one calculated to stampede the +pluckiest animal. + +It was, of course, also a deliberate piece of mesmeric bluff, the reason +for which was not made clear till one noticed, what the ratel probably +could not, that the great leonine tusks, the terrible fangs, were yellow +and worn, as were the rest of the teeth. This was an old lion, a king on +a throne already tottering, a monarch of yesterday. + +That lion, however, might have turned into Satan himself, for all the +ratel cared. He was threatened, attacked, bullied, forced. His blood +was up, and had not all who ever fought him allowed that he was the +pluckiest beast on earth? Enough! Come lion! come devil! he would give +ground to none. + +[Illustration: "All allowed that he was the pluckiest beast on earth"] + +Lions are not too patient. Also, they have fine spirit of their own. +They are among the very few beasts who will hunt and attack animals as +strong as, or stronger than, themselves. And this lion's patience +snapped suddenly. All at once he seemed to remember that he was still a +king, though a king already within the shadow of abdication. The +terrible bass rumble of his growl grew, and changed tone; his tail lashed +faster and faster; and then, all suddenly heralded by a couple of wicked, +rasping, coughing grunts, he--charged. + +The ratel moved to meet him--to meet him--and at a cool jog-trot! + +What happened then was hard to follow. It looked as if the worn fangs of +the lion failed to make his hold on the wonderful, leathern, loose armor +of the little honey-badger, and that he bungled the stroke of his +terrible paw. Be that as it may, the honey-badger certainly went +straight in, right under the lion's guard, right under the lion, and +rearing, he bit home, and hung like a living spanner. + +And here, perhaps, it is best to draw a curtain. For one reason, I +cannot describe it, and frankly confess the fact. For several other +reasons, it is best not to try. The ratel died in about ten minutes, +crushed, battered, smashed to death; but the chaos lasted longer than +that, because, even after death, he was not done with--the passing of +life had locked his amazing jaws shut forever, and _they were shut on the +lion_. + +The end found the little ratel lying crumpled up and crimson on the +trampled grass, and the lion running about like some great injured dog, +squatting down every few seconds to lick furiously at his wound. Fear +was in the eyes of the king of beasts, for the first, probably, and +certainly for the last, time in his life, and his blood reddened the +grass wherever he made his way; but the internal hemorrhage was the worst. + +Then the vultures came, and that, my friends, is a signal for us humans +to go. The vultures get the last word always, even in a story, and the +name of that word is--FINIS. + + + + +XVIII + +THE DAY + +Now, if you wore a helmet and neck armor of purple, green, and blue in +metallic reflections, with scarlet cheek and eye pieces, if your +uniform were of purple, brown, yellow, orange-red, green, and black, +"either positive or reflected," with a long, rakish, dashing +rapier-scabbard cocked jauntily out behind, wouldn't _you_ feel proud? +So did he; pride and the "grand air" were written all over him. True, +though, the rapier-scabbard was not a rapier-scabbard exactly--only a +tail; but it looked like one, in a way. His full title was _Phasianus +colchicus_, but ordinary people called him just plain pheasant for +short. + +You would have thought, after all this, that even in the first pale +light of a cold dawn he would have been easy to see. As a matter of +fact, Gaiters, the head gamekeeper, one of his underlings, three dogs, +and a gun passed right under his bed without seeing him. Rather, they +may have unconsciously seen him, and put him down as a bundle of dead +twigs and leaves caught up in a branch. This is not very +complimentary, perhaps, to a gentleman attired in a gorgeous uniform as +heretofore set out, but true; and lucky for him, too, to have at once a +uniform of unquestioned splendor and one which would melt into its +surroundings. + +They, the men, did not see him; but he, the old cock-pheasant, saw them +right enough. He opened one eye, and stared at them through that. +Then he opened the other eye, and stared at them through that. Neither +stare seemed to please him. + +It was not Gaiters's way to march through the wood at that hour in the +morning. What meant this unseemly disturbance of _Phasianus's_ domain? +His suspicions, never long at rest, woke up. Moreover, somewhere at +the back of his brain rose a memory, a little, tiny speck of a memory, +which grew. + +Then he stood right up. + +Everywhere, here and there, in the gray cloak of the dawn-mist, he +could hear the sharp "Chawk-chawk!" and the quick, flustered whir as +pheasant after pheasant came down from its roosting-perch to clean and +breakfast. But his suspicions held him for a few minutes longer, +stretching his neck and peering about at the still-shrouded mystery of +the ground below; and it was as well, perhaps. + +Suddenly his head was still; a spray of a brier-bush was swaying +gently. There was nothing in that, of course, if there had been any +breath of wind to move it; but there wasn't. Wherefore our gallant +friend did not come down to preen and breakfast like the rest, but sat +motionless as a statue, while the sun rose and touched him to a winking +golden and bronze wonder, and the mists began to be torn asunder. He +wanted to know what moved that brier-branch, and he wasn't taking +chances till he did. + +Day came on apace, and all the night hunters who had remained so late +had already hurried off to bed save one. _He_ appeared, evidently +empty, certainly very angry indeed at having waited for a cock-pheasant +who refused to do what he was supposed to do and come down to +breakfast. Out of the brier-bush he came, a lean dog-fox, snarling +horribly up at the pheasant, who calmly returned the gaze, conscious of +his safety, of course, and said "Chuck it!" in a loud, harsh voice, and +quite distinctly, twice. + +The fox, knowing it was no good to wait any longer in the daylight, +went, like a floating red shadow. The pheasant watched him go, but did +not move for some time. Foxes had been known to come back again more +suddenly than they went. + +At last he flew to the earth, but even then he did so as silently as +his noisy wings would let him; and he did not announce the fact with a +half-crow, as the others had done. Very circumspectly he slipped off +through the undergrowth, by a series of little crouching runs, stopping +every now and then to freeze and listen. + +Soon he came to one of those open, beautiful, grass-covered "rides" +with which keepers intersect pheasant-coverts. He stopped dead on the +edge of it, himself invisible among the drooping, leaning, old-gold +bracken. The "ride" was full of wood-people, for here had been +scattered that corn which Gaiters intended the pheasants to feed upon. +Indeed, there were about ten pheasants, hens and young cocks of the +year, doing exactly what they were intended to do. Also, there were +some half-dozen softly-tinged, blue-gray wood-pigeons, and one cheeky +jay--whose wing-patches rivaled the perfection of the blue sky +above--doing their best in a quiet sort of way to help the pheasants, +which they were not intended to do, by any manner of means. + +The old cock-pheasant slid across the "ride" after a bit, low as a +crouching rat. He had no business there this day. His mind was still +alert with suspicion. Moreover, his father had been a cunning old cock +who had managed, by ways that were dark, to keep out of the game-bag +for years, too. The taint, as Gaiters would have called it, had been +passed on to him. + +He made for the open edge of the covert, and he was mighty careful +about doing that even. He felt that air and plenty of horizon were +necessary to his well-being, after the disturbing vision of Gaiters and +Co., so unnaturally busy, hurrying through the dawn. + +Now, it is quite remarkable how much you can see from the edge of a +pheasant-covert without being seen yourself. Keepers know that, but do +not give the fact away. The ground sloped away in two open grass +fields, a hedge dividing them, and it was within about the longitude +and the latitude of where that hedge met the covert that our old friend +maneuvered. + +The climate about there seemed to suit him admirably. True, good food +was not strewn in plenty just where he could most easily see it. He +had to look for his acorns or his beechmast by the good old +domestic-fowl plan of scratching among the leaves; roots also he was +forced to scratch for; and the noisy mistle-thrushes with the tempers +of Eblis had to be driven off the berries he would look after in the +ditch. + +Also, there was a stoat. That stoat, however, tackled him just once. +In the process it discovered (_a_) that he wore spurs not meant to be +ornaments, and (_b_) that no one could teach him much about using those +same spurs. The stoat, plus a new carmine decoration for gallantry, +remembered an urgent appointment down a rat-hole, and kept it. Perhaps +it was a young stoat, and had not learnt that there are at least four +degrees of cock-pheasant, namely, young and brainless, adult and brave, +old and brave and cunning, and old and decrepit; but the last stage is +a rare bird. There is nothing of any use to the stoat in the second +and third degrees of cock-pheasant--no health to the stoat, you +understand. + +The dawning of the morning had passed by now in gold and crimson and +purple splendor; the mist-curtain had been drawn back by the fingers of +the wind, the utter darkness upon everything at ground-level had begun +to give way before the sun, and to leeward of most trees and bushes +there was a balmy luxuriance of golden light that held one lingering. + +Gnats were dancing under the low-hung boughs in still corners, as they +will dance on the coldest day; song-thrushes were beginning to take +life for one more day, and tack hither and yon, as if they were busy +pegging the field down with an invisible "cats' cradle"; and the black +rooks, shining like burnished steel shields, flashed and flashed again +as they began to gather beneath the trees, where the ground thawed most +and first. Though they alone seemed to have discovered it, the pigeons +very quickly found that the rooks had hit something good, and you can +bet one jay, at any rate, must be there, to make profit out of somebody. + +It was the jester of a jay, whom, in spite of his painted plumage, no +one seemed to have noticed, that first gave the alarm that carried the +cock-pheasant's suspicious temperament a step farther upon the path of +independent action. Up till then you will note that, though he had +left the vicinity of his own people, he had not yet left the realm that +was peculiarly their own--the woods. + +"W-a--r-k, w-a-a-r-k!" gasped out the jay suddenly, and fled, a +half-seen vision of pinkish, of black and white, upon uncertain, almost +fluttering, wings. + +It was like striking a gong. Instantly all motion was suspended, and +dotted thrushes, clustered rooks, and deprecating pigeons remained at +rigid attention. The old cock-pheasant, too, erect as an armored +warrior, unseen just within the covert, stood promptly at gaze. + +Then, in no more time than one would take to inhale one puff from a +cigarette, the fields were empty--stark, cold, and deserted in the eye +of the morning sun. The birds had not so much gone, exactly, as simply +faded out--dissolved, as a picture may at a cinema-show. The +cock-pheasant did not go. He was in cover, and had a good view, a +strategic position of some moment. + +Followed a pause. Then a man in tweeds entered one of the fields by +the gate. Followed him two more, then a fourth, then two not in +tweeds, then dogs, black and big, to the number of three, not to +mention the bar-like gleam given off by the barrels of the guns that +the first four carried. The whole procession passed silently, as they +thought--but to the waiting, watching, wild-folk unpardonably +noisily--diagonally across the field, and out of sight round a bend of +the wood. They had an air about them. I don't know what it was +exactly, but you could feel they were going to do something serious +that had not been done there for a long time. Perhaps the old +cock-pheasant felt it too, but--well, there now! Where had the old +"varmint" gone? + +Half-way down the hedge, very low and long, the cock-pheasant was +sneaking. He seemed suddenly anxious to mind his own business, and +that everybody else should mind theirs. He was going away from the +wood, which the books tell us is the realm, the sanctuary, the all, to +a pheasant, and he had no desire to answer questions by the way. For +this reason, then, and a few others, he felt no special delight in +sighting, about two hundred yards farther on--at a place where two +stacks surrounded by rails stood and sheltered a fowlhouse--a baker's +dozen of fowls sunning themselves on the hedge-bank. He held for fowls +all the wild creatures' contempt for the tame or domestic. All the +same, he saw no health in risking the open just then, and would not +turn back, so there was nothing for it but the fowls. + +Low as low he crouched, and ran very quickly, and hoped for the best; +and there is no bird that can wish itself out of sight in this fashion +better than friend pheasant. But he forgot the odd cockerel out. He +shot right on to the wretched thing--a gawky red youth--messing about +all alone in a nettle-clump, and it dashed into the field, racing on +long yellow legs, and squawking fit to wake the dead. + +Down clapped the pheasant as if the noise had pierced his heart, and +remained stiller than the crawling roots around him, and not half so +easy to see. But it was no good. Up shot the dozen heads above the +herbage, and two dozen vacuous eyes regarded his vicinity with +empty-headed inquisitiveness. + +He almost melted into the ground, but it was useless. An old, old +hen--who perhaps was ignored by the lord of the harem, and hoped for an +adventure--waddled up, stood within a yard of his crouched, rounded +shape without seeing him, saw him, shot straight up in the air at least +one foot, screaming for help, and promptly charged blindly into the +hedge, where she as promptly got held up among roots and twigs. + +The old pheasant got to his feet just as the rooster who owned the +outfit came racing up, panting and red. He had heard a wife scream for +help. Perhaps it was the odd bird out; or, anyway, some one who had to +be abolished. And he never waited to think. He saw what might have +been a small cockerel (if it had been large he might have thought +twice) crouching, and--he just sailed right in. + +Then something happened. The two met, going up breast to breast. For +a moment or two the cock-pheasant showed on or about that big rooster. +Some feathers hung in the air. The rooster sat on his heels, met by a +blow in the chest that seemed to take all the wind from his sails, so +to speak, and would have drawn off to reconsider things if he had not +promptly become more busy than ever before in his life. + +It was over ere any one knew quite what was happening. The old +cock-pheasant had passed through the crowd and vanished at the double +down the hedge, and the big rooster was slowly subsiding into a pool of +his own blood, from which he was destined never to rise again. + +But those who make, instead of following, their own destiny do not get +let off thus lightly in the wild. The pheasant had not gone a hundred +yards, when a most intolerable blast, an almost unbearable blast, of +shrill, nerve-racking noise throbbed through his head. The bird fell +in his tracks where he ran, as if some one had jerked his legs from +under him, and he peered out. + +What he beheld was an under-keeper standing close by and blowing upon a +two-note pea-whistle till there seemed some danger that he would burst +his cheeks, or a blood-vessel, on the spot, and far up the field three +wandering pheasants racing back to the covert, as they thought, for +very life; but, as a matter of fact--and you shall see--it was to very +death. The blower of whistles was stationed there to drive back into +the covert any pheasants who were so misguided as to wish to roam +thence into the fields and away. + +Now, that old reprobate of a pheasant of ours was a pretty confirmed +runner, anyway. He had trained himself to it. Yet never in all his +checkered life was he conscious of a more awful desire to flee by means +of the wings that God had given him. The weakness was over in a few +seconds, and he crept on; but it was a near thing while it lasted. He +passed, however, away from the danger zone, resisting temptation, and +it was as well. + +As he went there burst forth, at the opposite end of the big covert to +that at which he had come out, a sudden, quick shot. It echoed away +and away back among the woods, clattering and banging like great doors +shutting. The old cock-pheasant stopped to listen; he cocked his green +head on one side; he stood with one foot daintily uplifted: and in the +same instant there burst upon the air a rending, crashing succession of +shots, worse than ragged volley-firing, which almost made him jump. It +had begun--the big shoot over _his_ covert, the largest, the best, the +richest in pheasants, which had been saved for this--"the day" had +begun. When it ended very few pheasants would be left alive, for word +had gone forth that it was to be thinned down, almost shot out, and +that not a cock must escape. + +He, our own cock-pheasant, might have chuckled--as a cock-pheasant can, +and will, very low and softly to himself, if you are close enough to +hear him--if something had not very suddenly and very mysteriously said +"phtt!" just like that, close beside him. The old bird's head snicked +round, right round, almost hindpart before; but he made no other +movement. The sound was new to him, and of a strangely sinister +import. Also, there was a little splayed hole in the ground, as if a +walking-stick had been poked in there, close beside him, which had not +been there before. + +He was still staring when something, singing a little, high-pitched +song in a minor key to itself, came romping through the silent air, +and, with an oddly emphasized and emphatic "phtt!" landed between his +feet. It bored a hole just like the first thing, and it spat dirt up +into his face. + +The third mystery thing clipped three feathers from his back as he ran, +bolted for dear life, crouching low--even then he would not rise--for +the hedge. He got there alive, if not quite whole; while a fourth +nameless object cut twigs off above him. Then he kept on running, +always hugging the hedges, till he was two fields away. He was upset +and overstrained, for Fate had given him plenty of deaths to circumvent +as it was, in the ordinary course of business, and this addition was a +bit too much. + +There are other forms of shooting pheasants than the orthodox one, +which begins with smoking a cigarette on a comfortable shooting-seat, +and ends with a wild and furious fusillade, using three guns as fast as +you can. So thought the farmer's son, who took the chance to test his +new American .22-bore repeating-rifle, now that all the keepers were +well out of the way. And he had come mighty close to bagging the old +cock-bird, too. "As near as made no odds," he said, which was true, +but only the old bird himself knew quite the closeness of the call. + +In the far field the bronze king of the woods found peace for a bit. +The stunning reports in the covert not far away, and the thought that +his companions of yesterday, his lady-loves of last spring, were even +then being butchered by the hundred, made no difference to his +digestion. He fed on with that imperturbability that must have come to +him straight through his ancestors from the East--Kismet! It was +sufficient. + +He ought, of course, to have been in the covert. He was, however, +here--knowingly here, cunningly here, safely--No, by Jove! Not that, +by any means. + +A head, clean and neat and sharp, had poked out of the long, pale grass +at the edge of the hedge-ditch, and stared at him. He couldn't very +well miss seeing it because of the unforgettable brightness of its +beady eyes, and the absolutely spotless purity of its white +shirt-front. Besides, he knew the owner--and its reputation. + +He was helping the farmer to clear an oat-stubble of charlock-seeds at +the moment, and bending down. That is to say, he was doing inestimable +good, for which he got no credit. The next moment, and the next, and +for many more, he was still bending down. In fact, from the instant he +got sight of that head, it was as if a Hand had come down and turned +him by magic into a big model of a bird cast in bronze. All life in +him appeared to have dried up and fled. He looked as if you could have +picked him up and put him upon a bracket in your drawing-room without +his ever moving again. But that was only because of the head he had +seen--and its reputation. Moreover, the head was not alone. At least, +it had multiplied itself half-a-dozen times in less than half-a-dozen +seconds, and even a stoat, which the head belonged to, cannot be in two +places at once--though for sheer quickness of movement it, and far more +its cousin the weasel, comes very near to it. + +Just at this moment it seemed that about the roost unhealthful thing he +could do would be to be seen in the air. Wherefore did this innocent +and guileless old bird affect not to see the stoats, but made out that +he was feeding his way along, quite and absolutely intent upon that +yellow devil of a weed whose other name is charlock. He did not even +hurry, and each deliberate step was taken with almost a proud +daintiness. The only thing was, he never lifted his head; he was +almost too obviously unwary--for him. And he gave the impression that +every step would be his last out into the field; that he was always +going to turn back next instant or the next, as he had done before when +the stoats were not there. + +On and on he kept till he had crossed the field, going faster and +faster, till he ended at the far hedge with a run. And there, so far +as he was concerned, was an end of the stoats. He put them aside. He +forgot all about them. + +They, however, had not forgotten about him. + +It was half-an-hour later, and he was patiently gleaning such food as +the rooks and the sparrows and the larks had left behind them, when +something, he could not tell what, caused him to straighten up, with +that beautiful, proud bearing that seems part of the pheasant's +heritage from the gorgeous East. + +And he was only just in time. + +The stoat that had come up behind him, unseen, turned on its heels as +it charged, changing its mind at the last moment, as if it saw he saw, +and was gone again before you could click a finger, diving superbly +back into long grass. + +They were following him, then, those little hounds of death; tracking +him; running him down. And why? He did not know, perhaps, yet--maybe +he did. Blood is a dangerous thing to have on you in the wild--a +flaming signal of distress for eye and nose to detect--and they are not +often rescuers who hurry to the scene. He had blood on his back, that +cock-pheasant, and just every now and then a single bright drop fell by +the way. The .22-bore bullet had only grazed him. 'Twas nothing--but +it bled more than you would expect. And that explained it. The +tracking stoats thought he was wounded. + +But even then the old cock-pheasant would not rise. + +The firing in the covert had risen suddenly to a fierce crescendo, +breaking out afresh from another quarter. Here, however, was +silence--the absolute, deadly silence in which all the weasel tribe +hunt. But they were there, though he could not see them. He knew +that, invisible even in the sunlight--they were closing in, tracking +him fast, those stoats. + +Then he ran. He ran not so much for his life, but for the right to +keep on the ground. If the worst came to the worst, he could always +fly; but he would do anything rather than that. + +He turned and ran away from the woods--raced like a fowl, but quicker, +lower, much harder to see. A sudden gleam of bright-chestnut fur dead +ahead, however, stopped him, and he turned back, keeping always to the +hedge--towards the covert. He could hear no sound around him, only the +burst and the bang of the guns in the woods, and he might have been +alone; but directly he came to another hedge, and swung down to it at +right angles, a furry tail with a paint-brush tip, vanishing round a +holly-stem, fetching him up all standing. They were there, too, those +stoats. He seemed to be surrounded on all sides save one, and that the +one towards the woods. So he swung back into his original path. + +Then, very soon, as he ran up the hedge-ditch, it seemed to him as if +the dead leaves collected there were beginning to whisper behind him. +But there was no wind to move them. Moreover, it grew closer, till it +seemed at his very tail, that whisper of dead leaves. + +Then, in a flash, he had stopped, spun about like a top, and struck +with his spurs twice--whack, whack--more than instantly, and a long, +low, brown body--close behind him, that had risen as he turned, so that +its spotlessly clean shirt-front offered him a fine mark, went over +sideways--with a grunt and all the wind knocked out of it, as well as +an inch-and-a-half gash to remember friend pheasant by. That was one +stoat; but it was not alone. He had a vision of chestnut forms sliding +and rippling in and out of the shadows and the long copper gleams of +the westering sun. + +As he turned again, and the whispering began once more behind, the +firing in front broke out afresh, and much nearer. Still he would not +rise, however. It was this fact, probably, which kept the stoat-pack +at his heels. They seemed convinced that he was badly wounded and +unable to fly. + +Then came the road. He was on it before he knew. There was the +wedge-shaped, low-browed head of a stoat racing up along one side of +him, with murder plainly written in the gleam of its beady eyes; there +was the hot breath of another beating on his opposite flank; there was +one with feet out and all brakes on, trying its best to pull out one of +the feathers of his long and beautiful tail; and--there was the road +dead ahead. + +It was one of three--the road, the air, or death where he was. He +chose the road, and crossed, like a hunted cat crossing a back-yard. +His feet seemed scarcely to touch the dust as he negotiated the open, +yet he had time to take in a fact or two. One was that the stoats had +stopped--a little bunch of peering heads on a group of craning necks on +the edge of the ditch behind him. Another was that several people and +a motor-car were standing still in the road quite close, watching the +shooting. I don't think any of them saw him, but he felt as if all of +them did. + +Arrived in the hedge on the far side of the road, he clapped down, +panting. The hedge ran along the road. On the other side of it was +the grass of the park-land, stretching away two hundred yards or so to +the edge of the covert, which came down to a point here. He could hear +the tapping of sticks in the covert--beaters' sticks. He could hear an +occasional shout. Men in tweeds stood motionless on the edge of the +covert, and suddenly moved. + +Then came the infernal crash of the guns again, and he saw a +hen-pheasant pitch sickeningly on her head from a height, and a +cock-pheasant, flaming like a rocket in the sinking sun, run the +gauntlet of four shots, only to turn over and slide down at a fifth. + +Then--and then, he jumped. + +Something had pushed past him. In the din he had not heard it. He +turned as he crouched, and saw that it was a hen-pheasant, with blood +on her breast and one wing trailing alongside. And in the same instant +he was aware of a man--an under-keeper--crackling about in the hedge +only ten yards away, looking for that hen-pheasant. + +And the unwounded old cock, crouching almost till he looked like a +tortoise, followed the blundering, staggering, wounded hen. It was the +only thing he dared do. + +It was a strange creep, and an erratic one, with many stops, those two +hunted ones took together, meeting, so strangely, too--not for the +first time, since she had been one of his wives in the dim peaceful +past--with the guns thundering away so close, and their sons and their +daughters being slain almost all around them. They had, however, +little time to think about it, for they came, after about twenty yards, +to a gap spanned by barbed wire, and they stopped, the cock about a +foot behind the hen's tail, in cover scarcely enough to hide them. + +But that was not all. Two men in fawn overcoats stood in the road by +the gap, looking through it at the shooting; and a boy with a bicycle +stood close to them, interested in the same thing. + +It was the boy with the bicycle that did it; or, rather, it was the +unhappy hen-pheasant that made him. She, being _in extremis_, had made +some noise among the stiff dead leaves. It was not much of a noise, +but it caught the boy's young ear, and he bent forward to peer at the +hedge. + +One of the men saw him, said something, to which the boy nodded, jumped +down into the ditch, and thrusting in a long arm, began to feel with a +purposeful hand. The hen-pheasant, whose nerves were already shattered +to little pieces, struggled to get out of reach, and in a second had +given the whole show away. + +But I like to think of what our cunning old cock-pheasant did then. He +did nothing--absolutely nothing at all. Crouching as flat as an +overturned saucer, just, behind the hen-pheasant's tail, he remained +stiller than a bunch of dead leaves, and far more silent. And this, +mark you, when the hen-pheasant was pulled out, frantically fluttering +and helpless, and there and then had her neck wrung in front of his +very eyes. That, my masters, needed a nerve, after all that he had +gone through. What? + +The two men, seeming to think that they had got enough for one quiet +walk, departed, not quickly, but without unnecessary delay. The man +who had been looking for the hen-pheasant, and had seen nothing of what +took place at the gap, gave it up, and went away over the grass to the +shooters. The shooting ended with one last double shot, at one last +old cock-pheasant driven reluctantly from the last hush of the covert; +the dogs were out, galloping all over the ground for the wounded and +the slain; the watchers in the road departed; the shooters gradually +merged into groups, and drew farther and farther away up the park; and +the boy, who was shy, mounted his bicycle and rode off into the sad +blue-gray of the gathering dusk. + +The big day was over, and the old cock-pheasant was alone with the +melancholy song of a single robin, and a chaffinch calling "Chink!" +And the cold breath of the sunset wind, shuddering and sighing all to +itself across the face of the empty scene, touched the feathers that +were left by the hen-pheasant attached to thorns and twigs in her last +struggle, so that they danced and wavered and flickered before the old +cock's eyes, as a reminder of all that had been for them in the +past--the past, which for him, but never for her, might be again. + +That night he roosted in the covert, as usual. + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Way of the Wild, by F. 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St. Mars + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Way of the Wild + +Author: F. St. Mars + +Illustrator: Harry Rountree + +Release Date: January 21, 2006 [EBook #17567] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAY OF THE WILD *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<A NAME="img-front"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT=""Jaws, monstrous and wet, grabbing at him in enraged confusion"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="443" HEIGHT="632"> +<H4> +[Frontispiece: "Jaws, monstrous and wet, grabbing at him in enraged confusion"] +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THE WAY OF THE WILD +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +F. ST. MARS +</H2> + +<BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS BY HARRY ROUNTREE +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +NEW YORK +<BR><BR> +FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY +<BR><BR> +PUBLISHERS +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY +<BR><BR> +PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND UNDER THE TITLE "PINION AND PAW" +<BR><BR><BR> +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED +</H5> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H3> + +<CENTER> + +<TABLE WIDTH="80%"> +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap01">GULO THE INDOMITABLE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap02">BLACKIE AND CO.</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap03">UNDER THE YELLOW FLAG</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap04">NINE POINTS OF THE LAW</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap05">PHARAOH</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">THE CRIPPLE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">"SET A THIEF"——</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">THE WHERE IS IT?</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">LAWLESS LITTLE LOVE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap10">THE KING'S SON</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap11">THE HIGHWAYMAN OF THE MARSH</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap12">THE FURTIVE FEUD</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap13">THE STORM PIRATE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIV </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap14">WHEN NIGHTS WERE COLD</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XV </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap15">FATE AND THE FEARFUL</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVI </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap16">THE EAGLES OF LOCH ROYAL</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap17">RATEL, V.C.</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVIII </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap18">THE DAY</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +</CENTER + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +ILLUSTRATIONS +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-front"> +"Jaws, monstrous and wet, grabbing at him in enraged<BR>confusion" . . . +<I>Frontispiece</I> +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-034"> +"The owl had lost a foot on the turn +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-052"> +"A shrew-mouse, thirsting for blood, but who got poison instead" +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-068"> +"This one had simply streaked out of the night from nowhere" +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-090"> +"Landed full upon the dumbfounded water-vole—splash!" +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-098"> +"A 'silver tabby' floated among the twigs, looking for him" +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-150"> +"An angry eagle-owl" +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-190"> +"Turning over and over, in one long, sickening dive back to earth" +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-194"> +"That little black-headed fellow doing the stalking act<BR> +upon that python was great" +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-208"> +"Shooting straight upwards on the top of what appeared <BR> +to have been a submarine mine in a mild form" +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-274"> +"He clutched, and tore, and gulped, and gorged" +</A> +</H3> + +<H3> +<A HREF="#img-296"> +"All allowed that he was the pluckiest beast on earth" +</A> +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THE WAY OF THE WILD +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +GULO THE INDOMITABLE +</H3> + +<P> +If his father had been a brown bear and his mother a badger, the result +in outward appearance would have been Gulo, or something very much like +him. But not all the crossing in the world could have accounted for +his character; that came straight from the Devil, his master. Gulo, +however, was not a cross. He was himself, Gulo, the wolverine, <I>alias</I> +glutton, <I>alias</I> carcajou, <I>alias</I> quick-hatch, <I>alias</I> fjeldfras in +the vernacular, or, officially, <I>Gulo luscus</I>. But, by whatever name +you called him, he did not smell sweet; and his character, too, was of +a bad odor. A great man once said that he was like a bear cub with a +superadded tail; but that great man cannot have seen his face. If he +had, he would have looked for his double among the fiends on the top of +Notre Dame. There was, in fact, nothing like him on this earth, only +in a very hot place not on the earth. +</P> + +<P> +He was, in short, a beast with brains that only man, and no beast, +ought to be trusted with; and he had no soul. God alone knows if love, +which softens most creatures, had ever come to Gulo; his behavior +seemed to show that it had not. Perhaps love was afraid of him. And, +upon my soul, I don't wonder. +</P> + +<P> +It was not, however, a hot, but a very cold, place in the pine-forest +where Gulo stood, and the unpitying moon cast a dainty tracery through +the tasseled roof upon the new and glistening snow around him—the snow +that comes early to those parts—and the north-east wind cut like +several razors. But Gulo did not seem to care. Wrapped up in his +ragged, long, untidy, uncleanly-looking, brown-black cloak—just his +gray-sided, black fiend's face poking out—he seemed warm enough. When +he lifted one paw to scratch, one saw that the murderous, scraping, +long claws of him were nearly white; and as he set his lips in a +devilish grin, his fangs glistened white in the moonlight, too. +</P> + +<P> +Verily, this was no beast—he would have taped four feet and a quarter +from tip to tip, if you had worn chain-mail and dared to measure +him—no beast, I say, to handle with white-kid ball gloves. Things +were possible from him, one felt, that were not possible of any other +living creature—awful things. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly he looked up. The branches above him had stirred uneasily, as +if an army were asleep there. And an army was—of wood-pigeons. +Thousands upon thousands of wood-pigeons were asleep above his head, +come from Heaven knows where, going to—who could tell in the end? +</P> + +<P> +All at once one fell. Without apparent reason or cause, it fell. And +the wolverine, with his quick, intelligent eyes, watched it fall, from +branch to branch, turning over and over—oh! so softly—to the ground. +When he had poked his way to it—walking flat-footed, like a bear or a +railway porter—it was dead. Slain in a breath! Without a flutter, +killed! By what? By disease—diphtheria. But not here would the +terrible drama be worked out. This was but an isolated victim, first +of the thousands that would presently succumb to the fell disease far, +far over there, to the westward, hundreds of miles away, in England and +Wales, perhaps, whither they were probably bound. +</P> + +<P> +But the poor starved corpse, choked to death in the end maybe, was of +no use to the wolverine. As he sniffed it he found that out. The +thing was wasted to the bones even. And turning away from it—he +suddenly "froze" in his tracks where he stood. +</P> + +<P> +One of those little wandering eddies which seem to meander about a +forest in an aimless sort of way, coming from and going now hither, as +if the breeze itself were lost among the still aisles, had touched his +wet muzzle; and its touch spelt—"Man!" +</P> + +<P> +If it had been the taint of ten thousand deaths it could not have +affected him more. He became a beast cast in old, old bronze, and as +hard as bronze; and when he moved, it was stiffly, and all bristly, and +on end. +</P> + +<P> +Animals have no counting of time. In the wild, things happen as +swiftly as a flash of light; or, perhaps, nothing happens at all for a +night, or a day, or half a week. Therefore I do not know exactly how +long that wolverine was encircling that scent, and pinning it down to a +certain spot—himself unseen. All animals, almost, can do that, but +none, not even the lynx or the wild cat, so well as the wolverine. He +is the one mammal that, in the wild, is a name only—a name to conjure +with. +</P> + +<P> +He found, in the end, that there was no man; but there <I>had</I> been. He +found—showing himself again now—that a man—a hunter, a trapper, one +after fur—had made himself here a <I>cache</I>, a store under the earth; +and—well, the wolverine's great, bear-like claws seemed made for +digging. +</P> + +<P> +He dug—and, be sure, if there had been any danger there he would have +known it. He dug like a North-Country miner, with swiftness and +precision, stopping every now and again to sit back on his haunches, +and, with humped shoulders, stare—scowl, I mean—round in his +lowering, low-browed fashion. +</P> + +<P> +Once a bull-elk, nearly a six-footer, but he loomed large as an +elephant, came clacking past between the ranked tree-boles, stopping a +moment to straddle a sapling and browse; while the wolverine, sitting +motionless and wide-legged, watched him. Once a lynx, with its +eternal, set grin, floated by, half-seen, half-guessed, as if a wisp of +wood mist had broken loose and was floating about. Once a fox, +somewhere in the utter silence of the forest depths, barked a hoarse, +sharp, malicious sound; and once, hoarser still and very hollowly, a +great horned owl hooted with disconcerting suddenness. (The scream of +a rabbit followed these two, but whether fox or owl had been in at that +killing the wolverine never knew.) Twice a wood-hare turning now to +match the whiteness of its surroundings, finicked up one of the still, +silent forest lanes towards him, stopped, faced half-round, sat +"frozen" for a fraction, and vanished as if it were a puff of +wind-caught snow. (And, really, one had no idea till now that the +always apparently lifeless forest could have been so full of life in +the dark hours.) +</P> + +<P> +But all these things made no difference to the wolverine, to Gulo, +though he "froze" with habitual care to watch them—for your wild +creature rarely takes chances. Details must never be overlooked in the +wild. He dug on, and in digging came right to the <I>cache</I>, roofed and +anchored all down, safe beyond any invasion, with tree-trunks. +And—and, mark you, not being able to pull tree-trunks out of the +ground, and being too large to squeeze between them, he gnawed through +one! Gnawed through it, he did, and came down to the bazaar below. +</P> + +<P> +So far, he had been only beast. Now we see why I said he had more +brains than were good for any animal except man. +</P> + +<P> +He bit through the canvas, or whatever it was that protected the +<I>cached</I> articles. He got his head inside. He felt about +purposefully, and backed out, dragging a trap with him. With it he +removed into the inky shadows, and it was never found again. +</P> + +<P> +He returned. He thrust his head in a second time, got hold of +something, and backed out. It was another trap, and with it he +vanished also; and it, too, was never found. He returned, and went, +and a third trap went with him. +</P> + +<P> +The fourth investigation revealed an ax. It he partly buried. The +fifth yielded a bag of flour, which he tore up and scattered all over +the place. The sixth inroad produced a haunch of venison, off which he +dined. The seventh showed another haunch, and this he buried somewhere +unseen in the shades. The eighth overhaul gave up some rope, in which +he nearly got himself entangled, and which he finally carried away, +bitten and frayed past use. The ninth search rewarded him with tea, +which he scattered, and bacon, which he buried. +</P> + +<P> +What he could not drag out, he scattered. What he failed to remove, he +defiled. And, at last, when he had made of the place, not an orderly +<I>cache</I>, but a third-rate <I>débâcle</I>, he sauntered, always slouching, +always grossly untidy, hump-backed, stooping, low-headed, and +droop-tailed, shabbily unrespectable, out into the night, and the +darkness of the night, under the trees. +</P> + +<P> +By the time day dawned he was as if he never had been—a memory, no +more. Heaven knows where he was! +</P> + +<P> +Gulo appeared quite suddenly and very early, for him, next afternoon, +beside some tangled brush on the edge of a clearing. He was sitting +up, almost bolt-upright, and he was shading his eyes with his forepaws. +A man could not have done more. And, in fact, he did not look like an +animal at all, but like some diabolically uncouth dwarf of the woods. +</P> + +<P> +A squirrel was telling him, from a branch near by, just what everybody +thought of his disgraceful appearance; and two willow-grouse were +clucking at him from some hazel-tops; whilst a raven, black as coal +against the white of the woods, jabbed in gruff and very rude remarks +from time to time. +</P> + +<P> +But Gulo was taking no notice of them. He was used to attentions of +that kind; it was a little compliment—of hate—they all paid him. He +was looking persistently down the ranked, narrowing perspective of the +buttressed forest glade to where it faded in the blue-gray mist, +southward, as if he expected something to come from there. Something +was coming from there now; and there had been a faint, uneasy sort of +whisper in that direction for some time. Now it was unmistakable. +</P> + +<P> +A cow-elk, first of the wary ones to move on alarm, came trotting by, +her Roman nose held well out; a red-deer hind, galloping lightly like +some gigantic hare, her big ears turned astern; a wolf, head up, +hackles alift, alternately loping and pivoting, to listen and look +back, a wild reindeer, trotting heavily, but far more quickly than he +seemed to be—all these passed, now on one side, now on the other, +often only glimpses between the tree-boles, while the wolverine sat up +and shaded his eyes with his paws. Something was moving those beasts, +those haunters of the forest, and no little thing either. Something? +What? +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Very softly down the glade runs a waiting, watching shade,<BR> + And the whisper spreads and widens far and near;<BR> +And the sweat is on thy brow, for he passes even now—<BR> + He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Down came Gulo in that grim silence which was, except for his domestic +arguments, characteristic of the beast, and trotted to a pool hard by. +The pool was spring-fed, and covered, as to every dead leaf and stone, +with fine green moss of incomparable softness. He drank swiftly and +long, then flung about with a half-insolent, half-aggressive wave of +his tail, and set off at a rolling, clumsy, shuffling shamble. +</P> + +<P> +At ordinary times that deceiving gait would have left nearly everything +behind, but this afternoon it was different. Gulo had barely shed the +shelter of the dotted thickets before he realized, and one saw, the +fact. He broke his trot. He began to plunge. Nevertheless, he got +along. There was pace, of a sort. Certainly there was much effort. +He would have outdistanced you or me easily in no time, but it was not +you or I that came, and who could tell how fast that something might +travel? +</P> + +<P> +The trouble was the snow—that was the rub, and a very big and serious +rub, too, for him. Now, if the snow had been a little less it would +not have mattered—a little more, and he could have run easily along +the hard crust of it; but it was as it was, only about two feet, just +enough to retard him, and no more. And it is then, when the snow is +like that, just above a couple of feet deep, that man can overtake +friend wolverine—if he knows the way. Most men don't. On that he +trusted. At any other time—but this was not any other time. +</P> + +<P> +Sound carries a long way in those still parts, and as he hurried Gulo +heard, far, far behind in the forest, the faint, distant whir of a +cock-capercailzie—the feathered giant of the woods—rising. It was +only a whisper, almost indistinguishable to our ears, but enough, quite +enough, for him. Taken in conjunction with the mysterious shifting of +the elk and the red deer and the reindeer and the wolf, it was more +than enough. He increased his pace, and for the first time fear shone +in his eyes—it was for the first time, too, in his life, I think. +</P> + +<P> +A lynx passed him, bounding along on enormous, furry legs. It looked +all legs, and as it turned its grinning countenance to look at him he +cursed it fluently, with a sudden savage growl, envious, perhaps, of +its long, springing hindlegs. Something, too—the same something—must +have moved the lynx, and Gulo shifted the faster for the knowledge. +</P> + +<P> +Half-an-hour passed, an hour slid by, and all the time Gulo kicked the +miles behind him, with that dogged persistency that was part of his +character. Nothing had passed him for quite a while, and he was all +alone in the utterly still, silent forest and the snow, pad-pad-padding +along like a moving, squat machine rather than a beast. +</P> + +<P> +At last he stopped, and, spinning round, sat up. A gray-blue haze, +like the color on a wood-pigeon, was creeping over everything, except +in the west, where the sky held a faint, luminous, pinky tinge that +foretold frost. It was very cold, and the snow, which had never quite +left off, was falling now only in single, big, wandering flakes. The +silence was almost terrifying. +</P> + +<P> +Then, as Gulo sat up, from far away, but not quite so far away, his +rounded ears, almost buried in fur, caught faintly—very, very +faintly—a sound that brought him down on all fours, and sent him away +again at a gallop with a strange new light burning in his little, +wide-set eyes. It was the unmistakable sound of a horse +sneezing—once. Gulo did not wait to hear if it sneezed twice. He was +gone in an instant. Man, it seemed, had not been long in answering +that challenge of the <I>cache</I> escapade. +</P> + +<P> +After that there was no such thing as time at all, only an everlasting +succession of iron-hard tree-trunks sliding by, and shadows—they ran +when they saw him, some of them, or gathered to stare with eyes that +glinted—dancing past. The moon came and hung itself up in the +heavens, mocking him with a pitiless, stark glare. (He would have +given his right forepaw for a black night and a blinding snowstorm.) +It almost seemed as if they were all laughing at him, Gulo the dreaded, +the hated hater, because it was his turn at last, who had so freely +dealt in it, to know fear. +</P> + +<P> +Hours passed certainly, hours upon hours, and still, his breath coming +quickly and less easily now with every mile, Gulo stuck to the job of +putting the landscape behind him with that grim pertinacity of his that +was almost fine. +</P> + +<P> +At last the trees stopped abruptly, and he was heading, straighter than +crows fly, across a plain. The plain undulated a little, like a sea, a +dead sea, of spotless white, with nothing alive upon it—only his +hunched, slouching, untidy, squat form and his shadow, "pacing" him. +At the top of the highest undulation he stopped, and glowered back +along the trail. +</P> + +<P> +Ahead, the forest, starting again, showed as a black band a quarter of +an inch high. Behind, the forest he had already left lay dwarfed in a +ruled, serried line. But that was not all. Something was moving out +upon the spotless plain of snow, something which appeared to be no more +than crawling, ant-like, but was really traveling very fast. It looked +like a smudged dot, nothing more; but it was a horse, really, galloping +hard, with a light sleigh, and a man in it, behind. The horse had no +bells, and it was not a reindeer as usual. Pace was wanted here, and +the snow was not deep enough to impede the horse, who possessed the +required speed under such conditions. +</P> + +<P> +The horse had been trotting along the trail, till it came to the place +where Gulo had looked back and heard the sneeze, and knew he was being +followed. Then it had started to gallop, and, with ears back and teeth +showing, had never ceased to gallop. This, apparently, was not the +first wolverine that horse had trailed. It seemed to have a personal +grudge against the whole fell clan of wolverine, and to be bent upon +trampling Gulo to death. +</P> + +<P> +Gulo watched it for about one quarter of a second. Then he quitted, +and the speed he had put up previously was nothing to that which he +showed now—uselessly. And, far behind him, the man in the sleigh drew +out his rifle from under the fur rugs. He judged that the time had +about come. The end was very near. +</P> + +<P> +But he judged wrong. Gulo made the wood at length. With eyes of dull +red, and breath coming in short, rending sobs, he got in among the +trees. He did it, though the feat seemed impossible, for the trees had +been so very far away. Got in among the trees—yes, but dead-beat, +and—to what end? To be "treed" ignominiously and calmly shot down, +picked off like a squirrel on a larch-pole. That was all. And that +was the orthodox end, the end the man took for granted. +</P> + +<P> +In a few minutes the horse was in the forest too, was close behind +Gulo. In spite of the muffling effect of snow, his expectant ears +could hear the quadruple thud of the galloping hoofs, and— +</P> + +<P> +Hup! Whuff! Biff-biff! Grrrrrr! Grr-ur-ururrh! Grrrr-urr! +</P> + +<P> +It had all happened quick as a flash of light. A huge, furry, reeking +mass rising right in the wolverine's path from behind a tree, towering +over him, almost mountainous to his eyes, like the very shape of doom! +Himself hurling sideways, and rolling over and over, snarling, to +prevent the crowning disaster of collision with this terrible portent! +A blow, two blows, with enormous paws whose claws gleamed like skewers, +whistling half-an-inch above his ducked head! Jaws, monstrous and wet, +grabbing at him in enraged confusion, and rumblings deep down in the +inside of the thing that ran cold lightning-sparks all up his spine. +That was what Gulo saw and heard. +</P> + +<P> +The wolverine rolled, clawing and biting, three times, and without a +pause sprang to his feet again, and leapt madly clear, stumbled on a +hidden tree-root, rolled over again twice, and up, and hurled, +literally with his last gasp and effort, headlong through the air +behind a tree-bole, where he remained all asprawl and motionless, +except for his heaving sides, too utterly done at last for <I>any</I> terror +to move him. +</P> + +<P> +There followed instantly a horse's wild snort; another; a shout; the +crack of a rifle cutting the silence as a knife cuts a taut string; +another crack; an awful, hoarse growl; the furious thudding of horse's +hoofs stampeding and growing fainter and fainter; and an appalling +series of receding, short, coughing, terrifying, grunting roars. Then +silence and utter stillness only, and the cold, calm moon staring down +over all. +</P> + +<P> +Gulo picked himself up after a bit, and slouched round the tree to +investigate. He found tracks there, and blood; and the tracks were the +biggest footprints of a bear—a brown bear—that he had ever come +across, and I suppose that he must have sniffed at a few in his time. +</P> + +<P> +Presumably the man had fired at the bear when the startled horse shied. +Presumably, too, the bear was hit. He had gone straight away in the +track of horse and man, anyway, and—he had saved the wolverine's life, +after, with paw and teeth, doing his best to end it. Possibly he had +been disturbed in the process of making his winter home. +</P> + +<P> +Gulo lay low, or hunted very furtively, after that for some time, until +it was little less dark in the east than it had been, and the gaunt +tree-trunks were standing out a fraction from the general gloom. The +moon had apparently nearly burnt itself out. Still, it yet appeared to +be night. +</P> + +<P> +Gulo was a long way out of his own hunting-district, and guessed that +it was about time for him to get himself out of sight. He had a +passionate hatred of the day, by the way, even beyond most night +hunters. +</P> + +<P> +On the way he smelt out and dug up a grouse beneath the snow. +</P> + +<P> +Dawn found him, or, rather, failed to find him, hidden under a tangled +mass that was part windfall, part brush-wood, and part snow. The place +had belonged to a fox the night before, and that red worthy returned +soon after dawn. He thrust an inquiring sharp muzzle inside, took one +sniff, and, with every hair alift, retired in haste, without waiting to +hear the villainous growl that followed him. The smell was enough for +him—a most calamitous stink. +</P> + +<P> +It snowed all that day, and things grew quieter and quieter, except in +the tree-tops, where the wind spoke viciously between its teeth. When +Gulo came out that evening, he had to dig part of the way, and he +viewed a still and silent, white world, under a sky like the lid of a +lead box, very low down. He stood higher against the tree-trunks than +he had done the night before, and, though he did not know it, was safe +from any horse, for the snow was quite deep. The cold was awful, but +it did not seem to trouble him, as he slouched slowly southward. +</P> + +<P> +There appeared to be nothing alive at all throughout this white land, +but you must never trust to that in the wild. Things there are very +rarely what they seem. For instance, Gulo came into a clearing, dim +under the night sky, though it would never be dark that night. To the +ear and the eye that clearing was as empty as a swept room. To Gulo's +nose it was not, and he was just about to crouch and execute a stalk, +when half the snow seemed to get up and run away. The runners were +wood-hares. They had "frozen" stiff on the alarm from their sentries. +But it was not Gulo who had caused them to depart. Him, behind a tree, +they had not spotted. Something remained—something that moved. And +Gulo saw it when it moved—not before. It was an ermine, a stoat in +winter dress, white as driven snow. Then it caught sight of Gulo, or, +more likely, the gleam of his eyes, and departed also. +</P> + +<P> +Gulo slouched on, head down, back humped, tail low, a most +dejected-looking, out-at-heels tramp of the wilderness. +</P> + +<P> +Once he came upon a wild cat laying scientific siege to a party of +grouse. The grouse were nowhere to be seen; nor was the wild cat, +after Gulo announced his intention to break his neutrality. Gulo knew +where the grouse were. He dug down into the snow, and came upon a +tunnel. He dug farther, and came upon other tunnels, round and clean, +in the snow. All the tunnels smelt of grouse, but devil a grouse could +he find. He had come a bit early. It was as yet barely night, and he +should have waited till later, when they would be more asleep. +However, he dug on along the tunnels, driving the grouse before him. +And then a strange thing happened. About three yards ahead of him the +snow burst—burst, I say, like a six-inch shell, upwards. There was a +terrific commotion, a wild, whirring, whirling smother, a cloud of +white, and away went five birds, upon heavily beating wings, into the +gathering gloom. Gulo went away, too, growling deep down inside of, +and to, himself. +</P> + +<P> +He was hungry, was Gulo. Indeed, there did not seem to be many times +when he was not hungry. Also, being angry—not even a wild animal +likes failure—he was seeking a sacrifice; but he had crossed the +plain, which the night before had been as a nightmare desert to him, +and the moon was up before his chance came. +</P> + +<P> +He crossed the trail of the reindeer. He did not know anything about +those reindeer, mark you, whether they were wild or semi-tame; and <I>I</I> +do not know, though <I>he</I> may have done, how old the trail was. It was +sufficient for him that they <I>were</I> reindeer, and that they had +traveled in the general direction that he wanted to go. For the +rest—he had the patience, perhaps more than the patience, of a cat, +the determination of a bulldog, and the nose of a bloodhound. He +trailed those reindeer the better part of that night, and most of the +time it snowed, and part of the time it snowed hard. +</P> + +<P> +By the time a pale, frozen dawn crept weakly over the forest tree-tops +Gulo must have been well up on the trail of that herd, and he had +certainly traveled an astonishing way. He had dug up one lemming—a +sort of square-ended relation of the rat, with an abbreviated tail—and +pounced upon one pigmy owl, scarce as large as a thrush, which he did +not seem to relish much—perhaps owl is an acquired taste—before he +turned a wild cat out of its lair—to the accompaniment of a whole +young riot of spitting and swearing—and curled up for the day. +</P> + +<P> +He was hungry when he went to sleep. Also, it was snowing then. When +he woke up it was almost dark, and snowing worse than ever. If it +could have been colder, it was. +</P> + +<P> +While he cleaned himself Gulo took stock of the outside prospect, so +far as the white curtain allowed to sight, and by scent a good deal +that it did not. This without appearing outside the den, you +understand. And if there had been any enemy in hiding, waiting for him +outside, he would have discovered the fact then. He had many enemies, +and no friends, had Gulo. All that he received from all whom he met +was hate, but he gave back more than he got. In the lucid terms of the +vernacular, he "was a hard un, if you like." +</P> + +<P> +Nothing and nobody saw the wolverine leave that lair that was not his. +He must have chosen one blinding squall of snow for the purpose, and +was half a mile away, still on the track of the reindeer, before he +showed himself—shuffling along as usual, a ragged, hard-bitten +ruffian. And three hours later he came up with his prey. +</P> + +<P> +Gulo knew it, but nobody else could have done. There were just the +straight trees ahead, and all around the eternal white, frozen silence, +and the snow falling softly over everything; but Gulo was as certain +that there was the herd close ahead as he was that he was ravenous. +And thereafter Gulo got to work, the peculiar work, a special devilish +genius for which appears to be given to the wolverine. +</P> + +<P> +He ceased to exist. At least, nothing of him was seen, not a tail, not +an eye-gleam. Yet during the next two hours he learnt everything, +private and public, there was to be learnt. Also, he had been over the +surroundings almost to a yard. Nothing could have escaped him. No +detail of risk and danger, of the chance of being seen even, had been +overlooked; for he was a master at his craft, the greatest master in +the wild, perhaps. The wolf? My dear sirs, the wolf was an innocent +suckling cub beside Gulo, look you, and his brain and his cunning were +not the brain and the cunning of a beast at all, but of a devil. +</P> + +<P> +When, after a very long time, he reappeared upon his original track, it +was as a dark blotch, indistinguishable from a dozen other dark blots +of moon-shadow, creeping forward belly-flat in the snow. This +belly-creep, hugging always every available inch of cover, he kept up +till he came to a big clearing, and—there were the reindeer. At +least, there was one reindeer, a doe, standing with her back towards +him—a quite young doe. The rest were half-hidden in the snow, which +they had trampled into a maze of paths in and out about the clearing, +which was, in fact, what is called their "yard." +</P> + +<P> +A minute of tense silence followed after Gulo had got as close as he +could without being seen. Then he rushed. +</P> + +<P> +The reindeer swung half-round, gave one snort, and a great bound. But +Gulo had covered half the intervening space before she knew, and when +she bounded it was with him hanging on to her. +</P> + +<P> +Followed instantly a wild upspringing of snorting beasts, and a mad, +senseless stampede of floundering deer all round and about the +clearing—a fearful mix-up, somewhere in the midst of which, +half-hidden by flying, finely powdered snow, Gulo did his prey horribly +to death. +</P> + +<P> +There was something ghastly about this murder, for the deer was so big, +and Gulo comparatively small. The fearful work of his jaws and his +immense strength seemed wrong somehow, and out of all proportion to his +size. This remarkable power of his jaws had that sinister +disproportion only paralleled by the power of the jaws of a hyena; +indeed, his teeth very much resembled a hyena's teeth. +</P> + +<P> +With the deer rushing all around him, Gulo fed, ravenously and +horribly, but not for long. A new light smoldered in his eyes now as +he lifted his carmine snout, and one saw that, for the moment, the +beast was mad, crazed with the lust of killing, seeing red, and blinded +by blood. +</P> + +<P> +Then the massacre began. It was not a hunt, because each deer, +thinking only of itself, feared to break from the trodden mazy path of +the "yard," and risk the slow, helpless, plunging progress necessary in +the deep snow. Wherefore panic took them all over again, and they +dashed, often colliding, generally hindering each other, hither and +thither, up and down the paths of the "yard" with the hopeless, +helpless, senseless, blind abandon of sheep. The result was a shambles. +</P> + +<P> +This part we skip. Probably—nay, certainly—Nature knows best, and is +quite well aware what she is up to, and it is perhaps not meant that we +should put her in the limelight in her grisly moods. Suffice it to say +that Gulo seemed to stop at length, simply because even he could not +"see red" forever, and with exhaustion returned sense, and with +sense—in his case—in-born caution. He removed, leaving a certain +number of reindeer bleeding upon the ground. Some of them were dead. +</P> + +<P> +In an hour dawn would be conspiring to show him up before the world, +and he was not a beast sweet to look upon at that moment—indeed, at +any moment, but less so now. +</P> + +<P> +Now, it is surprising how far a wolverine can shift his clumsy-looking +body over snow in an hour, especially if he has reasons. This one had +good reasons, and he was no fool. He knew quite well the kind of +little hell he had made for himself behind there, and he did not stay +to let the snow cover him. He traveled as if he were a machine and +knew no fatigue; and the end of that journey was a hole in a hollow +among rocks. +</P> + +<P> +Dawn was throwing a wan light upon all things when he thrust his short, +sharp muzzle inside that hole, to be met by a positively hair-raising +volley of rasping, vicious growls. +</P> + +<P> +He promptly ripped out a string of ferocious, dry, harsh growls in +return, and for half-a-minute the air became full of growls, horrible +and blood-curdling, each answering each. +</P> + +<P> +Then he lurched in over the threshold, and coolly dodged a thick paw, +with tearing white claws, that whipped at him with a round-arm stroke +out of the pitch-darkness. The stroke was repeated, scraping, but in +nowise hurting his matted coat, as he rose on his hindlegs and threw +himself upon the striker. +</P> + +<P> +Followed a hectic thirty seconds of simply diabolical noises, while the +two rolled upon the ground, grappling fiendishly in the darkness. Then +they parted, got up, growled one final roll of fury at each other, fang +to fang, and, curling up, went to sleep. But it was nothing, only the +quite usual greeting between Gulo and his wife. They were a sweet +couple. +</P> + +<P> +There appeared to be no movement, or any least sign of awakening, on +the part of either of the couple between that moment and sometime in +the afternoon, when, so far as one could see, Gulo suddenly rolled +straight from deep sleep out on to the snow, and away without a sound, +at his indescribable shamble and at top speed. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Gulo executed precisely the same amazing maneuver, and at exactly +the same moment, as far as could be seen, on the other side, and +shuffled off into the forest. They gave no explanation for so doing. +They said never a word—nothing. One moment they were curled up, +asleep; the next they had gone, scampered, apparently into the land of +the spirits, and were no more. Nor did there seem to be any reason for +this extraordinary conduct except—except—— Well, it is true that a +willow-grouse, white as the snowy branch he sat upon, <I>did</I> start +clucking somewhere in the dim tree regiments, a snipe did come +whistling sadly over the tree-tops, and a raven, jet against the white, +did flap up, barking sharply, above the pointed pine-tops; but that was +nothing—to us. To the wolverines it was everything, a whole wireless +message in the universal code of the wild, and they had read it <I>in +their sleep</I>. Through their slumbers it had spelt into their brains, +and instantly snapped into action that wonderful, faultless machinery +that moved them to speed as if automatically. +</P> + +<P> +Then the chase began, grim, steady, relentless, dogged—the chase of +death, the battle of endurance. +</P> + +<P> +A pause followed after the vanishing of the hated wolverines. A crow +lifted on rounded vans, marking their departure, and it was seen. A +blackcock launched from a high tree with a whir and a bluster like an +aeroplane, showing their course, and it was noted. An eagle climbed +heavily and ponderously over the low curtain of the snow mist, pointing +their way, and it was followed. All the wild, all the world, seemed to +be against the wolverines. The brigands were afoot by day. The scouts +were marking their trail. +</P> + +<P> +Then a lynx, moving with great bounds on his huge swathed paws, shot +past between the iron-hard tree-boles; a fox followed, scudding like +the wind on the frozen crest; a hare, white as a waste wraith, flashed +by, swift as a racing white cloud-shadow; a goshawk screamed, and drew +a straight streaking line across a glade. And then came the men, side +by side, deadly dumb, with set faces, the pale sun glinting coldly +cruel upon the snaky, lean barrels of their slung rifles, moving with +steady, fleet, giant strides on their immense spidery ski that were +eleven feet long, which whispered ghostily among the silent aisles of +Nature's cathedral of a thousand columns. The Brothers were on the +death-trail of Gulo at last; the terrible, dreaded Brothers, who could +overtake a full-grown wolf in under thirty minutes on ski, and whose +single bullet spelt certain death. Now for it; now for the fight. Now +for the great test of the "star" wild outlaw against the "star" human +hunters—at last. The reindeer were to be avenged. +</P> + +<P> +Then Time took the bit of silence between his teeth and seconds became +hours, and minutes generations. +</P> + +<P> +No sound made the wolverines as they rolled along in Indian file, +except for the soft whisper of the snow underfoot. +</P> + +<P> +No noise encompassed the Brothers as they sped swiftly side by side +over the glittering white carpet, save for the slither of the snow +under their weight. +</P> + +<P> +All the wild seemed to be standing still, holding its breath, looking +on, spell-bound; and save for the occasional crash of a collapsing +snow-laden branch, sounding magnified as in a cave, all the forest +about there was as still as death. +</P> + +<P> +Half-an-hour passed, and Gulo flung his head around, glancing over his +shoulder a little uneasily, but with never a trace of fear in his +bloodshot eyes. Then he grunted, and the two fell apart silently and +instantly, gradually getting farther and farther from each other on a +diverging course, till his wife faded out among the trees. But never +for an instant did either of them check that tireless, deceptive, +clumsy, rolling slouch, that slid the trees behind, as telegraph-poles +slide behind the express carriage window. +</P> + +<P> +Half-an-hour passed, and one of the Brothers, peering up and along the +trail a little anxiously, saw the forking of the line ahead. Then he +grunted, and the two promptly separated without a word, gradually +increasing the distance between them on the widening fork till they +were lost to each other among the marshaled trunks. But never for an +instant did they relax that swift, ghostly glide on the wonderful ski, +that slid the snow underfoot as a racing motor spins over the ruts. +</P> + +<P> +An hour passed. Sweat was breaking out in beads upon the faces of the +Brothers, now miles apart, but both going in the same general direction +over the endless wastes of snow, and upon their faces was beginning to +creep the look of that pain that strong men unbeaten feel who see a +beating in sight; but never for a moment did they slacken their swift, +mysterious glide. +</P> + +<P> +An hour passed. Foam began to fleck the evilly up-lifted lips +glistening back to the glistening fangs of the wolverines, now miles +apart, but still heading in the same general line, and upon their faces +began to set a look of fiends under torture; but never for a moment did +they check their indescribable shuffling slouch. +</P> + +<P> +After that all was a nightmare, blurred and horrible, in which endless +processions of trees passed dimly, interspersed with aching blanks of +dazzling white that blinded the starting eyes, and man and beast +stumbled more than once as they sobbed along, forcing each leg forward +by sheer will alone. +</P> + +<P> +At last, on the summit of a hog-backed, bristling ridge, Gulo stopped +and looked back, scowling and peering under his low brows. Beneath +him, far away, the valley lay like a white tablecloth, all dotted with +green pawns, and the pawns were trees. But he was not looking for +them. His keen eyes were searching for movement, and he saw it after a +bit, a dot that crept, and crept, and crept, and—<I>stopped</I>! +</P> + +<P> +Gulo sat up, shading his eyes against the watery sun with his forepaws, +watching as perhaps he had never watched in his life before. +</P> + +<P> +For a long, long while, it seemed to him, that dot remained there +motionless, far, far away down in the valley, and then at length, +slowly, so slowly that at first the movement was not perceptible, it +turned about and began to creep away—creep, creep, creep away by the +trail it had come. +</P> + +<P> +Gulo watched it till it was out of sight, fading round a bend of the +hills into a dark, dotted blur that was woods. Then he dropped on all +fours, and breathed one great, big, long, deep breath. That dot was +the one of the Brothers that had been hunting him. +</P> + +<P> +And almost at the same moment, five miles away, his wife had just +succeeded in swimming a swift and ice-choked river. She was standing +on the bank, watching another dot emerge into the lone landscape, and +that dot was the other one of the Brothers. +</P> + +<P> +They had failed to avenge the reindeer, and the wolverines were safe. +Safe? Bah! Wild creatures are never safe. Nature knows better than +that, since by safety comes degeneration. +</P> + +<P> +There was a warning—an instant's rustling hissing in the air +above—less than an instant's. But that was all, and for the first +time in his life—perhaps because he was tired, fagged—Gulo failed to +take it. And you must never fail to take a warning if you are a wild +creature, you know! There are no excuses in Nature. +</P> + +<P> +Retribution was swift. Gulo yelled aloud—and he was a dumb beast, +too, as a rule, but I guess the pain was excruciating—as a hooked +stiletto, it appeared, stabbed through fur, through skin, deep down +through flesh, right into his back, clutching, gripping vise-like. +Another stiletto, hooked, too, worse than the first one, beat at his +skull, tore at his scalp, madly tried to rip out his eyes. Vast +overshadowing pinions—as if they were the wings of Azrael—hammered in +his face, smothering him, beating him down. +</P> + +<P> +Ah, but I have seen some fights, yet never such a fight as that; and +never again do I want to see such a fight as the one between Gulo and +the golden eagle that made a mistake in his pride of power. +</P> + +<P> +All the awful, cruel, diabolical, clever, devilish, and yet almost +human fury that was in that old brute of a Gulo flamed out in him at +that moment, and he fought as they fight who go down to hell. It was +frightful. It was terrifying. Heaven alone knows what the eagle +thought he had got his claws into. It was like taking hold of a flash +of forked lightning by the point. It was—great! +</P> + +<P> +Still, flight <I>is</I> flight, and lifting-power is lifting-power. Gulo, +even Gulo, could not get over that. He could not stop those vast vans +from flapping; and as they flapped they rose, the eagle rose, +he—though it was like the skinning of his back alive—rose too, +wriggling ignominiously, raging, foaming, snapping, kicking, but—he +rose. +</P> + +<P> +Slowly, very slowly, the great bird lifted his terrible prey up and +up—ten, twenty, thirty, forty feet, but no higher. That was the limit +of his lift, the utmost of his strength; and at that height parallel +with the ridge, he began to carry the wolverine along, the wolverine +that was going mad with rage in his grasp. +</P> + +<P> +It was a mistake, of course—a mistake for the wolverine to be out on +the open ridge in stark daylight; another mistake for the eagle, +presuming on his fine, lustful pride of strength, to attack him. +</P> + +<P> +And then suddenly Gulo got his chance. It hit him bang in the face, +nearly blinding him as it passed—the tree-top. Like lightning Gulo's +jaws clashed shut upon it, his claws gripped, and—he thought his back +was going to come off whole. But he stuck it. He was not called Gulo +the Indomitable for nothing. And the eagle stopped too. He had to, +for he would not let go; nor would Gulo. +</P> + +<P> +An awful struggle followed, in the middle of which the pine-top broke, +gave way, and, before either seemed to know quite what was happening, +down they both came, crashing from branch to branch, to earth. +</P> + +<P> +The fall broke the king of the birds' hold, but not the fighting fury +of the most hated of all the beasts. He rose up, half-blind, almost +senseless, but mad with rage beyond any conception of fury, did old +Gulo, and he hurled himself upon that eagle. +</P> + +<P> +What happened then no man can say. There was just one furious mix-up +of whirling, powdered snow, that hung in the air like a mist, out of +which a great pinion, a clawing paw, a snapping beak, a flash of fangs, +a skinny leg and clutching, talons, a circling bushy tail appeared and +vanished in flashes, to the accompaniment of stupendous flappings and +abominably wicked growls. +</P> + +<BR> +<HR WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center"> +<BR> + +<P> +That night the lone wolf, scouting along the ridge-top, stopped to +sniff intelligently at the scattered, torn eagle's feathers lying about +in the trampled snow, at the blood, at the one skinny, mailed, mightily +taloned claw still clutching brown-black, rusty fur and red skin; at +the unmistakable flat-footed trail of Gulo, the wolverine, leading away +to the frowning, threatening blackness of the woods. He could +understand it all, that wolf. Indeed, it was written there quite +plainly for such as could read. He read, and he passed on. He did not +follow Gulo's bloody trail. No—oh, dear, no! Probably, quite +probably, he had met Gulo the Indomitable before, and—was not that +enough? +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BLACKIE AND CO. +</H3> + + +<P> +Blackie flung himself into the fight like a fiery fiend cut from coal. +He did not know what the riot was about—and cared less. He only knew +that the neutrality of his kingdom was broken. Some one was fighting +over his borders; and when fighting once begins, you never know where +it may end! (This is an axiom.) Therefore he set himself to stop it +at once, lest worse should befall. +</P> + +<P> +He found two thrushes apparently in the worst stage of d.t.'s. One was +on his back; the other was on the other's chest. Both were in a +laurel-bush, half-way up, and apparently they kept there, and did not +fall, through a special dispensation of Providence. Both fought like +ten devils, <I>and both sang</I>. That was the stupefying part, the song. +It was choked, one owns; it was inarticulate, half-strangled with rage, +but still it <I>was</I> song. +</P> + +<P> +A cock-chaffinch and a hen-chaffinch were perched on two twigs higher +up, and were peering down at the grappling maniacs. Also two blue +titmice had just arrived to see what was up, and a sparrow and one +great tit were hurrying to the spot—all on Blackie's "beat," on +Blackie's very own hunting-ground. Apparently a trouble of that kind +concerned everybody, or everybody thought it did. +</P> + +<P> +Blackie arrived upon the back of the upper and, presumably, winning +thrush with a bang that removed that worthy to the ground quite +quickly, and in a heap. The second thrush fetched up on a lower +branch, and by the time the first had ceased to see stars he had +apparently regained his sanity. He beheld Blackie above him, and fled. +Perhaps he had met Blackie, professionally, before, I don't know. He +fled, anyway, and Blackie helped him to flee faster than he bargained +for. +</P> + +<P> +By the time Blackie had got back, the first thrush was sitting on a +branch in a dazed and silly condition, like a fowl that has been waked +up in the night. Blackie presented him with a dig gratis from his +orange dagger, and he nearly fell in fluttering to another branch. And +Blackie flew away, chuckling. He knew that, so far as that thrush was +concerned, there would be no desire to see any more fighting for some +time. +</P> + +<P> +But, all the same, Blackie was not pleased. He was worked off his feet +providing rations for three ugly youngsters in a magnificently designed +and exquisitely worked and interwoven edifice, interlined with rigid +cement of mud, which we, in an off-hand manner, simply dismiss as "A +nest." The young were his children; they might have been +white-feathered angels with golden wings, by the value he put on them. +The thrush episode was only a portent, and not the first. He had no +trouble with the other feathered people he tolerated on his beat. +</P> + +<P> +Blackie went straight to the lawn. (Jet and orange against deep green +was the picture.) +</P> + +<P> +Now, if you and I had searched that dry lawn with magnifying-glasses, +in the heat of the sun, there and then, we should not have found a +single worm, not the hint or the ghost of one; yet that bird took three +long, low hops, made some quick motion with his beak—I swear it never +seemed to touch the ground, even, let alone dig—-executed a kind of +jump in the air—some say he used his legs in the air—and there he was +with a great, big, writhing horror of a worm as big as a snake (some +snakes). +</P> + +<P> +Thrushes bang their worms about to make them see sense and give in; +they do it many times. Blackie banged his giant only a little once or +twice, and then not savagely, like a thrush. Also, again, he may or +may not have used his feet. Moreover, he gave up two intervals to +surveying the world against any likely or unlikely stalking death. Yet +that worm shut up meekly in most unworm-like fashion, and Blackie cut +it up into pieces. The whole operation took nicely under sixty seconds. +</P> + +<P> +Blackie gave no immediate explanation why he had reduced his worm to +sections. It did not seem usual. Instead, he eyed the hedge, eyed the +sky, eyed the surroundings. Nothing seemed immediately threatening, +and he hopped straight away about three yards, where instantly, he +conjured another and a smaller worm out of nowhere. With this +unfortunate horror he hopped back to the unnice scene of the first +worm's decease, and carved that second worm up in like manner. Then he +peeked up all the sections of both worms, packing them into his beak +somehow, and flew off. And the robin who was watching him didn't even +trouble to fly down to the spot and see if he had left a joint behind. +He knew his blackbird, it seemed. +</P> + +<P> +Blackie flew away to his nest, but not to a nest in a hedge. To dwell +in a hedge was a rule of his clan, but the devil a rule did he obey. +Nests in hedges for other blackbirds, perhaps. He, or his wife, had +different notions. Wherefore flew he away out into the grass field +behind the garden. Men had been making excavations there, for what mad +man-purpose troubled him not—digging a drain or something. No matter. +</P> + +<P> +Into the excavation he slipped—-very, very secretly, so that nobody +could have seen him go there—and down to the far end, where, twelve +feet below the surface, on a ledge of wood, where the sides were shored +with timber, his mate had her nest. Here he delivered over his carved +joints to the three ugly creatures which he knew as his children and +thought the world of, and appeared next flying low and quickly back to +the garden. That is to say, he had contrived to slip from the nest so +secretly that that was the first time he showed. +</P> + +<P> +A sparrow-hawk, worried with a family of her own, took occasion to +chase him as he flew, and he arrived in among the young lime-trees that +backed the garden, switchbacking—that was one of his tricks of escape, +made possible by a long tail—and yelling fit to raise the world. The +sparrow-hawk's skinny yellow claw, thrust forward, was clutching thin +air an inch behind his central tail-feathers, but that was all she got +of him—just thin air. There was no crash as he hurled into the green +maze; but she, failing to swerve exactly in time, made a mighty crash, +and retired somewhat dazed, thankful that she retained two whole wings +to fly with. There is no room for big-winged sparrow-hawks in close +cover, anyway, and Blackie, who was born to the leafy green ways, knew +that. +</P> + +<P> +Blackie's yells had called up, as if by magic, a motley crowd of +chaffinches, hedge-sparrows, wrens, robins, &c., from nowhere at all, +and they could be seen whirling in skirmishing order—not too +close—about the retreating foe. Blackie himself needed no more +sparrow-hawk for a bit, and preferred to sit and look on. If the +little fools chose to risk their lives in the excitement of mobbing, +let them. His business was too urgent. +</P> + +<P> +Twenty lightning glances around seemed to show that no death was on the +lurk near by. Also, a quick inspection of other birds' actions—he +trusted to them a good deal—appeared to confirm this. +</P> + +<P> +Then he flew down to the lawn, and almost immediately had a worm by the +tail. Worms object to being so treated, and this one protested +vigorously. Also, when pulled, they may come in halves. So Blackie +did not pull <I>too</I> much. He jumped up, and, while he was in the air, +scraped the worm up with his left foot, or it may have been both feet. +The whole thing was done in the snap of a finger, however, almost too +quickly to be seen. +</P> + +<P> +The worm, once up, was a dead one. Blackie seemed to kill it so +quickly as almost to hide the method used. In a few seconds more it +was a carved worm in three or four pieces—an unnice sight, but far +more amenable to reason that way. +</P> + +<P> +Blackie was in rather long grass, and nerve-rackingly helpless, by the +same token. He could not see anything that was coming. Wherefore +every few seconds he had to stand erect and peer over the grass-tops. +It made no difference to the worm, however; it was carved just the same. +</P> + +<P> +Blackie now hopped farther on in search of more worms, but found a big +piece of bread instead. It was really the hen-chaffinch who found the +bread, and he who commandeered it from her. Now he disclosed one fact, +and that was that bread would do for his children as well as worms. +Anyhow, he stuffed his beak about half up with bread, returned for the +pieces of worm, collected these, and retired up into the black cover of +a fir-tree. +</P> + +<P> +No doubt he was expected to go right home with that load, then and +there. Even a cock-blackbird with young, however, must feed, and, if +one judged by the excess amount of energy—if that were possible—used +up, must feed more than usual. That seemed to be why he hid his whole +load in the crook of a big bough, and, returning to the lawn, ate +bread—he could wait to catch no worms for his own use, it appeared—as +fast as he could. Three false alarms sent him precipitantly into his +tree upon this occasion, and one real alarm—a passing boy—caused a +fourth retreat. +</P> + +<P> +These operations were not performed in a moment, and by the time he got +back to his nest—mind, he had to contrive to approach it so that he +was seen by nobody, and his was a conspicuous livery, too—his children +appeared to be in the last stages of exhaustion. That, however, is +young birds all over; they expect their parents to be mere +feeding-machines, guaranteed to produce so many meals to the hour, and +hang the difficulties and the risks. +</P> + +<P> +There was no sign of Blackie's wife. Presumably she was working just +as hard on her own "beat" as he had been on his—their hunting-grounds +were separate, though they joined—and would soon be back. +</P> + +<P> +Blackie did not wait. He managed again the miracle of getting away +from his nest without appearing to do so, and next turned up on the +summer-house roof. Fatherlike, he thought he had done enough for a +bit, and would enjoy a "sunning reaction" on the summerhouse roof. It +was rather a good place, a look-out tower from which he could slip over +the side into the hedges, which met at the corner where it was, if +trouble turned up. +</P> + +<P> +Trouble did turn up, but not quite what he had expected. He had been +sitting there, wing-stretching, leg-stretching, and "preening" his +feathers, and had finally left off just to sit and do nothing, +when—lo! his wife popped up over the side without warning, and right +upon him. +</P> + +<P> +She was very dark brown, not black, and had a paler throat than the +palish throat of most hen blackbirds—nearly white, in fact. She said +nothing. Nor did Blackie, but he looked very uncomfortable. She did +more than say nothing. She went for him, beak first, and very angrily +indeed; and he, not waiting to receive her, fled down to the lawn, and +began worm-hunting for dear life. A whole lecture could not have said +more. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Blackie remained on the roof for about a minute, looking round, +and then flew off to her own hunting-ground. She was wilder and less +trusting of the world than Blackie, and did not care for his lawn in +full view of the house windows. And Blackie did not even stop his work +to watch her go. Apparently they had, previously in their married +life, arrived at a perfect understanding. +</P> + +<P> +This time, too, Blackie got a big and a small worm. The small he +coiled like a rope, and held up towards the base of his beak; the big +he carved up into sections, which he held more towards the tip. The +large ones, it seemed, were too awkward and lively simply to carry off +rolled up whole. +</P> + +<P> +The journey that followed was a fearful one in Blackie's life, for he +met half-way the very last foe in the world he was expecting—namely, +an owl. Truly, it was a very small owl, scarce bigger than himself; +but it was an owl, and, like all its tribe, armed to the teeth. Men +called it a little owl. That was its name—little owl. Blackie didn't +care what men called it; he knew it only as one of the hundred or so +shapes that death assumed for his benefit. +</P> + +<P> +Just at that time it happened to be cloudy, and little owls often hunt +by day. But how was Blackie to know that, little owls being a +comparatively new introduction into those parts? +</P> + +<P> +Blackie screamed and fled. The owl did not scream, but fled, +too—after Blackie. Blackie had no means of judging how close <I>that</I> +foe was behind by the whir of its wings. Owls' wings don't talk, as a +rule; they have a patent silencer, so to speak, in the fluffy-edged +feathers. Therefore Blackie was forced to do his best in breaking the +speed record, and trust to luck. +</P> + +<P> +It was a breathless and an awful few seconds, and it seemed to him like +a few hours. The owl came up behind, going like a cloud-shadow, and +about as fast, and Blackie, glancing over his shoulder, I suppose, +yelled afresh. The terror was so very close. +</P> + +<P> +Then Blackie remembered another excavation, just like the one his nest +was in, a little off his course to the left, and he tacked towards it, +twisting his course wonderfully, thanks to the long tail. And the owl +lost a foot on the turn. I think it was expecting Blackie to make for +the hedge at all costs. But, be that as it may, that foot was never +made up again, for Blackie vanished into the trench next instant, like +a blown-out light, and, though the hunter searched for him carefully, +he never put in an appearance again while that owl was within sight of +the place. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-034"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-034.jpg" ALT=""The owl lost a foot on the turn"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="450" HEIGHT="664"> +<H4> +[Illustration: "The owl lost a foot on the turn"] +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +All signs of uproar on the passing of the little owl had died down some +time before Blackie turned up again, and then it was in the garden, so +he must have got from the tunnel unseen. +</P> + +<P> +He still hung gamely to the food for his young, and now made another +attempt to deliver that food where it belonged. He was half-way there, +indeed, before he saw the boys—three boys—with two rows of birds' +eggs threaded on strings. They were passing so close to the trench +that one nearly fell into it, and, of course, any one could see that +they were bird-nesting. +</P> + +<P> +Blackie swerved off sharply to the far hedge, his heart nearly bursting +with anxiety, little knowing that the boys had never even thought of +looking in the trench for nests. It seemed the last place in the world +to find one. It may have been, moreover, that he feared that his wife +was home, in which case she might have lost her head, and, dashing out +with a scream, "blown the whole gaff," as they say in the vernacular. +</P> + +<P> +Apparently madam was not at home, by good luck, for the boys passed, +and Blackie once more executed the magic of getting into his nest +without seeming to do so. And here he stayed. Dusk was setting in, +and his young were fourteen days old. They showed it in their +disobedience, and were not in the least inclined to keep as quiet as +they should, considering their father had but just warned them, in his +own way, to "lie doggo," because of the gray shape he had seen sliding +out into the field, a gray shape which was a cat. +</P> + +<P> +They were more like thrushes than blackbirds, those youngsters, with +their speckly fawn breasts; and they were not like the adults of either +in their frog-like attitudes and heavy ways. Frankly, they were not +beautiful, even at that stage; and a fortnight before, when they had +been larger than the eggs they had come out of, they were positively +reptilian and repulsive. +</P> + +<P> +Blackie said the blackbird equivalent to "Be quiet, you little fools!" +as quietly and as sternly as he could three or four times, and perched +on the top of a wheelbarrow to watch the gray shadow which was a cat. +That sudden death, however, was more afraid of the open than Blackie, +even, and, moreover, wasn't expecting blackbirds' nests in the middle +of fields. It turned back; and at length Mrs. Blackie, who had been on +a general survey round about to see what foes of the night were on the +move—and a fine hubbub she had made in the process—came home, +reporting all well. +</P> + +<P> +Then they slept; at least, they ceased to be any further seen or heard. +Think, however, how you would sleep if every few minutes you could hear +sounds in your house one-third of which were probably the noises of a +burglar. Think, also, how you would feel if you knew that that burglar +was a murderer, and that that murderer was, in all likelihood, looking +for you, or some one just like you. Yet those birds were happy enough, +I fancy. +</P> + +<P> +It was barely pale gray. It was cold and wan and washed, and +wonderfully clean and sweet, and wet with dews, when a lark climbed +invisibly into the sky and suddenly burst into song, next morning. +There was something strange and out of place, in a way, in this song, +breaking out of the night; and as it and another continued to break the +utter silence for ten minutes, it seemed rather as if it were still +night, and not really dawn at all. Dawn appeared to be waiting for +something else to give it authority, so to speak, and at the end of ten +minutes that something else came—the slim form of Blackie, streaking, +phantom-like, through the mist from the trench out in the field to the +summer-house in the garden. Here, mounted upon the very top, he stood +for a moment, as one clearing his throat before blowing a bugle, and +then, full, rich, deep, and flute-like, he lazily gave out the first +bars of his song. Instantly, almost as if it had been a signal, a +great tit-mouse sang out, "Tzur ping-ping! tzur ping-ping!" in +metallic, ringing notes; a thrush struck in with his brassy, clarion +challenge, thrush after thrush taking it up, till, with the clear +warble of robin and higher, squeaking notes of hedge-sparrow and wren +joining in, the wonderful first bars of the Dawn Hymn of the birds +rolled away over the fields to the faraway woods, and beyond. +</P> + +<P> +Blackie sang on for a bit, in spite of the fact that people said that +it was not considered "the thing" for a blackbird with such domestic +responsibilities to sing. And two other blackbirds helped him to break +the man-made rule. +</P> + +<P> +As a matter of fact, I fancy he was not taking chances upon the ground +while the mist hung to cover late night prowlers, for as soon as the +gay and gaudy chaffinches had stuck themselves up in the limes and the +sycamores, and started their own smashing idea of song, he was down +upon the lawn giving the early worm a bad time. +</P> + +<P> +Then it was that he heard a rumpus that shot him erect, and sent his +extraordinarily conspicuous orange dagger of a beak darting from side +to side in that jerky way of listening that many birds affect. +</P> + +<P> +"Twet-twet-et-et-et! twet! twet-twet-twet-et-et-twet!" came the +unmistakable voice of one in a temper, scolding loudly. And he knew +that scold—had heard it before, by Jove! And who should know it if +not he, since it was the voice of his wife? +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps he heaved a sigh as he rose from the deliciously cool, wet +lawn—where it was necessary to take long, high hops if you wanted to +avoid getting drenched—and winged his way towards the riot. His wife +was calling him, and it came from the other side of the garden, <I>her</I> +side, behind the house. Perhaps it was a cat, or a rat, or something. +Anything, almost, would set her on like that if experience, plus the +experience of blackbirds for hundreds of generations working blindly in +her brain—and not the experience of books—had taught her that the +precise creature whom she saw was a danger and a menace to young +blackbirds. +</P> + +<P> +All the same, when Blackie arrived he <I>was</I> surprised, for all that he +saw was a grayish bird with "two lovely black eyes," not by any means +as large as a blackbird. When it flew it kept low, with a weak and +peculiar flight that was deceiving; and when Mrs. Blackie, following +it, and yelling like several shrews, got too close, it turned its head, +and said, "Wark! wark!" in a harsh and warning way. +</P> + +<P> +Blackie joined in with his deeper "Twoit-twoit-twoit!" just by way of +lending official dignity to the proceedings. Whereupon his wife, +feeling that he had backed her up, redoubled her excitement and shrill +abuse. +</P> + +<P> +And they spent two solid hours at this fool's game, helped by a robin, +a blue tit, and a chaffinch or two—the chaffinch must have his finger +in every pie—following that gray bird from nowhere, while it moved +about the garden in its shuffling flight, or alternately sat and +scowled at them. But it must be admitted that Blackie himself looked +rather bored, and might have gone off for breakfast any time, if he had +dared. +</P> + +<P> +As a matter of fact, however, the bird did not stand upon the Register +of Bad Deeds as being a terror of even the mildest kind of blackbirds. +Red-backed shrike was her name, female was her sex, and from Africa had +she come. Goodness knows where she was going, but not far, probably; +and the largest thing in the bird line she appeared able to tackle was +something of the chaffinch size. But, all the same, Mrs. Blackie +seemed jolly well certain that she knew better. +</P> + +<P> +Then arrived the bombshell. +</P> + +<P> +One of the Blackie youngsters, stump-tailed, frog-mouthed, blundering, +foolish, gawky, and squawking, landed, all of a heap, right into the +very middle of the picnic-party. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Blackie very nearly had a fit on the spot, and the shrike judged +that the time had about arrived for her to quit that vicinity. +</P> + +<P> +Blackie himself, to do him justice, kept cool enough to do nothing. +Wives will say that he was just husband all over, but there were +reasons abroad. One of them shot past Blackie, who was low down, a +second later and a yard away, and had he not been absolutely still, and +therefore as invisible as one of the most conspicuous of birds in the +wild can be, he would have known in that instant, or the next, what +lies upon the other side of death. +</P> + +<P> +Another reason shot through the lower hedge, and, both together, they +fell upon the young bird. +</P> + +<P> +They were the cat of the house and her half-grown kitten, and they were +upon the unhappy youngster before you could shout, "Murder!" +</P> + +<P> +What followed was painful. Mrs. Blackie went clean demented. Blackie +went—not so demented. (It always appeared to me that his was a more +practical mind than his wife's, perhaps because he wore a more +conspicuous livery.) Mrs. Blackie kept passing and repassing the cats' +backs, flying from bough to bough, and sometimes touching and sometimes +not touching them. It was useless, of course, this pathetic charging; +and it was foolish. +</P> + +<P> +Blackie charged, too, but not within feet. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly the old cat, who had had one eye upon Mrs. Blackie the whole +time, sprang up and struck quickly twice. There was a chain of shrieks +from Mrs. Blackie, and down she went in the grip of the clawed death. +She never got up again. +</P> + +<P> +What had happened was simple enough. One of the laborers working on +the trench, knowing of the nest, had, out of curiosity, approached a +little too close, when the bevy of youngsters, being ready to fly, but +not knowing it before this great fright, burst apart at his approach +like a silent cannon cracker. The fear showed them they could use +their wings. +</P> + +<P> +All three had made, flying low and weakly, for the nearest hedge, which +was the garden hedge—two to the side which comprised their father's +hunting-ground, and one to the side dominated by their ma. And the old +cat and her kitten had seen them coming, and had given chase. +</P> + +<BR> +<HR WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center"> +<BR> + +<P> +Blackie discovered his remaining progeny sitting about in bushes, +squawking, a few minutes later, when he returned, somewhat agitated to +his precious lawn, and there he promptly proceeded to feed them. The +task was such a large one, and took so long, and so many worms had to +be cut up, and so much bread, and, I may say, when all else failed, so +many daisies had to be picked, before he finally silenced their +ceaseless, craving remarks, that, by the time he had finished feeding +himself and had a clean up, something of the pain of the tragedy had +gone from him. +</P> + +<P> +And fine fat blackbirds he made of those youngsters, too, in the end, I +want to tell you, for he stuck to 'em like a brick. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +UNDER THE YELLOW FLAG +</H3> + + +<P> +A little past noon each day the sun covered a crack between two boards +on the summer-house floor, and up through that aperture, for three +days, had come a leggy, racy-looking, wolfish black spider. Each day, +as it grew hotter, she extended her sphere of jerky investigation, +vanishing down the crack again when the sun passed from it. +</P> + +<P> +To-day she prolonged her roamings right up the wall of the summer-house +and along a joist bare of all save dust, and—well, the spider walked +straight on, moving with little jerks as if by intermittent clockwork, +and she seemed to stroll right on top of the wasp lying curled up on +her side. Only when one of the latter's delicate feelers shifted round +towards her, as though in some uncanny way conscious of her approach, +did she leap back as if she had touched an electric wire. Then she +froze—flat. The wasp was lying curled up, as we have said, upon her +side, her head tucked in, her wings drawn down, her jaws tight shut +upon a splinter of wood. She had been there half-a-year, asleep, +hibernating, and in that state, without any other protection than the +summer-house roof and walls, had survived the frosts of winter. +</P> + +<P> +The wasp did not move further. +</P> + +<P> +The spider appeared to be taking things in, measuring her chances, +weighing the risk against her famished hunger—possibly her late +husband had been her last meal, months ago—marking the vital spot upon +her prey, aiming for the shot, which must be true, for one does not +miss in attacking a wasp—and live. Only, she would not have risked it +at all, perhaps, if the wasp had seemed alive, or more alive, at any +rate. +</P> + +<P> +Then came the shot—one cannot in justice call it a spring; it was too +instant to be termed that. The spider simply was upon the wasp without +seeming to go there; but the wasp was not there, or, rather, her vital +spot wasn't. She had kicked herself round on her side, like a +cart-wheel, lying flat, with her feet, and the spider's jaws struck +only hard cuirass. Before the spider, leaping back, wolf-like, could +lunge in her lightning second stroke, the wasp was on her feet, a live +thing, after all. +</P> + +<P> +The warmth had been already soaking the message of spring into her +cold-drugged brain, and now this sudden attack had finished what the +warmth had begun. She was awake, on her feet, a live and dangerous +proposition; groggy, it is true; dazed, half-working, so to speak; but +a force to be reckoned with—after half-a-year. And one saw, too, at a +glance that she was different from ordinary wasps—would make two, in +fact, of any ordinary wasp; and her great jaws looked as if they could +eat one and comfortably deal with more; whilst her dagger-sting, now +unsheathed and ready—probably for the first time—could deliver a +wound twice as deep and deadly as the ordinary wasp. She was, in +short, a queen-wasp; a queen of the future, if Fate willed; a queen as +yet without a kingdom, a sovereign uncrowned, but of regal proportions +and queenly aspect, for all that; for in the insect world royalties are +fashioned upon a super-standard that marks them off from the common +herd. +</P> + +<P> +The spider hesitated. She knew the danger of the stripes of +yellow—the yellow flag, so to speak. The fear of it is upon every +insect that lives. At the same time, the queen was undoubtedly yet +numb. +</P> + +<P> +Antagonists decide in the insect world like a flash of light, and quick +as thought they act. The spider attacked now so quickly that she +seemed to have vanished, and she met—jaws. Back she shot, circled, +shot in again, and she met—sting! +</P> + +<P> +It was never clear whether that sting went home. The spider did. She +fell—fell plump to the floor, only not breaking what spiders have in +place of a neck because of the fact that, being a spider, she never +moved anywhere, not even upon a spring, without anchoring a line of web +down first. Therefore, an inch from the ground, she fetched up with a +jerk upon the line that she had anchored up on the joist, spun round, +let herself drop the rest of the way, and ran into the crack between +the boards of the floor. Goodness knows if she lived. +</P> + +<P> +The wasp, with that extremely droll, lugubrious look on her long, +mask-like face which makes the faces of insects so funny and uncanny, +like pantomime masks, sat down as if nothing had happened, apparently +to scheme out the best way to possess herself of a kingdom and become a +queen in fact as well as in name. Really, she was cleaning +herself—combing her antennae with her forelegs, provided with bristle +hairs for the purpose, scraping and polishing her wings, as if they did +not already shine like mother-o'-pearl, and washing her quaint face. +</P> + +<P> +She was still rather groggy from the effects of her long sleep and the +cold endured—it is a wonder how she had stood the latter at all—and +when, with a subdued inward sort of hum, she finally launched herself +in flight, she nearly fell to the ground before righting herself and +flying in a zigzag heavily across the lawn. +</P> + +<P> +A cock-chaffinch up in the limes saw her, and condescending at last to +break his song, described a flashing streak of wine-red breast and +white wing-bars in the sun. He appeared to recognize her sinister +yellow shield in time, however, and returned to his perch with a +flourish, leaving the wasp to go on and begin dancing up the wall of +the house till she came to the open window. Here she vanished within. +</P> + +<P> +The sunlight sat on the floor of the room inside, and the baby sat in +the sunlight; and the wasp, apparently still half-awake, went, or, +rather, nearly tumbled, and sat beside the baby. +</P> + +<P> +They made an odd picture there—the golden sun, the sunny, +golden-headed baby, and that silent, yellow she-devil, crawling, +crawling, crawling, with her narrow wings gleaming like gems. +</P> + +<P> +Then the child put out her chubby hand to seize that bright-yellow +object—how was she to know that it was the yellow signal of danger in +the insect world that she saw? And, of course, being a baby, she was +going to stuff it into her mouth. But Fate had use for that +wasp—perhaps for that baby. Wherefore there was a little scream, a +pair of woman's arms swept down and whisked that baby into the air, and +a high-heeled shoe whisked the astonished wasp into a corner. Here she +swore savagely, vibrating her head with tremendous speed in the +process, rose heavily and menacingly, made to fly out, hit the upper +window, which was shut, and which she could not see, but felt, and fell +to the floor again, where she apparently had brain-fever, buzzing round +and round on her back like a top the while. +</P> + +<P> +And then, rising suddenly, the queen flew away, hitting nothing in the +process, but getting through the lower and open part of the window. +She seemed anxious to make sure of not getting into the house again. +She flew right away, rising high to top the garden hedge, and dropping +low on the far side, to buzz and poke about in and out, up along the +hedge-bank that bordered the hayfield. +</P> + +<P> +She flew as one looking for something, and every insect in her way took +jolly good care—in the shape of scintillating streaks and dashes—to +get out of it. The mere sight of that yellow-banded cuirass shining in +the sun was apparently quite enough for them—most of them, anyway. As +a matter of fact, she was looking for a site for a city. She had +ambition, and would found her a city, a city of her very own, with +generous streets at right angles, on the American plan; and she would +be queen of it. It was a big idea, and we should have said an +impossible one, seeing that at that moment she was the city and its +population and its queen all rolled into one, so to speak. +Queen-wasps, however, also on the American plan, ruled the word +"impossible" out of their dictionary long ago. They "attempt the end, +and never stand to doubt." +</P> + +<P> +The queen came to rest on a bare patch of ground an front of a hole, +and a black and hairy spider, with two hindlegs missing on the offside, +spun round in the entrance of that hole to face her. He had not been +noticeable until he moved. +</P> + +<P> +She left him in a hurry, and thereafter resumed her endless searching +along the hedge-bank. A dozen times she vanished into a hole, and, +after a minute or so, came out again with the air of one dissatisfied. +Half-a-dozen times she came out tail first, buzzing warnings and very +angry, at the invitation of a bumble-bee queen, a big, hook-jawed, +carnivorous beetle in shining mail, and so forth, but she never lost +her head. +</P> + +<P> +Finally, she came to a mole-hole that suited her. The other burrows +had all turned out to be field-mouse holes, leading ultimately into a +main tunnel that ran the whole length of the hedge apparently, and was +a public way for all the little whiskered ones. But this tunnel, bored +by the miner mole, ran nowhither, having caved in not far from the +entrance, and was very sound of construction, with a nice dry slope. +She selected a wide spot where the tunnel branched, each branch forming +a <I>cul-de-sac</I>. Here she slew swiftly several suspicious-looking +little tawny beetles and one field-cricket, who put up a rare good +fight for it, found loafing about the place. +</P> + +<P> +It pleased the queen that here, in this spot, she would found her a +city. But first she must, as it were, take the latitude and the +longitude of this her stronghold to be. She must know where her city +was, must make absolutely dead sure, certain, of finding it again when +she went out. Otherwise, if she lost it—well, there would be an end +to it before it had begun, so to speak. For this purpose, therefore, +she rose slowly, humming to herself some royal incantation—rose, upon +a gradually widening corkscrew spiral, into the air. +</P> + +<P> +She was, in point of fact, surveying the district round her capital to +be, marking each point—bush, stone, grass-tuft, tree-trunk, +flower-cluster, clod, branch, anything and everything, great and +small—and jotting down in indelible memory fluid, upon whatever she +kept for a brain, just precisely the position of every landmark. And +as she rose her circles ever widened, so that at last her big compound +eyes took in quite a big stretch of sunlit picture, to be photographed +upon her memory, and there remain forevermore. +</P> + +<P> +It took her some time, for it was some job; but once done, it was done +for good. +</P> + +<P> +Next, alighting with great hustle—now that the work was once +begun—the queen ran into her tunnel, and made sure that nobody had +"jumped her claim" in the interval. She found an ant, red and +ravenous, taking too professional an interest in the place, and she +abolished that ant with one nip; though, as you may be sure, the tiny +insect fought like a bulldog. +</P> + +<P> +Then she executed a shallow excavation upon the site of the future city +itself, carrying each pellet of earth outside beyond the entrance. +This also took time, though she worked at fever-pitch, almost with +fury; but she managed to finish it, and fly away into the landscape in +a remarkably short while, considering. +</P> + +<P> +Here once again she appeared to be searching for something through the +yellow sunshine and the falling blossom-petals—confetti from Spring's +wedding. And presently she found it, or seemed to—an old gate, off +its hinges. But the wood was rotting, and she was no fool. She knew +her job—the job she had never done before, by the way—and after +humming around it in a fretful, undecided sort of fashion for some +while, she flew on. Apparently she was looking for wood, but not <I>any</I> +wood. Cut wood appeared to be her desire, and that oak; at least, she +put behind her a deal board lying half-overgrown, after one careful +professional inspection. +</P> + +<P> +Her way was through a perilous world, beset by a thousand foes, mostly +in the nature of traps and lines and barbed-wire entanglements set by +spiders. As a rule you didn't see these last at all—nor did she; but +her yellow-and-black badge usually won her a way of respect—and +hate—and she cut or struggled herself clear of such web-lines as her +feelers failed to spot in time. +</P> + +<P> +At last she found some real oak rails, and set to work upon them at +once, planing with her sharp shear-jaws. A tiger-beetle, gaudy and +hungry-eyed, sought to pounce upon her in this task. He was +long-legged, and keen, and lean, and very swift; but she shot aloft +just in time; and when she came down again, with a z-zzzzp, as quickly +as she went up, sting first, he had wisely dodged into a cranny, where +he defied her with open and jagged jaws. +</P> + +<P> +Again getting to work, she planed off a pellet of good sound wood—it +looked like a nail-scrape, the mark she made—and masticating it and +moistening it with saliva, whirred back like a homing aeroplane to her +city in the making. +</P> + +<P> +There was a whir and a buzz as she passed through the portals of her +main gate from the light of day, and she reappeared again, backing out, +"looking daggers," as we say, and brandishing her poisoned dart—her +sting, if you insist, on the end of her tail—in the air. But she +still hung on to her pellet. +</P> + +<P> +Presumably some unlucky visitor had called in her absence. More sounds +of concentrated argument followed, and finally there fell out, rather +than rushed out, a small and amazingly slender black wasp, one of those +hermits who seem to consecrate their lives to lonely working for a +family they never see. This unhappy one slid down the bank, curled up +at the bottom, uncurled, curled up again, and—remained curled. +Apparently <I>her</I> day's work was done, which comes of falling foul of +the yellow flag. +</P> + +<P> +Arrived inside, at her hallowed chamber, our queen carefully selected a +rootlet in the roof—not just any old rootlet, mark you; never any +"old" anything, you will notice, but a good, sound, well-found rootlet +that you could hang five or six pounds' weight to; indeed, three +rootlets before she had finished. To these rootlets she +fastened—gummed would be a more correct word—her pellet of +wasp-paper, in the form of a thin layer, and hurried away, singing, for +more. This was, so to speak, the foundation-stone of the city, laid, +be it noticed, not haphazard—our queen never did any business that +way—but with mathematical regard as to what was to follow. In very +fact, too, it was the foundation-stone of her city, only upside-down, +though that is nothing. Wasps always do things that way, which is +unlike ants, those other and greater city builders. +</P> + +<P> +Back came the queen very soon with another load, and pasted +that—thin—to the first layer, hurrying, bustling, humming a happy +song continuously to herself. Then away again for more, and in the +process to a lively battle with a robber-fly, who appeared set upon +robbing her of her blood. It tried, like the beetle, to stalk her and +pounce upon her back, what time she was planing out wood for +paper-pulp; but her back wasn't there when it pounced, and her jaws +were. It "waited on," hovering like a falcon, and twice as keen, and +when she got to work again, dropped like a hurled lance-head, only to +be met with jaws, wide and ready, as before. +</P> + +<P> +It went away, watching from afar—far for an insect—from "the little +speedwell's darling blue" upon the hedge-bank, and just as she was +moistening the load, gathered ready to fly off, delivered its final +ultimatum—a marvelously persistent murderer. This time it, or, +rather, she, was received with the point—the poisoned point—and, +turning like a spent lightning-flash to avoid it, found the queen hard +on her heels, following all down the gay hedge-ditch, humming high, in +nearly a shriek of rage. Finally, she turned, to do battle for her +life, and the two, grappling, fell as shooting-stars fall, gleaming, +athwart the sun, with a brrr-r like a fused wire, and finished the job, +rolling over and over on the ground—rolling over and over among the +stalks of bluebells, like the heavens "upraising from the earth." +</P> + +<P> +It is written, however, that few in the insect world can withstand a +queen of the yellow devils, and in a few seconds the wasp got up and +flew home again, quite unperturbed. The robber-fly did not get up, and +she was not quite unperturbed, but died as they die who are poisoned +with formic acid, and very soon was still. +</P> + +<P> +By the time the shadows crept across the entrance to the derelict +mole-hole, warning the wasp back—for your true wasp is a worshiper of +the sun—the queen had formed a disc of paper, and suspended +there-from, in the middle, a stalk, also of paper, which widened out at +its base, and became, as it were, the outlines of four six-sided cells. +The cells were in the shape of a cross—that cross which you will +always find at the foundation of the cities of the waspfolk, and, in a +way, a sign or mark of their nationality—the cross in the +market-square, so to speak, outwards from which the city grew. +</P> + +<P> +The queen, satisfied apparently with her new city so far, hung up and +went to sleep. When anything or anybody came to prospect for house +lots, or edible victims, during the still, silent, silver night, she +hummed very severely, like an electric fan, to let the intruders know +who she was, and they mostly backed out again in a hurry. If they took +a step nearer the hum rose an octave, and became very wicked, and that, +so far as most of them were concerned, finished it. +</P> + +<P> +Two, however, there were who would not take even that hint. One was a +shrew-mouse, thirsting for blood, but who got poison instead, and next +morning was found running about with his mouth somewhere concealed +behind his ear, if one may be pardoned the expression, in consequence; +and the other was a carnivorous beetle, in black, purple-shot armor, +and armed with jaws toothed like lobsters' claws. The queen took some +nasty scars from those same jaws before she got home with the poisoned +point, a clean thrust 'twist breastplate and armlet, and the invader +doubled up on the spot where he was, and had to be dragged out in the +morning—not the dawning, for the sun had well stoked up before our +wasp would have anything to do with him. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-052"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-052.jpg" ALT=""A shrew-mouse, thirsting for blood, but who got poison instead"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="398" HEIGHT="670"> +<H4> +[Illustration: "A shrew-mouse, thirsting for blood, but who got poison instead"] +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +She found the day already in full swing when she rose, buzzing, from +her front-gate, late—for wasps hate early morning chill, like Red +Indians—and, circling once, swung straight away. She jumped into full +hustle right off, you see. She did not merely work; she superworked. +Forced to short hours by her constitution, she had to make up for it in +the time she got, and she did. She allowed nothing to stop her. If +anything tried to, she mostly stopped it, for there was no compromise +about this nation-builder; she reached her goal every time. +</P> + +<P> +It was on this journey that a spotted fly-catcher, sitting on a +gatepost, made a Euclid figure at her in midair as she passed. She had +not power to fight the bird's beak, and her poison-dagger was useless +here; nor do fly-catchers often miss. This, however, was an occasion +when one of them did—by an eighth of an inch—and only some +electric-spark-like dodging on the part of the insect in the air made +even that one miss possible. It was so quick, you could not see what +happened. +</P> + +<P> +That day the cross of cells in this budding city was developed further, +and a low wall built round each cell. Moreover, more cells were built, +always taking the cross as the center of all things—six-sided cells, +with a low, incomplete wall, or, rather, parapet, partitioning each +off, to the number of about twenty-four cells in all. Each cell was +closed, of course, at the top, the top being its floor, and open at the +bottom, the bottom being, if I may so put it, the top; for, as has +already been said, wasp cities are built upside-down, and everybody +walks and hangs on his head, being so fitted for the purpose. If you +don't hang, you tumble straight down into the scooped-out cavity below; +but nobody ever does that till he dies, for that cavity is at once the +cemetery and the refuse-heap and the dust-bin of the city, a haunt of +tiny ghouls—beetle, spider, and fly ghouls—and other loathsome +horrors, the scavengers, hyenas, vultures, and jackals of the wasp +world. +</P> + +<P> +Now, after making the first cell, or, rather, the part cell, with its +low parapet, the queen laid an egg—it was very minute, that +egg—inside the cell, gumming it against the top, on the angle nearest +the center of the city. It had to be cemented there; otherwise it +would have fallen out. +</P> + +<P> +In the next cell she laid an egg, too, cementing it up to the top in +the same manner—always in the angle nearest the center of the +city—and in the next another egg, and so on, up to the twenty-four or +so. It is a little doubtful precisely how long she took over the +process, because, for one thing, she made so many journeys backwards +and forwards to get wood-pulp from the rails for paper manufacture—she +used paper for everything; and, for another thing, she began to roof +over the whole affair with a hanging umbrella made of layers of the +finest paper that you ever did see—much finer than that made by the +ordinary common or garden worker-wasp of the jam-pots and the +stewed-fruit dish, for was she not a queen, and therefore not common in +anything she did?—and it became, in consequence, rather hard to see +what she really was "at." Most of the time that the sky remained +cloudy she used up at this job, and also when there was a shower of +rain, for she hated rain and all shadow and darkness. +</P> + +<P> +Her purpose, in regard to this paper roofing, was to keep out any +possible dripping that might come through the earth roof in wet +weather, and to store up and multiply the heat from her body. Terrific +heat, to be sure; nevertheless important in the scheme of things. When +all was completed, this city, this mighty kingdom, measured about one +and a half inches round. +</P> + +<P> +When all was completed, also, the wasp flew out for a drink and a feed. +But first she cleaned. The most fastidious cat was a grimy tramp in +comparison to her in habits, and in all her spare time—goodness alone +knows how she squeezed in any spare time at all during those hustling +days!—her first, and generally her last, act was to clean. She could +not afford dirt. To be dirty, with her, was to die even more quickly +than she would, anyway; for, you see, she did not breathe through her +mouth, but all over herself, so to speak—through her armor, or +hair-like tubes in that same. +</P> + +<P> +From bluebell to cowslip and lily she picked her way, sipping honey and +humming a wicked little hum through her teeth, as it were, and on to +where +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Daisies pied, and violets blue,<BR> +And cuckoo buds of yellow hue,<BR> +And lady-smocks all silver white,<BR> +Do paint the meadows with delight. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Now she toyed with a yellow oxlip, now paused at a purple lungwort; but +most she went into the garden, and hovered, still as a humming-bird, +among the rose-leaves and branches, especially those growing against +the sun-bathed old wooden porch, and for so long that one wondered what +she was doing there. She was licking up the "honey-dew," which, +translated, is the juice exuded by the plant-lice or "green-fly," which +swarmed all over the rose-trees. This "honey-dew" was sweet, and in +great demand among such insects as had tastes that way; in fact, the +enterprising ants—who are always a decade ahead of everybody +else—were, in one place, building mud sheds over the said herds of +plant-lice to prevent their precious "honey-dew" being exploited by +others. +</P> + +<P> +Thus a week passed, the queen fussing daily about her embryo city, +adding paper covering here, strengthening a wall there, warning off an +inquisitive insect somewhere else, and adding her heat to the natural +stuffiness of the place, though one would scarcely have thought she +could have made much difference. At times, too, in the hot sun, she +appeared here or there outside, drinking honey from some flower, or +sipping "honey-dew," much to the ants' disgust and anger. +</P> + +<P> +Then, at the end of the week, the first egg hatched out within the +city, and, frankly, what came forth was not lovely. It was a legless +grub, fat, presumably blind, and helpless; and it would have fallen +head downwards out of the cell, as it hatched, if it had not had the +sense to hook its tail into its own egg-shell, which in turn, as we +know, was already fastened to the top of the cell. But it had jaws, +and in addition, apparently, an appetite to use them. +</P> + +<P> +Whether the queen loved it, her first baby, was hard to tell. Did she, +indeed, ever love anything? She certainly did her duty by it; but what +was the use of setting up to be a queen, anyway, if she could not do +that? And, moreover, you've got to do your duty in the wild. There's +no profit in monkeying with Nature, as is possible with civilization, +for the penalty thereof is death. +</P> + +<P> +Wherefore did our queen, after making quite sure that the sack-like +atom with a mouth, hanging upside-down in the cell, and wriggling like +anything to show its hunger, was alive, sound, and quite all there, +quit home in a hurry, and with a loud buzz, in search of rations. But +there was a change in her manner from that adopted when looking for +food for herself, and for good reason. <I>Then</I> her object had been +honey; now it was—scalps! +</P> + +<P> +From force of habit, more perhaps than from force of reasoning, she +flew to the rose-trees, and there fixed in her shear jaws not more than +two of the helpless, fool, unarmed, soft, juicy green-fly, which are +really no more, if one may so put it, than living, infinitesimal +"white" grapes. That she was challenged by a sentry ant—about as big +to her as a bulldog to us—that the sentry gave the alarm, that the +guard turned out from one of the ants' "cowsheds" over some of the +green-fly, and that she went away in a hurry, with half-a-dozen furious +ants on their hindlegs, trying to get hold of her retiring feet with +their jaws, was a matter treated by her with insolent unconcern. +</P> + +<P> +She had got her scalps, and winging home in a hurry to her baby, fed it +upon green-fly. The baby did not feed nicely, and the picture of the +glistening, corsleted devil queen-mother, with her lugubrious, +mask-like face, and the wriggling, hanging sack babe, and the luckless, +fool, helpless green-fly between them, was not a pretty one. Here +maternity was not a Sunday-sermon subject, yet it was maternity all the +same. +</P> + +<P> +By this time other eggs in other cells were splitting, and giving out +legless grub horrors, as seeds that give forth plants, each wriggling +mummy taking care to hook itself up to its shell by the tail at once, +lest it perish. And the queen's work from that moment really began. +Till then she had only tinkered at it, apparently. Now she got going +"real some," and—well, all the insect world outside knew it. The +terror of the yellow flag spread. +</P> + +<P> +Upon an hour she would appear, dropping, hawk-like and terrible, out of +the sun-glare, and neatly pick up a soft and juicy caterpillar from a +cabbage-stalk. Upon another hour she would be discovered, feet tucked +up and wary, darting, like an iridescent gleam, around the angry ants, +among the green-fly on the rose-bushes. The drowsy hum of the kettle +on the kitchen fire, and the steady, low hum of the house-fly dance in +the middle of the room, would be answered in the long, hot afternoons +by her wicked warning drone as she came sailing in at the open window, +like the insolent pirate that she was, to go out again a minute later +with a helpless fly between her jaws. The first heat of the sun, +drinking up the dew, would discover her sailing forth to war; his full, +sizzling rays would reveal her waging violent warfare with the +bluebottle flies over some carcass; into his amber light of the noon +her yellow flag would suddenly rise from out the cool shade of the +larder, where she had been carving meat, and "when the sun mended his +twisted copper nets," he would flash in bronze from her glistening +cuirass as she droned by high over some wriggling grub, caterpillar, or +palsied fly fast locked in her jaws—and all for her young, all for her +couple of dozen legless horrors, hanging by their tails, each in its +narrow cell, in darkness and in dead silence, in the embryo city under +the secret earth. +</P> + +<P> +Time was when these same grubs grew so fat and big that they no longer +hung, but became fast wedged in their dormitories; time when the queen +had to set to and extend downwards the wall of each cell lest the +growing inmates bulge over, and, obsessed with their ravening hunger, +incontinently eat each other; and time at last when, one after the +other, each grub, having grown out of more than one suit of clothes and +donned new ones, cast its skin for the last time, refused all further +food, spun a cocoon of silk with a dome-shaped silken floor to each +cell, and for a period retired from the prying eyes of the world, even +of its own mother, into the sacred sanctuary of the chrysalis state. +Then the queen's labor lightened a little for a period, so that you +could again see her at spare moments sucking nectar from the flowers +for herself, robbing the jam-dish, or lapping up the "honey-dew" of the +green-fly. +</P> + +<P> +Finally came <I>the</I> day. It dawned all right, and there was nothing +about it to show that it was going to be different from any other fine +day; yet, as soon as the wasp woke up, she knew that, for her, it was +the day of Fate. +</P> + +<P> +A very cursory inspection of the budding city showed at once that +during the night things had been happening and changes taking place. +The domed floors of several of the cells were palpitating with life +from within, and there were sounds of the gnawing and tearing of the +silken screens. +</P> + +<P> +The queen became greatly excited, and began to hum and dance a little +step-dance to herself, all alone in the darkness among the cells, as +she saw her triumph evolving before her eyes. And, almost as if the +hum had called it, there rushed at her, out of the blackness across the +comb, a—a thing. +</P> + +<P> +She knew by instinct that it was an enemy. Indeed, it could not well +be anything else, but it fought like a black devil. +</P> + +<P> +It was, in point of fact, a mole-cricket, a creature just like its +namesake, if an insect can be said to resemble an animal, only that its +jaws were like unto the jaws of a lobster. It was a fearsome +apparition, and very much larger even than the queen. The good God +alone knoweth why it had chosen that moment and place to run apparently +amok. +</P> + +<P> +But, if the mole-cricket ran amok, the queen-wasp went berserk. It was +a thing unthinkable that in that moment of triumph she, and the +awakening city with her, should be cut off—unthinkable and impossible, +unthinkable and maddening. Therefore she fought as few wasps have +probably fought before or since, and they are pretty expert exponents, +and scarcely backward ones, of warfare. +</P> + +<P> +The battle that followed was awful. +</P> + +<P> +Almost at the start the two insects, grappling, fell headlong to the +excavation the queen had made below the city, and there, rolling over +and over, continued the struggle in the dark among the refuse, the +queen eternally feeling with her poison-dagger for a space to drive +home her death-blow between the other's smooth, shining armor-plates; +the cricket eternally endeavoring to behead the queen between its awful +jaws. +</P> + +<P> +It was a fight to the death, as most insect duels are, and it could not +last long. It was too tense, too fiendish, too shockingly wicked for +that. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly the queen's body shot out like a spring. The opening she had +been feeling for had appeared, and she had driven her death-blow home. +At the same instant, with a supreme effort, she bent double and shot +herself free, the last convulsive, shearing crush of her foe's laws +clashing to so close above her head that they actually caught in their +death-grip, and held, till she pulled them out by the roots, two +bristles of her neck. +</P> + +<P> +And then—well, then the queen hurried back up to her city, just in +time to help out of its cell the first of her children—and citizens at +last—the first limp, clambering, damp, newly painted, freshly bedecked +young worker-wasp, perfect from feeler to sting, from wing to claw. +</P> + +<P> +Quickly they broke out now from the cocoons, and the queen bustled from +one to the other, assisting, cleaning, encouraging; for it is a tricky +job for an insect to come out of its chrysalis-case. The queen's work, +however, was really done; for, though for a day or two, till their +cuirasses and wings hardened, these new young worker-wasps only did +light labor, acting as nurses to the others that were following, and so +on, they quickly took upon their own shoulders the whole of the work of +the city: the nursing and feeding of the young, the hunting, the +building, the scavenging, and the waiting upon and feeding the +queen-mother herself completely, so that she should henceforth labor +not, nor fight, nor waste herself in the chase, but should keep at home +and lay countless eggs, and eggs, and always nothing but eggs, for the +workers to rear for the benefit of the State. +</P> + +<BR> +<HR WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center"> +<BR> + +<P> +To-day that city has a population of nearly 60,000, and contains over +11,000 cells; and the queen is still there, laying eggs, eggs, and +again eggs, till— +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +NINE POINTS OF THE LAW +</H3> + + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Sharp's the word with her.—SWIFT. +</P> + +<P> +Some people never know when they are well off. It is a complaint which +afflicts cats, you may have noticed, and gets them into much trouble +that their contemptuous temper might otherwise leave them free from. +The silver tabby would have done better if she had remained asleep upon +Miss Somebody's arm-chair, instead of squatting, still as marble, out +in a damp field on a damp night, watching a rabbits' "stop"—which is +vernacular for a bunnies' nursery—and thinking how nice raw, pink +baby-rabbit would taste if she got the chance to sample it. She +didn't. At least, she hadn't for an hour and a half; but, then, what's +an hour and a half to a cat? Apparently the silver tabby could wait, +just like that, utterly inert, till the crack of doom—or dawn. +</P> + +<P> +Mind you, she was not alone. She had company. One always has in the +wild at night, or nearly always. You couldn't see that company, but I +don't know whether the silver tabby could. Who can tell how much a cat +sees, anyway? Nor do I think the company could see her, she being +still, and wild eyes not being good at picking out the still form. +Neither could they hear her, for she said nothing; neither did she +purr. They must have smelt her, though. Anyway, she seemed to be a +little island in the mist—the faint, faint, ethereal dew-mist—where +nobody walked. You could hear them—a rustle here, a squeak there, a +thud somewhere else, a displaced leaf, a cracked twig—this only +once—a drumming, a patter, a sniff, a snuffle, a sigh; but they all +passed by on the other side, so to say, and gave the silver tabby room +to think. Apparently cats are not considered good company in the wild; +lonely creatures, they are best left alone. +</P> + +<P> +No mother-rabbit came to the "stop"—which the cat knew to be there—to +feed her babies, which the cat, thanks to her nose, knew to be there, +too. No baby-rabbits came out to be fed—or to feed the cat either. +"Stops" are secrets, kept from the rest of rabbitdom by the wise +mothers, and, they hope, from other inquisitive people also. The +little short holes in the middle of the field are plugged up by the old +does with grass and fur when they are away, which is pretty often. +</P> + +<P> +Then the silver tabby heard a thump come out of the night—a thud, +hollow, resounding, and noticeable. It was repeated after an interval, +and again repeated. There was a certain note of insistence about +it—like a signal. And if the cat had been a wild creature she would +have thrown up the sponge, or gone away, and returned secretly later, +or, anyway, not persisted in crouching there; for those thuds were a +signal, and they meant that the game was up. In other words, some wily +old mother circling the approach, or some wandering back-eddy of wind, +had given the cat away; she had been scented, and rabbit after rabbit, +squatting invisible in the night, was thumping the ground with its feet +to say so and warn all off whom it might concern. The silver tabby, +however, neither wild nor satisfied to be tame, did not know. She sat +on, and in doing so wondered, perhaps, at the scarcity of rabbits +thereabouts. +</P> + +<P> +She sat, or hunched, or crouched, or couched, or whatever you call that +precise position of cats, which is neither lying down nor sitting up, +for some time longer—for another twenty minutes, to be precise; and +all the while the thuds of mystery serenaded her from nowhere in +particular out of the dark—and from down-wind. +</P> + +<P> +Then she must have come to the conclusion that she was being made a +fool of, for she got up, stretched herself lazily, with arched back and +bared claws, and yawned a bored feline yawn. And even as she did so +she was aware of a sudden final flourish of thuds, and then +dead-silence. Next moment, in that same dead-silence, she distinctly +heard something coming towards her, and that something was taking no +pains to conceal the fact. +</P> + +<P> +Now, in the wild it is not the custom to go towards anything and take +no pains to conceal the fact. The unhealth of such a procedure is +swiftly borne in upon such rash ones as make the experiment, and they +seldom live long enough to pass their folly on. Only the mighty can +afford not to walk circumspectly, and they are very few, and, with man +about, even they have learnt wisdom. That is why the wild is so +guarded, and why self-effacement becomes almost a religion therein. +</P> + +<P> +Even the cat knew this, I fancy. Anyway, she looked surprised as she +crouched again, and quickly. +</P> + +<P> +Now, of all the wild-people, probably one of the most brazen is the +pig; it is also one of the bravest. I mean, the wild pig. And it +would seem that he, or she, who came that way was a pig, only a +precious little one. You know the ways of a pig? How you can hear him +coming long before he comes; how he must snuffle, and grunt, and poke +dead leaves, and snort, and tread on things, and snore. Very good. So +it was here; and these things did this new-comer, who approached +through the mist—only all in a dwarfed way, as if they were done by a +tiny grown-up pig. Its gruntings were almost to itself; its snortings, +snorings, and sniffings quite small; and its snorts little miniature +ones. Only, in the profound silence of the night, and in comparison +with the furtive noises of all the rest of the night-wild, they sounded +quite loud. +</P> + +<P> +The cat, as she crouched, passed from supercilious surprise to +amazement. You could tell that by the roundness of her eyes. She had +no knowledge of pigs, and had never met any of the wild-folk gone mad; +yet it seemed that one must have done so now, and that one—to her +growing uneasiness—was coming straight towards her. I fancy that in +that moment she thought of the warm fire, the singing kettle, the +saucer of milk, and Miss Somebody's best arm-chair. +</P> + +<P> +The thing, whatever it was, came straight on in a more or less zigzag +line, till the cat could make it out dimly in the moonlight, a +blotched, roughly egg-shaped form, less than a foot long, so low to the +ground that it appeared to be running on wheels, and covered all over +with prickles, like a Rugby ball into which tin tacks had been driven +head first, the sharp ends pointing outwards and backwards. Its head +was the small end, and much lower than its back. Its eyes, little and +pig-like, set in a black cowl, gleamed red in the tired moonlight; and +its face was the face of a pig, nothing else—just pure pig; insolent, +cunning, vulgar, and blatant. Occasionally men name a wild beast +correctly, and this little beast could only have one name—hedgehog: It +was obvious on the face of it. +</P> + +<P> +But the cat, being a cat and an aristocrat, knew, as has been said, +nothing about pigs, real or only so called. She had killed a shrew +once, and spat it out for tasting abominably and smelling worse; and +shrews are cousins of the hedgehogs, of the same great clan, +Insectivora—far removed from the pigs, really—and that is the nearest +she had got. +</P> + +<P> +She had never heard of hedgehogs, and never, never met a beast that +walked through the wild as if he owned it. And, more, he expected her +to get out of his way, which she did with feline and concentrated +remarks; and he—by the whiskers and talons!—the fool exposed his +back—turned his back openly, a thing no wild beast in its senses would +do, unless running away. And that, for a cat who had waited close on +two hours for baby business that didn't turn up, had got most +unfashionably drenched, and had, moreover, in her time, tackled more +than one grown-up rabbit, which was considerably larger than any +hedgehog—that, I say, was, for the silver tabby, too much. +</P> + +<P> +She sprang. Rather, she executed two bounds, and somewhat unexpectedly +found herself on top of the hedgehog. I say "unexpectedly," because +she had hitherto bounded upon wild-folk who contrived mostly not to be +there. This one contrived nothing, except to stop still. And the cat +executed a third bound—<I>off</I> the hedgehog, and rather more violently +and more quickly than the first two. Also, she spat. +</P> + +<P> +When she had got over the intense pain—and cats feel pain badly—of +sharp spines digging into her soft and tender forefoot-pads, she +stopped, about two yards away, and glared at the hedgehog as if he had +played off a foul upon her, and she was surprised to see that he was no +longer egg-shaped, but rolled up into himself like a ball, so to speak, +and utterly quiescent. (I wonder if she remembered the little +wood-lice that she had so often amused herself playing with in idle +hours. They rolled themselves up just like that. Perhaps she thought +she'd come upon the Colossus of all the wood-lice.) Anyway, after she +had spat off at him all the vile remarks she could think of for the +moment, without producing any more reply than she would get from the +average stone, she came back, drawn with curiosity as by strings. +</P> + +<P> +The hedgehog did not move; there was no need. It was for the cat to +make the next move—if she chose. He did not care. All things were +one to him, and all the views which he presented to the world were +points, a <I>cheval-de-frise</I>, a coiled ball of barbed wire, a living +Gibraltar, what you will, but, anyway, practically impregnable; and the +beggar knew it. "He who believeth doth not make haste"—that seemed to +be his motto, and he had, by the same token, a fine facility for +withstanding a siege. +</P> + +<P> +He felt the cat, that cat who did not know hedgehogs, pat him +tentatively. Then he heard her swearing softly and tensely at the +painful result. She did not pat again—at least, only once, and, in +spite of care, that hurt her worse than ever. Then she began growling, +low and beastily—for all the cat tribe have a horrible growl; you may +have noticed it. Perhaps the hedgehog smiled. I don't know. He knew +that growl, anyhow; had heard it before—the anger of utter +exasperation. He was an exasperating brute, too, for he never said +anything, only shut himself up, and let others do the arguing, if they +were fools enough to do so. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly he heard the growl stop. Followed a tense pause, during which +he tightened his back-muscles under his spines, and tucked himself in, +to meet any coming shock, more tightly than ever. Followed the pause a +short warning hiss, jerked out almost in fright, it seemed—that cat's +hiss that is only a bluff, and meant to imitate a snake—a sudden +explosion of snarls, and a thud. A fractional silence, then a perfect +boil-over of snarls, and thud upon thud. +</P> + +<P> +Now, our friend hedgehog was an old hand, and he had heard many and +curious sounds take place outside himself, so to speak; but, all the +same, he was just tickled to death to know what, in claws and whiskers, +was happening out there in the leering moonlight now; so much so, +indeed, that at last he risked it, and took a furtive peep out of a +chink in himself, as it were. And what he saw might have amazed him, +if he had not been a hedgehog and scarcely ever amazed at anything. He +just got a snapshot view of the cat's fine ringed tail whirling round +and round as she balanced herself on the swerve, vanishing into the +ghostly moonlight haze of the night; and in front of him, close beside +him, squatting, stare-eyed and phlegmatic, he saw the form of a big, +gaunt, old doe-rabbit. And I think he knew what had happened. He +seemed to, anyway, and remained rolled up. +</P> + +<P> +Rabbits are thoughtless, headstrong, headlong, hopeless, helpless +cowards as a race and a rule. "The heart of a rabbit," they say in +France, speaking of a coward. But all races and rules have exceptions. +Occasionally the exceptions are old buck-rabbits, who know a thing or +two; but more often they are old doe-rabbits with young. And, mark +you, from the point of view of those wild-folk, there may be easier +rough handfuls to tackle than old doe-rabbits with young. This one had +simply streaked out of the night from nowhere—and behind—and knocked +the cat flying before she knew. Then, ere ever the feline could gather +her wits, the old doe had descended upon her with an avalanche of +blows—punches they were with the forefeet, all over the head and the +nose, where a cat hates to be hit—and all so swiftly, so irresistibly, +that that cat had never been given a chance to consider before she was +stampeded into the night. It was the silver tabby's first experience +of Mrs. Rabbit doing the devoted-mother act, and, by the look of +her—tail only—and the speed at which she was going, it appeared most +likely that it would be her last. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-068"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-068.jpg" ALT=""This one had simply streaked out of the night from nowhere"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="443" HEIGHT="660"> +<H4> +[Illustration: "This one had simply streaked out of the night from nowhere"] +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Meanwhile the old doe-rabbit sat there in the moonlight as immovable +and impassive as a Buddha, and the hedgehog, peering at her, guessed +that the time to unroll was not yet. He knew that it would hurt any +one to attack him; the cat knew it; all rabbits in their senses knew +it; but was that mother-rabbit in her senses? He concluded to lie low +and remain a fortress, therefore. +</P> + +<P> +Then, after waiting about five minutes, as if she knew that cats +sometimes steal back, the old doe-rabbit came to a "stop" quite close +to the hedgehog, and went in. She remained there some time, during +which a fox came by and sniffed at the hedgehog, but was quite wise as +to the foolishness of doing more; and a deadly, curved-backed, +flat-headed little murderer of a stoat galloped by, and sniffed too, +but was no bigger fool than the fox, and went his way. +</P> + +<P> +Both missed the "stop" by about two yards, though I don't know what +would have happened if they had found it. Digging and death in the +former case, and battle and blood in the latter, perhaps. But no +matter, they passed on their unlawful occasions; and half-an-hour after +the going of the stoat the old doe-rabbit came out, and dissolved into +the moon-haze. +</P> + +<P> +Then the hedgehog came out, too—of himself, and—well, dissolved into +the "stop." +</P> + +<P> +What happened in there it was too dark to see, but not to hear; and +what one could hear was—pitiful. He was there some time, for your +hedgehog rarely hurries; and when he came out again, his little pig's +eyes gleaming red under their spined cowl, it was with the same +snuffling, softly grunting deliberation with which he had gone in; but +the pale moon, that showed the gleam in his eyes, showed also blood on +his snout, and on the bristles of his forefeet, blood. +</P> + +<P> +Then, slowly, snorting, sniffing very audibly—as loud as a big dog +often does—grunting softly in an undertone, as if talking to himself, +he departed, rustling through the grass, leaving an irregular winding +track behind in the dew and the gossamer, as he searched, eternally +searched, for food. +</P> + +<P> +The hedgehog moved through the night as if he owned it and had no fear +of anything on earth; but many, it would seem, had cause to fear him. +He turned and snorted, and snatched up a slug. Three very quick and +suggestive—quite audible—scrunches, and it was gone. He described a +half-circle, sniffing very loudly, and chopped up a grub. He paused +for a fraction to nose out a beetle, and disposed of it with the same +quick three or four chopping scrunches. (It sounded rather like a +child eating toast-crusts.) He continued, always wandering devious, +always very busy and ant-like, always snorting loudly; grabbed another +beetle, and then a worm—all by scent, apparently—and reached the +hedge-ditch, where, in the pitch-darkness, he could still be heard +snorting and scrunching hapless insects, slugs, and worms at scarcely +more than one-minute intervals. And he never stopped. He seemed to +have been appointed by Nature as a sort of machine, a spiked "tank," to +sniff tirelessly about, reducing the surplus population of pests, as if +he were under a curse—as, indeed, the whole of the great order of +little beasts to which he belonged, the Insectivora, are—which, +afflicting him with an insatiable hunger, drove him everlastingly to +hunt blindly through the night for gastronomic horrors, and to eat 'em. +Anyway, he did it, and in doing it seemed to make himself worthy of the +everlasting thanks and protection of the people who owned that +land—thanks which to date he had never received. +</P> + +<P> +Strange to say, he never stopped of his own free-will, though he was +stopped: once when he walked up to a man kneeling—and he was a +poacher—and did not see him till, if I may so put it, the man coughed, +when he ran like winkle into the hedge, and promptly became a ball for +ten minutes; and once when he came upon a low, long, sinister, big, and +grunting shadow, which again, if I be allowed the term, he did not see, +though quite close, till he heard it grunt, when he instantly jerked +himself into a ball on the spot and in the open. In both cases it +seemed, on the face of it, more as if he had scented, rather than had +either seen or heard, the dangers, and in both cases he had come within +two yards of them—though they were not hidden—before scenting, +seeing, or hearing them, whichever he did do. +</P> + +<P> +Now, books and men have said that friend hedgehog fears only two +things: gypsies and badgers—who eat him. I should not be surprised at +anything the "gyp" did; nor, to this day, can we stake much on our +knowledge of the secret badger; but this badger, at any rate, seemed to +know nothing of books and men. He was delving for roots when the +hedgehog cast up out of the night and jumped him to "attention" by his +loud sniffs—much like a big dog's, I said. Thereafter, however, when +our prickly friend was represented as a ball only, and was as silent as +the grave, the badger took no further notice of him, beyond keeping one +eye—the weather eye—upon him, and treating him to a low growl, or +curse, truly, from time to time. +</P> + +<P> +The hedgehog, however, once there, did not seem keen upon unrolling and +exposing himself till the badger had gone, which it did finally, +vanishing so suddenly and unexpectedly into the dark as almost to seem +to have been a ghost. And after some minutes the hedgehog straightened +out, and ate his way—one can call it nothing else—to the hedge. Here +he came upon a wounded mouse, complaining into the night in a little, +thin voice, because its back was broken, and it could not return to its +hole. It was a harvest mouse, rejoicing in the enormous weight of 4.7 +grains and a length of 57 mm., but with as much love of life and fear +of death as an elephant. Heaven knows what had smitten it! Perhaps it +was one of the very few who just escape the owl, or who foil that +scientific death, the weasel, at the last moment—but no matter. The +result was the same—death, anyway. +</P> + +<P> +The hedgehog saw its eyes shining like stars in a little jet of +moonlight, and I fear the hedgehog slew far less adroitly than the owl, +and not nearly so scientifically as the weasel; but he slew, none the +less, and he did that which he did. +</P> + +<P> +From thence we find our hedgehog, still wandering devious, but with +always a direction, just as an ant has, heading his way down-ditch to a +farm, and all the way he ate—beetles mostly, but with slugs and worms +thrown in. +</P> + +<P> +Now, those of the wild-folk who approach the farm, even by night, do so +with their life in their paws, and most of them know it. Far, far +safer would it be to remain in wood or field-hedge, gorse-patch or +growing crop. Yet they go, like the adventurers of old. +</P> + +<P> +First of all, if he approached by ditch, before getting to the farm +proper, the hedgehog knew that he must pass the entrenchments of the +rat-folk, and that alone was enough to put off many, for the rat-folk +are no longer strictly wild, and, wild or tame, are hated with that +cordiality that only fear can impose. I don't know that our hedgehog +was given to fearing anything very much. He came of a brave race, and +one cursed, moreover, with a vile, quick temper, more than likely to +squash in its incipient stage any fear that might threaten to exist; +but he did most emphatically detest rats, except to eat them—a +compliment which the rats would have returned, if they had got a chance. +</P> + +<P> +As a matter of fact, it is unlikely that Prickles—for such was the +name of our hedgehog—would have gone that risky way, traveled so +unhealthily far, left his more or less—mostly less—safe home wood at +all, had it not been that it is sometimes with hedgehogs as it is with +men—in the warm seasons—their fancy turns to thoughts of love. +Prickles's fancy had so turned, not lightly, for he was of an ancient +and antediluvian race, heavy in thought, but certainly to love. And +love, I want you to realize, in the wild, or anywhere else, for the +matter of that, is the very devil. "Unite and multiply; there is no +other law or aim than love," one great savant despairingly assorts is +Nature's cry, and adds that she mutters to herself under her breath, +"and exist afterwards if you can. That is no concern of mine." +</P> + +<P> +To be precise, Prickles, who did more business with his nose than all +the rest of his organs put together, was following a love-trail. A +lady hedgehog, a flapper undoubtedly, and beautiful—all loves are +beautiful in imagination—had passed that way. Why <I>that</I> unhealthful +way, Heaven knew; but, allowing for the capriciousness of the sex, and +mad because in love, Prickles followed, slowly, deliberately, heavily, +as befitted one descended from one of the oldest races on earth. +</P> + +<P> +The air was heavy with the scent of may and of honeysuckle, and his way +was a green-gold—silver where the moon cascaded down the hedge—and +blue-black bridal-path, arched with scented swords, strewn with pink +and rose and cream and white confetti of blossom. But he only saw and +smelt one thing, and that, those who have known hedgehogs intimately +will agree, is not like unto the scent of any blossom. +</P> + +<P> +Prickles was ruminating anciently upon these things, possibly, and +others, as he came down the trench—ditch, I mean—when the cry smote +him. It smote everything—the filtered silence of the wonderful, +tranquil night, the pale moon half-light, the furtive rustling shadows +that stopped rustling, the wonderful breathing pulse of growing +vegetation. And Prickles stopped as abruptly as if it had smitten him +on his nose, too. He heard <I>that</I>, at any rate, whatever might have +been hinted about the value of his ears elsewhere. +</P> + +<P> +There was no doubt about that cry, no possible shadow of doubt +whatever—it was a cry of extreme distress, a final, despairing S.O.S., +flung out to the night in the frantic hope that one of the same species +would hear and help. +</P> + +<P> +Several night-foraging wild-folk have S.O.S. signals of their own, but +none like this. It was not a rabbit's cry, for bunny's signal is thin +and child-like; nor a hare's, for puss's last scream is like bunny's, +only more so; nor a stoat's, for that is instinct with anger as well as +pain; nor a cat's, for that thrills with hate; nor an owl's, for that +is ghostly; nor a fox's, for Reynard is dumb then; nor a rat's, for +that is gibbering and devilish; nor a mouse's, for that is weak and +helpless. Then what? And why had it touched up Prickles as if with a +live wire? It was perhaps the rarest S.O.S. signal of all heard in the +wild, or one of the rarest, the peculiar, high, chattering, pig-like, +savage tremolo of a hedgehog booked for some extra deathly form of +death. And Prickles—naturally he knew it. +</P> + +<P> +It came from straightaway down the ditch; from ahead, where Prickles +had been heading for; from the farm, and Heaven know what it portended! +Perhaps, too, Prickles could tell a lady hedgehog's S.O.S. from that of +a gentleman of the same breed; or, perhaps—but how do I know? He +certainly acted that way. +</P> + +<P> +Prickles waited the one-fifth part of an instant, to listen and locate. +Then he got going, and provided one astonishment. Till then he had +seemed slow as the times he had descended from—like a rhinoceros. +But, like a rhino, he proved that he could shift some when hustled. He +did. It looked like suddenly releasing a clockwork toy wound up to +breaking-point. His short legs gave this impression, and his +next-to-no-neck, giving him a look of rigidity, assisted it. He did +not run so much as rush, and his spines and bristles, coming low on +either side in an overhang, so to speak, like an armored car, made him +rustle and scuffle tremendously. Three rabbits doing the same act, or +five cats, could scarce have made more row than he did. +</P> + +<P> +It was not, however, so much the fact that Prickles had gone that was +so noticeable as the fact that he had <I>arrived</I>. His arrival seemed to +follow his going as one slide follows another on a screen. One would +never have believed such quickness of him; nor, as a matter of fact, do +I think he would have believed it of himself; but—well, love is a +mighty power, and makes folks do some strange things. +</P> + +<P> +What he found was two ditch-banks, pock-marked with the untidy dug-outs +of the rat-people, smelling ratty, and looking worse, one original ray +of moonlight lighting the beaten ditch between. In the moonlight one +young female hedgehog, who may have been pretty by hedgehog standards, +but was now pretty by none, and five rats, frankly beastly, very busy +indeed with that same hedgehog. They must have caught that young lady +of the spikes "napping"—a rare thing. Yet, allowing for the fact that +she was in love—with love and nothing else, so far—and careless, or +allowing that she may have mistaken the unclean ones momentarily, she +may have given them one brief half-instant. And it doesn't do to give +a rat even the half of a half-instant. If you do, he has got you, or +you haven't got him. +</P> + +<P> +Apparently they had pretty well got her before she could quite roll up, +and in a half-rolled-up condition she was doing her best to meet the +jabs of five pairs of gnawing, cold-chisel, incisor, yellow-rats' teeth +at once. To time, apparently, she had not been successful in the +attempt—you could see the dark stains of blood glisten in the +moonlight, and the end was certain, on the face of it. +</P> + +<P> +Prickles, however, was a new factor that had got to short-circuit that +end, and Prickles didn't wait to meditate prehistorically <I>that</I> time. +He came. He came full tilt into the midst of the mêlée like—well, +like a clockwork toy still, that couldn't stop. Only he did stop, +against the biggest rat of all, ducking his head, and jerking forward +his shoulder-muscles, and spines, with a sort of a thrust over his +head, and a noise like a pair of expiring bellows; and the prickles hit +home. +</P> + +<P> +That rat removed about one foot in one bound in one-fortieth of a +second, and he let rip one squeal in the process that sent away every +other rat into the nearest available hole as if it had been fired there +from a spring. Then the lady hedgehog took the Heaven-sent opportunity +to complete her rolling-up completely, and Prickles took his own +created opportunity to roll up almost more completely, and—well, they +were rolled up into two balls, you see, and there is nothing more to be +said about them. The rats did that, but it was all they did, except +hurt their noses presently, and delicate, pink, hand-like fore-paws, +and make 'em bleed on prickles. They were very angry indeed, those +unspeakable ones—very angry; but it didn't make any difference to the +hedgehogs. They were there; they were rolled up; they were together. +What <I>could</I> make any difference after <I>that</I>? And at last, when the +rats gave them up as a very bad job, they went away <I>together</I>, and +that's all there is to say. <I>Together</I> clinches it, you understand. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PHARAOH +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H3> + +<P> +Upon a day Hawkley came to the district, and took up his abode in a +cottage of four rooms. He "did" for himself. Every housekeeper will +know what "did" for himself means. But he did for himself in another +way also. He came to read up for an exam. He told everybody this, +which was one reason why he would be seen at ungodly hours, when no one +was about, going to and from lonely spots, with a pair of blue glasses +on his nose, a book under one arm, and a walking-stick with a silver +band and a tassel—he was always careful to display the silver band and +the tassel—under the other. +</P> + +<P> +Then Nemesis descended upon him. +</P> + +<P> +He was caught by Colonel Lymington's head-keeper on Colonel Lymington's +most strictly preserved wild-bird sanctuary, shooting certain rare +birds—many rare birds. Now, the colonel prided himself on his +sanctuary, and upon the number of rare birds he had living therein, and +the colonel was wroth. Hawkley had, in fact, ruined the sanctuary, and +taken or slain pretty well every other bird worth having in the place, +so that five years would not make good the harm he had done. Moreover, +it was shown in the evidence that Hawkley had been able to accomplish +his work by aid of a folding pocket-rifle with a silencer on, and his +cat—especially the cat, whose name was Pharaoh. +</P> + +<P> +No words of the keeper's could be found sufficiently to revile that +cat. Indeed, the head-keeper went speechless, and nearly had epilepsy, +in trying to describe it to the Court, and if it had done only one-half +the things that the keeper asserted, it must have been a very +remarkable beast indeed; the magistrate said so. In consequence +Hawkley got rather heavily fined, and went. He went more quickly than +was expected, because the police got a telephone message from the +police of another district—several other districts, I think—to say +that he was "wanted" for precisely the same game there: and Hawkley +must have expected this, for he walked out of the court with a grin on +his face, and was no more seen. +</P> + +<P> +So quickly did he go that he had no time to take the cat. He left it +at home in the cottage—which shows that he must have been badly +scared, for such a cat must have been worth a lot to a collector's +agent, such as Hawkley was. But perhaps he left it by way of revenge. +I do not know. Anyway, there it was in his cottage, asleep on the sofa +before the fire—just as Hawkley, at the invitation of the authorities, +had left it that morning. +</P> + +<P> +It was about five o'clock in the afternoon when the cat, Pharaoh, woke +up, and transformed himself instantly from deep sleep to strained +alertness, in that way which is peculiar to the children of the wild, +but has been lost by their domestic degenerates. The sun was shining +full in at the little diamond-paned window. The window was open, and a +late fly of metallic hue was shooting about with a pinging noise, like +the twang of some instrumental string. But neither fly, nor sun, nor +the tick of the little clock on the mantelpiece had awakened the cat. +It was the click of the little front-gate latch. +</P> + +<P> +The cat—the pupils of his eyes like vertical slits in green-yellow +stone—gave one quick look at, and through, the open window. He had +the impression, framed in the window, of a bobbing, black, "square" +bowler hat—not often seen these days—and a red face with small eyes, +and a sticking-out beard of aggressiveness. This was no Hawkley. The +cat knew it, as he knew, probably, the alien tread. Hawkley had a +white, clean-shaven face, and big eyes—the eyes that an animal may +love and trust. Possibly the cat knew even the profession of him who +came that way so softly and alone in the still afternoon. Anyway, he +acted as if he did. +</P> + +<P> +Like a snake, and with rather less noise, Pharaoh slid off the sofa and +to the door leading into the scullery. For a moment he stopped, +looking back over his shoulder, one paw uplifted, body drooping on bent +legs, inscrutable, fierce eyes staring. Then he was gone. +</P> + +<P> +I don't know how he went. He just seemed to fade out in the frame of +the doorway and into the shadowed coolth of the scullery like a +dissolving picture. +</P> + +<P> +A pause followed, while the little clock on the mantel-piece ticked +hurriedly, as if anxious to get on and pass over an awkward moment. +</P> + +<P> +Came then the click of the front-door latch, the flinging open of the +door wide, the bar-like gleam of hastily raised gun-barrels in the new +flood of light, and—silence. Only the one or two late flies "pinged," +while the little clock fairly raced. +</P> + +<P> +The tall, uncompromising figure of the head-keeper was standing in the +doorway, with a double-barreled 12-bore gun half-raised. +</P> + +<P> +He stood there a moment with his dog, bent a little, peering in. He +had come to find "that there pesky cat." And in this, perhaps, he +showed more sense than most people gave him credit for. Apparently, he +had seen enough to know that the cat was quite unlike any ordinary +cat—and cats of any kind are bad enough—and certainly he guessed that +the cat under control of its master was one, and away from that +questionable influence likely to be another, and very much worse, +calamity. +</P> + +<P> +The keeper searched that cottage from chimney to doorstep. No cat +there. His dog did not, as might have been expected, help him in this +search. Indeed, his dog, he now discovered, had vanished—had, in +fact, gone out at the back-door and cleared off. +</P> + +<P> +Meanwhile the cat was, for his sins, being horribly pricked by the +holly-hedge through which he was sliding. He growled under the +punishment. Ordinary domestic cats do not, as a rule, growl in such +cases, though they may "swear." +</P> + +<P> +Once through the hedge, the cat dropped into the ditch on the other +side, turned to his right, and galloped up it. It ran upwards, +skirting a sloping wet field, to a dark, damp, black wood, as woods +always are that stand on cold clay and have much evergreen growth. +They remind one of a wet, chill rhododendron forest of Tibet. +</P> + +<P> +The cat's gallop was in itself peculiar, loose, long, his head low, his +forepaws straight, his hindlegs trailing out behind. So does the tiger +gallop across the jungle glade when the beaters rouse him. +</P> + +<P> +There were other things peculiar about Pharaoh also, now that one had +him on the move and could see. He was, perhaps, a fraction big for his +kind; his coat was yellowish, fading beneath, with "faint pale stripes" +well marked on the sides; his tail was long, and oddly slender and +"whippy," ringed faintly to the black tip; his fur was short and harsh, +quite unlike that of a domestic cat, and the expression of his eyes was +one of permanent, unsleeping fierceness. +</P> + +<P> +Once he stopped and stared back, and in the pause which followed one +could distinctly hear a faint but rapidly increasing drumming sound +following his trail up the ditch. And least of all beasts had that cat +delusions. He turned and galloped on. The keeper's dog was of an +independent turn of mind. He had quietly run that cat's trail, +forgetting that, in the long-run, dogs are not fitted to maneuver +independently, and may suffer if they do so. You see him flying up the +trail, square nose to ground, tracking really very cleverly indeed, and +with a fine amount of what huntsmen call "drive." +</P> + +<P> +Ho had overtaken Pharaoh before the hunted one could reach the wood. +He realized it as he took the last bend in the ditch, when he saw a +yellow streak rise under his nose, and bound, with all four legs stuck +out quite straight, and claws spread abroad, like a rubber ball out of +his path, avoiding his clumsy, murderous snap by an inch, and then felt +it rebound right on to his back. +</P> + +<P> +The next few seconds were quite crowded, and that dog had the time of +his life. +</P> + +<P> +Even an ordinary domestic "puss" can make wonderful havoc of a dog's +back when once it gets there; and stays, as it does, like a burr, and +this one could go a bit better than most; and when that dog at last got +the cat's "leave to go," he went rather sooner than at once, +proclaiming his misery aloud to all the world, so that his master, +coming at that moment out of the back-door of the cottage, heard him +afar off, and swore. +</P> + +<P> +As for the cat, he turned about, all bristling, and went too. He went +straight up to, and through, the wood, disturbing in clouds the +starlings, who had just come in to roost in the rhododendrons, so that +they rose with a rushing of wings like the voice of a thunder-shower on +forest leaves, and incidentally drenched the cat with a deluge of +raindrops collected in the leaves as he raced through underneath. A +lesser beast, it may be noted, would have climbed a tree, but Hawkley, +I think, had convinced his cat of that folly when a man might be +following up behind. +</P> + +<P> +Straight through the wood galloped Pharaoh, and into a stretch of +age-old furze, or gorse, if you like, beyond. That showed strategy. +The furze was a maze of a million spikes, and branches, and twisted, +gnarled stems tough as wire-rope; a wonderful place, all honeycombed +with rabbit-runs; a world unto itself. +</P> + +<P> +The cat moved on quickly into the heart of the furze, pausing every few +strides to listen and glare round. Several times he sniffed the sickly +grass and the carpet of dead spikes. +</P> + +<P> +Once or twice something moved ahead; a branch was shaking as he came +up, a blade of grass slowly righting itself, as if something that had +been sitting upon it had but just stolen away. All round were hints of +life, but no life was visible. It was as if the cat were moving +through an army of ghosts. +</P> + +<P> +Then, in a flash, without any kind of hint or warning to prepare one +for the unnerving contrast of the change, was war—raw, red war. +</P> + +<P> +There had come up a rabbit-run—a regular rabbit-turnpike—a creature. +It was strikingly colored, that creature, and big—nearly three feet +long, to be exact; but it looked much bigger in the ghostly +twilight—and yet till it was actually upon him he, even he, had failed +to see it. +</P> + +<P> +Long, low, bear-like, and burly, with claws caked with earth, gashed +and bleeding on flank and shoulder it was, red-fanged and wild-eyed. +It charged home upon Pharaoh without a second's pause, and with an +obscene chatter that was unnerving to any one, let alone so highly +strung a bag of tricks as a cat. +</P> + +<P> +Men and dogs had been besieging this badger in its den for twelve +hours. It had in the end made a desperate <I>sortie</I>, upset one man who +had failed to grab its tail, run into and bitten another, and got clean +away. Pharaoh was unfortunate in that he stood between the half-mad +beast and another den for which it was making. +</P> + +<P> +There was no time to go back, no room to execute one of those beautiful +lightning side-leaps which are the pride of all the cats, and less to +spring into the air, a neat trick of the tribe which it has also +perfected. +</P> + +<P> +The cat was cornered, and, being cornered, fought like—a cornered cat! +That is to say, an electrified devil. +</P> + +<P> +He reared up. He struck, pat! pat! right and left, with the terrible, +rending, full stroke of his kind. He met open jaws with open jaws—you +could hear fang clash against fang. He grabbed, scrunched, drew back, +grabbed, scrunched again, as a lion will—for the cats neither hold +fast like a weasel nor snap like a wolf. Then, as the full force of +the charge and the weight of the enemy's body—some twenty-seven and a +half pounds—took him, he hugged, round-arm fashion, with his talons, +and, still grabbing and scrunching, rolled over backwards. +</P> + +<P> +Cat and badger turned into a ball—a parti-colored ball, very lively as +to its center, and it whirled. Unfortunately there was not much room +to whirl in. That made things all the more grisly. You could almost +see the grim skeleton shape of death, hovering over that growling, +snarling, spitting, worrying, tearing, kicking, gnashing, scrunching, +foaming, blood-flecked Catherine-wheel—almost see death, I say, +bending down with upraised arm ready to strike. But death never struck. +</P> + +<P> +In an instant there came, sounding strangely hollow in that still, damp +air of dusk, as though it were in a cave, the unmistakable noise of a +deep, dry, hacking cough. Truly, it was nothing much—just a good old +churchy and human cough. But it might have been a blast from the +trumpet of the archangel Gabriel himself by the effect it had upon the +two combatants. They shot apart like released electrified dust-atoms, +and—pff!—they were gone—wiped out. Like pricked bubbles, they had +ceased to be. And neither gave any explanation. Being wild things, of +course they wouldn't. +</P> + +<P> +The cough had only come from a laborer, who, passing along a pathway +through the furze, had heard the commotion, and stopped. He never saw +anything, though he crashed into the furze and hunted—he never saw +anything, which was no wonder, seeing that he could hardly have +selected a way to see less. The cat was four hundred yards away by +that time, and goodness knows where the badger was—-deep down in his +den, one presumes. +</P> + +<P> +Later the cat slept, in a fortress of nature safe enough, surrounded by +a hundred unseen sentries with brown jackets and white tails—rabbits, +who would give him all the warning he required. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H3> + +<P> +The lean night wind next evening came down, and day went out almost +imperceptibly. Blackness grew under the furze caverns, and the last +glimpse of the estuary faded away in a steely glimmer; a brown ghost of +an owl slid low over the spiked ramparts, and wings—the wings of +fighting wild-duck coming up from the sea to feed—"spoke" like swords +through the star-spangled blue-black canopy of heaven. +</P> + +<P> +The night-folk began to move abroad. You could hear them pass—now a +faint rustle here, now a surreptitious "pad-pad" there. Once some +bird-thing of the night cried out suddenly, very far away in the sky, +"Keck! keck!" and was gone. +</P> + +<P> +It was not Pharaoh, however, that you would have heard move. None of +the wild-folk could tell how at midnight he managed to land himself far +out over the marsh, unperceived. He was there—you must take my word +for it—just two faintly luminous yellow-green lamps floating on the +mist. +</P> + +<P> +Not many men knew their way across the marsh by day; certainly not five +even of the oldest wildfowlers could have got over safely by night. It +was not man, therefore, that was causing the cat to melt into the +short, salt grass, so closely that there was nothing of him left. +Something else was coming his way. +</P> + +<P> +Along the edge of the dike it came—tall, thin, pale, ghostly, +and—yes, I could have sworn it, though night does play odd tricks with +the human eyesight—faintly phosphorescent. At least, it seemed to +glow ever so dimly, like one that moves in a nearly burnt-out halo. +</P> + +<P> +Every yard or two it paused, that thing. Once there was a splash, as +if some one were spearing fish and had missed. +</P> + +<P> +The cat moved rather less than an average stone. He knew that in the +wild to be motionless is, in nine cases out of ten, to be invisible. +The tenth case doesn't matter, because the creature that discovers it +usually dies. Moreover, there was no cover to move to, and cover is +the cat's trump card. +</P> + +<P> +Now, everything would have gone off all right if—well, if the cat +hadn't been a cat, I suppose; that is, if he had been able to stop the +ceaseless twitching of the black tip of his tail. Tiger-hunters know +that twitching, and those who have stalked the lion will tell you of +it, as also the sparrow on the garden wall, whose life may have been +saved from somebody's pet "tabby" by that same twitching. It is a +characteristic habit of the tribe, I take it. +</P> + +<P> +The luminous ghost-thing was close now. Heaven knows whether it saw +that twitching then! I think so. It stopped, anyway, and became a +pillar of stone. The cat, almost under it, fairly pressed himself into +the grass. +</P> + +<P> +Then—whrrp! +</P> + +<P> +Something shot through the air like a lance, and pinned that twitching +tail-point to the ground. There had been no warning—nothing! Just +that javelin from the ghost, and—-the cat on his hindlegs, screaming +like a stricken devil, clawing at the ghost, now revealed as a very +big, long-legged bird which flapped. It flapped huge wings and danced +a grotesque dance, and it smelt abominably, with the stench of ten +fish-markets on a hot day. +</P> + +<P> +Then at last, the cat clawing and yelling the whole time, the bird's +slow brain seemed to realize the mistake. The javelin, which was its +beak, was withdrawn from the protesting tail-tip hurriedly—to be +driven through the cat's skull as a sheer act of necessary +self-defense, I fancy. But the cat did not wait to see. Imagine the +infamy, the absolute sacrilege, from a cat's point of view, of spitting +a feline tail in that disgusting fashion. Why, if you only tread on +one, you hear about it in five-tenths of the average second, and offend +the supercilious owner for a month afterwards! +</P> + +<P> +There was a vision, just a half-guessed vision, of our cat shooting +straight upwards through the air, and outwards over the still waters of +the dike; there was a number one splash that set the reflected stars +dancing, and the water-voles ("rats," if you like) bolting to their +holes; and there was the sighing "frou-frou-frou!" of great wings as +the big bird rose and fled majestically. There was the sucking gurgle +and drip-drip of a furred body leaving the water on the far side, eyes +that glared more hate than pen can set down, and a deep, low, malignant +feline curse. That cat had swum the rest of the way over the dike +which he could not jump. +</P> + +<P> +The bird was only a heron, and that does not sound much unless you are +acquainted with the ways of the heron and all his beak implies. A +heron is one of those birds that can fight at need, and—knows it. +Moreover, in his long beak, set on his steel-spring neck, he has a +weapon of awful "piercefulness," and—knows that too. The bird is an +example of armed defense. +</P> + +<P> +This one had merely been fishing for eels in that pessimistic way +peculiar to all fishermen, and seeing the tail-tip waving in the grass, +and nothing else, had mistaken the same for his quarry. And this will +be the easier to believe because we know, and probably the heron did +also, that eels are given at times to overland journeys on secret +errands of their own. +</P> + +<P> +The cat crawled away down the dike in offended silence. He was wet, +and the only cat I ever knew who did not seem to be scandalized past +speech at the fact. Indeed, he went farther. He came upon a ripple +and a dot, some fifty yards farther on, which to the initiated such as +he, represented a water-vole ("rat," if you will) swimming. +</P> + +<P> +Then, before you could take your pipe from your mouth to exclaim, the +water-vole was not swimming. He was squealing in a most loud and +public-spirited fashion from between Pharaoh's jaws, and it was the cat +who was swimming. He had just taken a flying leap from the bank and +landed full upon the dumbfounded water-vole—splash! Then he swam +calmly ashore and dined, all wet and cold. Now, what is one to say of +such a cat? +</P> + +<A NAME="img-090"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-090.jpg" ALT=""Landed full upon the dumbfounded water-vole--splash!"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="450" HEIGHT="657"> +<H4> +[Illustration: "Landed full upon the dumbfounded water-vole—splash!"] +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H3> + +<P> +Long did the keepers, in Colonel Lymington's woods and along the +hedges, search with dog and gun for Pharaoh, and many traps did they +set. The dogs truly found a cat—two cats, and the guns stopped them, +but one had a nice blue ribbon round his neck, and the other had +kittens; the traps were found by one cat—and that was the pet of the +colonel's lady—one stoat, one black "Pom"—and that was the idol of +the parson's daughter—and one vixen—and she was buried secretly and +at night—but Pharaoh remained where he had chosen to remain, and he +remained also an enigma. +</P> + +<P> +Then the colonel's rare birds began to evaporate in real earnest. +Hawkley's little efforts at depleting them were child's-play to those +of Pharaoh that followed, although, of course, Pharaoh himself did not +know, or care the twitch of a whisker, whether the birds he slew were +rare or not. +</P> + +<P> +Now, if there was one thing more than another about which the colonel +prided himself in his bird sanctuary, it was the presence of the +bittern. I don't know where the bittern came from, nor does the +colonel. Perhaps the head-keeper knew. Bitterns migrate sometimes, +but—well, that keeper was no fool, and knew his master's soft spot. +</P> + +<P> +It was a night or two later that Pharaoh surmounted the limit, so to +speak, and "sprung all mines in quick succession." He had been curled +up all day in his furze fortress, that vast stretch of prickly +impenetrability which, even if a dog had been found with pluck enough +to push through to its heart, would still, in its massed and tangled +boughs, have given a cat with Pharaoh's fighting prowess full chance to +defy any dog. +</P> + +<P> +He was beautifully oblivious of the stir his previous doings had kicked +up, and of the winged words the colonel had used to the head-keeper; of +the traps set all about, of the gins doubled and trebled in the wood +and round the park, and of the under-keepers who, with guns and +tempting baits, took up their positions to wait for him as night fell. +</P> + +<P> +No one seemed to have suspected the furze a mile away, and still less +the marsh and the coverless bleak shore of the estuary, as his home. +Indeed, no one looks for a cat on a wind-whipped marsh when woods are +near at all. Yet this open, wet country seemed to be a peculiarly +favorite hunting-ground of Pharaoh's. +</P> + +<P> +It was a night of rain-squalls and moonlit streaks when Pharaoh, +wandering devious among the reeds, first became aware of the bittern, +in the shape of reptilian green eyes steadily regarding him from the +piebald shadows. Possibly the cat's whiskers first hinted at some new +presence by reason of the "ancient and fish-like smell" which pervaded +this precise reed jungle. +</P> + +<P> +Pharaoh stopped dead. Pharaoh, with cruel, thin ears pressed back, +sank like a wraith into the soft ground. Pharaoh ceased to be even a +grayish-yellow, smoky something, and became nothing but eyes—eyes +floating and wicked. A domestic cat, after one frozen interval, would +have crept away from the foe it could not fathom, but Pharaoh had other +blood in his veins. +</P> + +<P> +To begin with, he was wondering what manner of beast the owner of those +saurian-like orbs might be. To go on with, he was hungry, and—smelt +fish. But though he was looking full at the big bird, he could not see +it, which is the bittern's own private little bit of magic. +</P> + +<P> +Nature has given him a coat just like a bunch of dried reeds and the +shadows between, and he does the rest by standing with his bead stuck +straight up and as still as a brass idol. Result—invisibility. +</P> + +<P> +None know how long those two sought to "outfreeze" the "freezer," while +the rain-showers came up and passed hissing, and the moon played at +hide-and-seek. None knew when Pharaoh, flat as a snake, first began +that deadly, silent circling, which was but acting in miniature the +ways of the lion. None knew, either, at what point of bittern first +begun to sink and sink, till he crouched, and puffed, his neck curved +on his back like a spring ready set, his beak, like a sharpened +assegai, upright. +</P> + +<P> +Only the short-eared owl, with his wonderful eyes, beheld Pharaoh make +his final rush; watched that living spring <I>sprung</I> quick as light, +shooting out straight at the cat's glaring eyes, and saw—greatest +miracle of all the lot—Pharaoh dodge his head aside in the twentieth +of a second, and blink, letting the blow that spelt death whiz by. +</P> + +<P> +And only those same owl's ears—sharpest of all the ears of the +wild—heard the diabolical yell of Pharaoh as the long, sharp beak +pierced through the loose skin of his shoulders, and, thanks to that +same looseness, came out again an inch or two farther on, transfixing +him; or listened to the devilish noise of the "worry," as the cat +turned in agony on himself and buried his fangs where he could behind +those expressionless green reptilian eyes; or caught the stupendous +flurry and whirl of wings and fur and gripping claws and scaly legs, as +a cloud put out the moon and darkness fell with silence, like the +falling curtain that ends a play. +</P> + +<P> + * * * * * *<BR> +</P> + +<P> +The very last pale rays of a watery setting sun slid bar-like through +the cottage window, and fell, twirling, aslant the floor. +</P> + +<P> +A late spider had spun a web across the fireplace, and the one last fly +that always lingers sat in the sunbeam. It was Hawkley's cottage, +dismantled and derelict. +</P> + +<P> +Something like a furry round hassock, lying motionless in a far corner, +moved at the sound of rain, and lifted a round head with round eyes +that glared with so terrible an expression that one caught one's +breath. There was blood—dried blood—by the furry shape, and drops of +dried blood across the floor from the window in the next room, that it +had been nobody's business to shut. +</P> + +<P> +The day went out in gloom and howling rain-rushes. Darkness took +possession of the room. And—<I>the gate clicked</I>. +</P> + +<P> +Truly, it might only have been the wind, but—Pharaoh was on his feet +in a flash, growling, and there was a glint of green-yellow light as +his eyes whipped round. +</P> + +<P> +Followed a pause. Then, in a lull, once, twice, the unmistakable +crunch of a shod foot on gravel. +</P> + +<P> +Another pause. Pharaoh was crouching close now, trembling from head to +foot. +</P> + +<P> +"Pharaoh! Pharaoh! Pharaoh, old cat, are—are you in there?" +</P> + +<P> +The voice, strained and husky, came in at the open window. In the last +lingering afterglow of dying day, a face, haggard and set, showed +there, framed in the lead casement. +</P> + +<P> +"Phar—— Ah!" +</P> + +<P> +Pharaoh was up. Pharaoh had given a strange, coaxing little cry, such +as a she-cat gives to her kittens. Pharaoh, lame and stiff, but with +tail straight as a poker, was running to the window in the next room, +was up on the sill, was rubbing against and caressing the haggard face +like a mad thing. +</P> + +<P> +There was a long, tense pause, broken only by a continuous purring. +Then the creaking sound as of the lid of a wicker basket being opened. +The purring ceased. The creaking came again, as if the lid were being +shut. There came the crunch once more of stealthy shod feet on gravel, +the click of the gate, and—silence! +</P> + +<P> +Hawkley had come for, and found, his cat. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE CRIPPLE +</H3> + + +<P> +It was gradually getting colder and colder as he flew, till at last, in +a wonderful, luminous, clear, moonlit sunset, when day passed, +lingering almost imperceptibly, into night, the wind fixed in the +north, and a hard white frost shone on the glistening roofs—far, far +below. +</P> + +<P> +Up there, at the three-thousand or four-thousand feet level, where he +was flying, the air was as clear and sparkling as champagne, and as +still as the tomb. If he had been passing over the moon instead of +over the earth, the effect would have been something like it, perhaps. +</P> + +<P> +He was only a thrush, <I>Turdus philomelus</I> the songster, but big and +dull and dark for his kind, and he had come from—well, behind him, all +shimmering and restless in the moonlight, like a fountain-basin full of +quicksilver, lay the North Sea; ahead and beneath lay England; and +across that sea, three hundred miles, as I count it, at the very least, +to the lands of melting snow, he was going when late cold weather had +caught him and warned him to come back. And alone? No, sirs, not +quite. Ahead, just visible, blurredly—a little phantom form rose and +fell on the magic air; behind, another; on his right, a third—all +thrushes, flying steadily westward in silence; and there may have been +a few more that could not be seen, or there may not. +</P> + +<P> +His crop, as were the crops of the others, was perfectly empty. +Indeed, he appeared to prefer traveling in ballast that way. But his +eyes shone, and his wing-strokes, with little pauses of rigidity +between, such as many birds take—only one doesn't notice it much—were +strong and sure. +</P> + +<P> +Once a large-winged, smudged shape, making no sound as it slipped +across the heavens, came flapping almost up to him, peering this way +and that at him and his companions, with amber flaming eyes set in a +cat-like, oval face. The thrush's heart gave a great jump, and seemed +threatening to choke him, for that shape—and it howled at him +suddenly, in a voice calculated to make strong men jump—was death of +the night, otherwise a short-eared owl. +</P> + +<P> +But a gun went "boomp!" with that thick, damp sort of sound that smacks +of black powder, somewhere down on earth, and a huge "herd" of green +plover, <I>alias</I> peewits, which are lapwings, rose, as if blown up by an +explosion, to meet them, their thousand wings flickering in the +frost-haze like a shower of confetti, and the owl was so disconcerted +by the disturbance that he dropped back into the night whence he came, +as one who falls into a sea. +</P> + +<P> +Then suddenly the thrush—all the thrushes, indeed—tipped tails, and +flew downward—offering no explanation to help one to understand +why—till they dropped, each one entirely on his own hook, apparently, +in or about some gardens, as if they had tumbled out of the sky; and +our thrush, in twenty seconds, had slipped into some apple-trees, and +thence to some laurels round a shed, and—was asleep! I say "was +asleep." Out of the starry sky, down, in under, and asleep—all +without emotion, and like a machine. Now, what is one to make of such +a bird? +</P> + +<P> +He did not see, or, more correctly, did not appear to see—for I do not +know what he saw and what he pretended not to see, really—the lean, +lithe, long, low weasel that passed, climbing and sniffing, beneath +him—within six inches—possibly scenting out a rat. He did not hear, +or show that he heard, the blackbird—she was rusty, dark brown, as a +matter of actual fact—scream, a piercing and public-spirited scream, +when the very big claws of a little, round, spotted-feathered ball with +wings, like a parody of a cherub—but men call it a little owl, +really—closed upon her and squeezed, or pierced, out her life. He did +not feel, or let on that he felt, the branches gently sway as two eyes, +glinting back the light of the moon—eyes which were the property of a +"silver tabby" female cat—floated among the twigs, looking for him, +him most certainly, whom she seemed faintly to smell, but never saw. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-098"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-098.jpg" ALT=""A 'silver tabby' floated among the twigs, looking for him"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="367" HEIGHT="674"> +<H4> +[Illustration: "A 'silver tabby' floated among the twigs, looking for him"] +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +These things represented tense moments dotted through hours of cold, +dark silence, and the blue-black dome of night arched, and the moon +drifted, all in rigid, cold, and appalling stillness. +</P> + +<P> +Then the wind changed, and our thrush awoke to a "muggy" day, under a +soaked, cotton-wool, gray sky, all sodden with streaming showers of +rain. And, by that token alone, he must have known that he was in +England. No other climate is capable of such crazy, unwarned, +health-trying changes. He had come in an icy, practically petrified +silence. He left in a steaming, swishing, streaming gale. +</P> + +<P> +But that was not before he had been down to scratch like a fowl among +the dead leaves under the privet-hedge for grubs, who "kidded" +themselves that they were going to be fine, flashing insects next +summer. He also prospected a snail or two, and broke through their +fortifications by hammering the same upon a stone. And, by some magic +process that looked akin to the way in which some men divine water, he +divined a worm out of seemingly bare earth. It was there, too, and it +came up, not joyfully, but tugged, to be hammered and shaken into +something not too disgustingly alive to be swallowed. +</P> + +<P> +Then, while a robin mounted to a spruce-spire and acted as Job's +comforter to all the birds of the garden by singing—ah, so plaintively +and sweetly!—of the dismal days of frost and snow, he "preened"—i.e. +went over and combed every feather, and tested and retested, cleaned +and recleaned, each vital quill. Then, in one single, watery, weak +stab of apology for sunshine, on the top of a fowl-shed, he surrendered +himself to what, in wild-bird land, is known as the "sunning reaction," +which really consists of giving body and mind utterly to the sun and +complete rest. +</P> + +<P> +And then he left. +</P> + +<P> +Now, it was no chance that he left. Birds don't do business that way. +To you or me, that location and its climate would have seemed as good +for him to "peg out a claim" in as any other. He knew better. +Something—Heaven alone knows what—within him told him what was +coming. He had the power to take a draft on the future, and by that +means to save himself—if he could. Wherefore he flew on +southward—always south. +</P> + +<P> +And six hours after he had gone, the wind swung like a weather-cock, +swung and stopped at northeast, and frost began to grip that garden in +an iron fist that threatened to squeeze the life out of every living +thing in it, and the sky hung like the lid of a lead box. +</P> + +<P> +The thrush flew, with a few halts, practically all day and well into +the night, and the northeast wind and the Frost King chased him south. +</P> + +<P> +He roosted in a great fastness of age-old holly-bushes within a wood, +whose branches were packed with his relations—redwings, thrushes, and +blackbirds, and also starlings—all tired out, all booked for the south. +</P> + +<P> +Some woods seem to hold a curse of gloom. One cannot say why. And +this was one of them. And the tawny owl that nobody saw but everybody +heard, and the white stoat that everybody saw and nobody heard, and the +amorous dog-fox with the cruel bark that everybody saw and heard, did +not, taken together or singly, add to the gayety of the scene. +</P> + +<P> +The thrush was just ahead of the cold when he went to roost in pouring +rain. In the night, however, the cold had overtaken him, and the +thousand-jeweled beauty of frost-flakes flashed to his waking eye. +</P> + +<P> +He was numbed and puffed out and peevish, and disinclined to move, but +anything was better than sticking about in this roosting-place, this +casual ward and clearing-house of the wild. The keen starlings were +already off, swinging away, regiment by regiment, with a fine, bold +rush of wings; the blackbirds were dotting the glades; the redwings +were slipping "weeping" away, to find soft fields to mope in; and the +pigeon host—what was left alive of it after diphtheria had taken its +toll—had streamed onwards, heading southwest. +</P> + +<P> +<I>Turdus philomelus</I> spelt L-u-c-k for our friend that morn, for he had +not prospected two hundred yards when he came on a place where a +vagrant "sounder" of half-grown, domestic, unringed pigs had been +canvassing the wood for beech-mast, acorns, and roots during the night. +The soil was all torn up for a space of about an acre, probably the +only soil for miles—except along streams and by springs—penetrable by +beaks until the sun came out; and the thrush feasted royally upon +hibernating caterpillars and chrysalids that would have become moths, +beetle larvae all curled up and asleep, and other pests; and he must +have done a considerable amount of good in that place during the next +hour or so. +</P> + +<P> +But feasts do not go begging long in a frost-bound wild, even if they +are hidden; and by the time our thrush had driven several other +thrushes away—for he was a jealous feeder—and had been driven away by +blackbirds himself more than once, starlings descended upon the place +with their furious greed, and our thrush concluded that it was about +time to "step off." The crowded place might become a quick-lunch +resort for some others, not insect-feeders—hawks, for instance—and +was unhealthful for that reason. Indeed, he had not more than moved +away into the shelter of the rhododendrons when a shadow with a hooked +bill shot round the corner, going like the wind. He had time to see it +dive like a dipping kite—but it was a sparrow-hawk—and to hear the +death-scream of a feeding blackbird, before he went completely from +that place, and it knew him no more. +</P> + +<P> +Soon after that he sighted the sea, wide-stretched and restless, ahead, +and turned westward parallel with the coast-line, till, in the +afternoon, he came unto "a land where it was always afternoon"—a flat, +damp, dwarf-treed, relaxing, gray land, mild, as a rule, and +melancholy—a land full of water. But for once it was a cold land, and +the thrush realized that the bitter frost had leapt ahead of him, and +that he might now never outstrip it again, perhaps. I do not know if +he realized, too, that the lead sky, that looked as if it were going to +come down and crush one, meant snow. +</P> + +<P> +In a bare orchard he was attracted by the sight of several blue titmice +and two robins, feeding upon one or two odd apples that had been left +unpicked at the very top of a tree. It seemed strange and out of place +to behold apples in midwinter like that; but, for some reason, he took +only a few pecks, and his devil prompted him down to peck at some +soaked bread among the violets, and to drink at a spring so exquisitely +encrusted with moss that it looked as if everything, every floating +dead leaf, stone, and root, had been upholstered in plush. +</P> + +<P> +Then Fate struck—hard. +</P> + +<P> +A snap, a thump, and he was bouncing over and over, with an air-rifle +bullet in his thigh. It was a blow that knocked him half-silly, and he +was down before he knew, but only for a second, because of what he saw. +He beheld a boy, with an air-rifle in hand, running towards him; but +ahead of the boy was the boy's young cat, who evidently had learnt to +look for a meal when the air-rifle went off. +</P> + +<P> +The cat, being young, however, managed to bungle his pounce for the +fraction of a second, and that is long enough for most of the +wild-folk. Came a mad fluttering, a beating of wings, a quick mix-up, +and, before he knew, that cat found himself frantically chasing that +thrush across the orchard, striking wildly always at a thrush that just +wasn't there, as the latter part flew, part hopped, with every ounce of +strength and agility that clean, hard living had given him, till he was +clear of the trees. Then—up and away, with his heart in his beak, so +to speak, and his brain whirling, till the orchard lay "hull down" on +the horizon, and was only another bitter experience, and a warning, +seared into the bird's memory. +</P> + +<P> +So far, so good. He had made his escape, had euchred Fate, but—the +payment for laziness, the terrible cess for a momentary lapse from +vigilance, which great Nature, in her grim, wise cruelty, always +demands, had to be met, and the end of it was not yet. +</P> + +<P> +It began, however, now. +</P> + +<P> +The thrush discovered that he was not alone in the air, and that he had +all at once got himself, as it were, fixed in the public eye, and was +"wanted." A swish in the sky made him look up, to see a rook, with a +leering eye, coming down upon him. He cleverly "side-slipped" in +mid-air, and let the rook, braking wildly, go diving by. Perhaps he +wondered what had turned the rook hawk. As a matter of fact, the +weather had, partly, and the rifle had, the rest; for the rook could +see what the thrush did not yet realize. +</P> + +<P> +The rook went away astern, shouting bad language, and another foe came +to take his, or her, place. Again our thrush discovered that he was +not alone. Little, white, silent, cruel, dancing flakes of white were +traveling more or less with him and downwards, upon the following wind. +The snow! The snow at last! And he was trapped, for it was to keep +ahead of the snow that he had journeyed all that way back again. +Indeed, you can hardly realize, unless you have almost lived their +life, what the snow and the frost mean to all the thrush people, but +more especially to the common song-thrush and the redwing. At the +worst it means death; at the best, little more than a living death. +</P> + +<P> +However, to race the snow were useless. Yet he flew on, and on, and +on, like a stampeded horse, blindly, one-sidedly, while the ordnance +survey map beneath turned from brown, and chocolate, and silver-gray, +and dull green, first to pepper and salt, then to freckled white, then +all over to the spotless white eider-down quilt of the winter returned, +as far as the eye—even his binocular orbs—could reach, muffling tree +and house, and garden and copse, and farm and field, and fallow and +plow and meadow in the one mystical, silent, white disguise of winter. +And the thrush at length came down. +</P> + +<P> +His eye had spotted a little corner of a garden that might have been a +spread table in the wilderness. It was only a small triangle of lawn, +with a summer-house at its apex, and a spruce-fir and a house at its +base, and privet-hedges marking off the rest. But it had a +"bird-table," and a swept-clean circle on the grass, and there was +sopped bread upon both. And that place was given over entirely to +chaffinches, <I>all hens</I>, tripping, mincing, pecking, feasting, +fighting—because they were chaffinches, I suppose, and must fight—all +over the place. +</P> + +<P> +The thrush came to anchor upon the roof of the summer-house, +and—straightway fell upon his beak! And that was Fate's punishment +for laziness, one second's relaxation from vigilance. +</P> + +<P> +Righting himself, he almost overbalanced the other way, and only +finally managed to come to an intricate halt on one leg. The other +leg—the right one—was twisted back under him, in line with his closed +wings and tail; that is to say, it was pointing the wrong way for a +bird's leg, or, rather, so far as could be seen among the feathers, +that was how it seemed. But the leg was not broken; he could still +move his toes and expand his foot. Otherwise he could do nothing with +it. The leg might not have been there, for all the use it was to him; +it would have been better if it had not been there, for it hampered his +flight, or unbalanced him, or something, so that he was incapable of +traveling now beyond the snow, even if he would. Undoubtedly the +air-rifle had done its work. +</P> + +<P> +Now, in the wild it is a fairly sound maxim that an injured wildling is +a dead wildling—that is, unless the injury is quite slight. There are +exceptions, of course. Flesh-wounds and quick-healing wounds are +exceptions. +</P> + +<P> +However, our thrush seemed to be no coward, and he at once buckled to, +to fight Fate and all the world—one bird <I>v</I>. the rest. It was +appalling odds, and I guess no darn fool could have been found to back +that bird's chance of winning through. +</P> + +<P> +Then he showed that he had at least one trump up his sleeve. A shape +like unto the shape of a silken kite came floating in ample circles +across the low-hung sky. And the color of that shape was brown—pale +brown; and the shape was alive, and had the appearance of eternally +looking for something, which it always could not find. So hunts the +kestrel falcon, and by the same token the thrush knew that this was a +big hen-kestrel. I say "big" advisedly, because in kestrel society it +is the ladies who have the weight and the vote. +</P> + +<P> +And the thrush, who had by that time flown to the ground, promptly +"froze "—froze to stillness, I mean—and vanished. It was a startling +little trick of his, almost an eccentricity; but the fact was that so +long as he kept still on the dark ground where the snow had been swept +away—and earth and grass mingled almost to a black whole against the +white—he was practically invisible. This was because of his peculiar +somber color. Had he been light of dress, like an ordinary +song-thrush, any eye could have picked him up in that spot. +</P> + +<P> +Now, that kestrel was in a bad temper and vicious. She was cursing the +snow which covered the doings of the field-mice, which ordinarily were +her "staff of life"; and she had not killed since dawn. Hence she was +a public danger, even to wild-folk she usually left alone, and just now +she was looking for our thrush, who she had seen fly down and—vanish. +</P> + +<P> +There he was, however, bang in the open, unshielded by any cover, +motionless on one leg, looking upwards, and, to all intents and +purposes, not there. The kestrel came shooting up superbly, going at a +great pace on the wind, cutting the cold air like a knife, twisting and +turning her long tail tins way and that, but moving her quarter-shut +wings not one stroke. Right over him she dived, her wonderful eyes +stabbing down, so close that you could see her small, rounded head +turning and craning. But no thrush did she see. She "banked," hung, +swept round, and came back. Then she hovered, like a bird hung from +the sky by an invisible hair; and for our thrush she was indeed the +sword of Damocles, for the spot in the air where she hung was directly +over him. If anybody had shot her dead at that instant, she would have +fallen upon his back. At that instant, or the next, she might fall +upon his back, anyway, without anybody shooting her. Indeed, the +betting seemed a good few hundred to one that she would. +</P> + +<P> +Very few human beings know the full meaning of the word "still"—not +even bluejackets!—but most of the wild-folk do. They have to. So did +the thrush, but never before had he kept so utterly, stonily, frozenly, +strickenly motionless. If he had moved an eyelid even, winked, or +gulped too hard, it would have been all up with him. But he didn't and +it was not all up; though the kestrel seemed as if she were going to +hover there, in that spot, through all eternity. And when at last she +condescended to surrender to the wind and vanish like a falling star +into the horizon, our friend was as near nervous prostration and +hysteria as a bird can be. A very little longer and I believe he would +actually have died from sheer overstrain, instead of from kestrel. +</P> + +<P> +Then the thrush fed. He did it against time, before dark, for if night +came and caught him with an empty crop, he froze. Perhaps he would +freeze, anyway; but no matter. +</P> + +<P> +The hen-chaffinches, presumably at the end of a journey, or part way +along it, too, were in a like hurry, and for the same reason. He could +see them now only as faint splashes of white, as they opened tail and +wing to fight; but they could not fight <I>him</I>, and he savagely kept the +little clearing in the snow free of all save himself. It was as if he +knew that he was "up against it," and the fact had developed a grim +fierceness in his character. +</P> + +<P> +An owl must have gone over about this time, because an owl did go over +that garden about the same time every night; but perhaps she was not +expecting thrushes in that gloom, or was in a hurry to keep an +appointment with a rat. Anyway, the owl did not develop. +</P> + +<P> +Thereafter and at last the thrush went to sleep in a spruce-fir. +</P> + +<P> +Dead silence reigned over the garden, and Cold, with a capital C, +gripped the land. Heaven help any bird who roosted on an empty stomach +on such a night! It would freeze to its perch before morning, most +like. +</P> + +<P> +Indeed, our thrush had a neighbor, a hedge-sparrow just newly arrived +from "somewhere up north." It had come in after dark, and therefore +had no time to feed. The thrush just took his head out from under his +wing and opened one eye, as the poor little beggar perched close to him +for company. He could see it plainly in the petrified moonlight. +</P> + +<P> +When next he opened one eye and looked, dawn was at hand, and the poor +little bird was still there. When at last, with shoulders humped and +feathers puffed, our thrush flew down to feed in the first pale-gold +glimmer of very-much-diluted sunlight, the hedge-sparrow did not move. +Now, in opening his wings, possibly from a vague idea of frightening +the hedge-sparrow away from the magic swept circle on the lawn close +by, and its bread, the thrush brushed heavily against that +hedge-sparrow, so that—oh, horror!—it fell, or swung over backwards, +rather, and hung head downwards, swaying slightly, like a toy acrobat +on a wire, before it fell, so rigidly and so stiffly immovable that one +expected it to shatter to pieces like glass as it hit the ground. It +did not, however. But it did not matter. The hedge-sparrow was quite, +quite dead before it fell, frozen stiff and stark in the night. And +none of the other birds seemed to care. Why should they? Such a fate +might overtake themselves. +</P> + +<P> +The thrush, much tucked up, but still with some fight in him, was late. +Big flocks of peewits or green plover—he could see them between the +spruce-boughs—had gone drifting by, winking like floating silver, high +overhead, bound westward; and skylarks were passing over the garden, +one by one, heading southwest towards the warm, and chortling to each +other as they went. Starlings—some of them with extraordinarily +bright-yellow dagger-beaks, and some with dull beaks—were before him, +squabbling and sparring over the bread on the lawn. A robin dropped a +little chain of melancholy silvery notes, and a great titmouse bugled +clearly, "Ting-ling! Ting-ling! Ting-ling!" Some one opened a window +of the house giving on to the lawn, and the last house-fly blundered +out into the cold air; and a company of gnats—surely the most hardy of +insects—was dancing in the pale sunlight by the summer-house, <I>above +the snow</I>. +</P> + +<P> +The opening of the window had erupted the starlings into the +surrounding trees, there to whistle and indulge in a "shiveree," such +as is dear to the heart of the excitable, social starling. And our +thrush was standing motionless in the middle of the swept circle on the +lawn almost at once. No one saw him go there. Indeed, unless the +observer looked closely, no one saw him at all, for even then he was, +unless he moved, difficult to see, and, whatever had been his custom +before, in those days he moved but little. +</P> + +<P> +He had come at even to a garden given over to hen-chaffinches—no +cocks, as we said—but at dawn, or, rather, his later hour for rising, +he found the garden given over to song-thrushes, all pale beside him, +all slim, all snaky of build—Continental song-thrushes, most like, and +the same only come to those parts in very hard weather, for they come a +long way. +</P> + +<P> +Our song-thrush, standing on his one leg, looked at them with one +shrewd eye. There were two of them in the snowless circle on the lawn, +which had been swept clear of the snow, that was now deep, before he +was up, and had also been replenished with bread. Two thrushes sat in +the spruce-fir, and one on the top of the summer-house, and every jack +of them was ravenous. He could expect no mercy from <I>them</I>. They must +live, if they could, and there was not enough food for all. And he +asked no mercy himself, either. Still, it was long odds. +</P> + +<P> +Then he showed that he, even a bird, knew the laws of strategy, the +essence of which is surprise. He surprised everybody by suddenly +charging at the thrush on the lawn near him with a murderous ferocity +that took one's breath away. It certainly would have taken away that +of the other song-thrush, if our friend had not knocked it out of him +by the impact. By all the laws of precedence, of course, any one of +those others ought to have sent him, with his one leg, into headlong +retreat by merely threatening. But our friend was not concerned with +the laws of precedence, it seemed. He became a law unto himself, and a +most amazing "character" to boot. Also, he fought like several demons, +and, by sheer reckless fury, removed that dumbfounded rival of his from +the lawn in twenty-one hectic seconds. +</P> + +<P> +Then he fed—it was enough only to glance, just glance, at the other +thrushes and the chaffinches, after that astounding exhibition of his +character. He fed, and, after he had stuffed full, he stood still a +little way off. +</P> + +<P> +This was the signal for two of the thrushes in the spruce-fir to flap +down to the bread. One got there. The other saw what was coming, and +turned hastily back. The one that got there snatched up a piece of +bread. But he never ate it. Something hit him on the side. It felt +like the point of a skewer, but it was our thrush's beak, really, and +by the time he had recovered from that blow he found himself so busy +saving his eyesight that he was glad enough to drop his bread and go. +</P> + +<P> +That, however, was not enough for our thrush. He appeared to "see +red," and with a terrible cruel, relentless "redness." He followed the +retreating foe to the spruce-fir, flying heavily and awkwardly by +reason of his smashed leg. He perched beside him on the branch he +settled upon, nearly overbalancing, and perilously swaying and +wobbling, with wings wildly flapping, and he drove that thrush to +another branch, with such a rain of pecks that the feathers flew. Nor +was even that enough. He followed up the attack, and hustled the +thrush from that other branch, so that he flew down the snowed-up road. +Then our cripple, spinning in a whirl of snow, hurled himself upon the +other thrush in the tree, and drove him out of it into the road. +</P> + +<P> +But even that did not suffice him, for devils seemed to have possessed +him, and the thought of opposition sent him crazy. He blundered into +the privet-hedge, and unearthed a half-frozen <I>confrère</I>, who fled, +squawking peevishly, leaving one tail-feather in our friend's beak; and +finally he flew down to the road. +</P> + +<P> +In the road, he first of all buried his face in snow, then fell on his +side, deep snow not being, he discovered, an ideal medium in which to +get about on one leg. During that performance his rivals could have +abolished him five times over if they had had the heart to unite. But +they seemed to think otherwise, and had not the heart for anything. +They sat still, with that helpless abandon that afflicts fowls and +other birds in disaster, and they seemed about to starve practically on +the spot, if left alone. +</P> + +<P> +Our thrush, however, did not leave them alone. They were a direct +threat to his only line of communication with life, so to +speak—namely, food. Wherefore, either they or he must go. Soon he +found that cart-ruts make convenient roads for the birds in the snow, +or perhaps it was the chaffinches, who were following one another in +lines along the cart-ruts, who showed him. +</P> + +<P> +Then and there, in the road, our thrush seemed to go berserk. He +landed upon the thrush nearest to him, spread-eagled and hammering like +a feathered devil. There was a whirl of brown feathers and finely +powdered snow for about ten seconds, at the end of which time that +other thrush detached himself and fled, oven as his conqueror hurled +himself upon the next bird. +</P> + +<P> +There were two here, side by side, but neither was quick enough to +parry our friend's lightning lunges, after he had beaten down their +guard with his wings; and they, too, got up and winged into the leaden, +frowning sky. The others did not wait. They had seen all they wanted +to, apparently, and would take no part in the play. They faded out +among the drifting snowflakes, over the still, white fields, and our +thrush was left to the lawn, and the bread, and the swarming +chaffinches, whom he easily kept aloof, and—yes, there was no getting +away from it—the one thrush on the summer-house who, you will note, +had never moved. But when he looked he found that thrush was not on +the summer-house, but on the lawn, eating bread; and when he flew down +to the lawn to investigate—he flew and landed very clumsily—he made a +discovery that seemed to surprise him; or did he already know it? +Anyway, the thrush on the lawn was a lady, and—well, what would you? +The cripple balanced as well as he could, and looked foolish. It was +all he could do. +</P> + +<P> +The day passed swiftly, and faded out in blinding snow. Most of the +time the cripple stood motionless, watching his companion and guarding +his swept circle, and, as often as he could, he fed. And neither then +nor at any other time, except once when the gardener nearly trod upon +him before he would move, did he utter a sound. The last glimmer of +day showed him still at his post, motionless, all but invisible. But +he roosted, as a matter of fact, in the privet-hedge, on the south side +of the summer-house, and this time he was not alone. +</P> + +<P> +The day had been trying enough, with its fights and its three cats, +which passed within reach of him, and could have slain him—for his +injuries made him slow to get under way—if they had not failed to see +him, because so still. The night, however, was a clouded terror. +</P> + +<P> +Certainly he went to bed—if one may so call it—full, if not warm +exactly; but that was the only advantage. It snowed with ghastly, +relentless steadiness, and it blew like the hacking of sharp knives. +</P> + +<P> +But through it all, because full fed, the cripple, with all his +handicap, and his lady companion lived; lived to see the hard dawn pale +tardily; lived to watch the kind gardener—under strict orders +assuredly, or he would never have done it—sweep a space clear on the +lawn and spread food for the birds; lived to ruffle his feathers and +fly down; and lived to see the thaw which came that afternoon, when the +warm sou'-wester came romping over the land, and winter's last stand +was overcome by the forces of spring, and all the wild breathed a sigh +of relief and went abroad gayly to feed. +</P> + +<P> +But the cripple lived to see other things. For there came a day, about +a week later, when our cripple, who had been "keeping company" all the +time with his lady friend, heard the whole dawn awaken to a sudden +mighty chorus of thrush song. I don't know why they all chose to burst +into song thus as at a given signal, but they did, and the effect upon +the cripple and his companion was curious. He had just landed upon the +top of the summer-house on his one leg, in a particularly awkward and +unbalanced manner, and he perched, listening, as if rooted to the spot, +and with something nearly approaching horror in his eyes, it seemed to +me. +</P> + +<P> +The female bird listened, too, for about a minute, and then, ignoring +the poor cripple as if he had never existed, hopped towards the +spruce-fir—atop of which a particularly fine and strong-voiced +songster was warbling—as if she were drawn by ropes. And—oh, +horror!—the songster came down to <I>her</I>. +</P> + +<P> +The cripple never uttered a sound, not a song, or a call, or a sign. +He hurled himself straight at this new rival like a bolt shot from a +crossbow, and he fought. My word, how he fought! But this new +antagonist was no half-frozen, half-starved Continental song thrush. +He was a Britisher, thick-set, bullet-headed, thick-necked, who had +wintered, perhaps, in the south of Ireland or farther, and he fought +like a Trojan. +</P> + +<P> +All up and down the lawn the fight raged, and in and out of the hedges, +into the mountain ash and out again, down to the ground and up again; +but in the end—ah, but it could have only one end!—the Britisher was +on the top of the summer-house, literally shouting his song of triumph. +And the cripple was on the ground at the foot of the hedge, beneath the +spruce-fir, lying on his side, blood-stained and panting. Nobody saw +him creep away. Nobody cared—certainly not his lady acquaintance, who +was too busy receiving glad eyes from the conqueror. +</P> + +<P> +Also, nobody saw him die. Yet next morning he was dead, stiff and +still on the ground beside the summer-house. Some think that it was +the injuries he received in his last great fight that killed him. I do +not. I could find no wounds upon him sufficiently severe to sustain +that theory. I think he died of a broken heart. Don't you? +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +"SET A THIEF"—— +</H3> + + +<P> +Cob arrived in a snowstorm of unparalleled ferocity. He came upon +extended vans sixty-nine inches from tip to tip, which he seemed as if +he were never going to flap. All black above, all white below, he was. +The fact was worth noting, because, as seen from below, he looked +neither black nor any other hue, but just indiscriminate dark, unless +he swerved against the little light, and then his white "hull" shone +like silver. +</P> + +<P> +In his calm tacking, in his effortless play, in his superb mastery of +the furious gale, one realized that here was one of Nature's +masterpieces. He arrested the gaze with his serenity, and in his +majesty of flight marked himself as a bird apart. +</P> + +<P> +Here was a bird accustomed to power, to respect, and to wield fear, as +a king might do; but he was no king, even among birds. He was a great +black-backed gull, immense, austere, and cruel, with eyes as cold as +the waves whose glitter they reflected, and a heart as implacable as +the storm that cherished it; sea-rover, pillager, pirate, swashbuckler, +son of the storm in whose fierce buffetings he rejoiced, master of the +gale upon whose fury he flourished—the very spirit of the ocean's +frontiers, arrayed in the spotless uniform of the sea, sailing under +her bold colors. +</P> + +<P> +And then, as he suddenly came, the watcher, had there been one, would +have looked at him expectantly, for an eagle, bristling with weapons, +so to speak, fierce-eyed, mighty, and scowling, came flapping heavily +across the white-fretted bay. There is expression in birds, and most +have their feelings and their character stamped upon their whole body. +But there was no expression in Cob. His cold eyes continued to stare +with steady stoniness, his vast vans to waft an occasional shallow, +lazy quarter-flap, his spotless head to peer down at times. Once only, +as the real king of the birds, on his course, drew very near, so that +you could hear the deep, dry "hough! hough!" of the powerful wings, did +Cob open his red-stained—as it were blood—yellow beak, and give +utterance—one could call it no more—and so instantly close his beak +again and revert to his absolute expressionlessness that one had a job +to realize what, or who, in all that vast scene, had spoken. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm-Great-Black-Back!" he said very quietly, quickly, gratingly, and +tersely; and then, as if expecting an answer, added, "Eh?" in a hollow +undertone. +</P> + +<P> +The eagle's imperial head jerked round as he flew, and he shot a +stabbing, sheathed glance at the great sea-bird, as a king might at a +man in a crowd who begins to fumble at his hip-pocket. But, save for +that, he took no further notice, and beat on with his terrific, +piston-like, regular wing-beats; and the gull, that speckless, +dazzling, hardened, hard giant, laughed—laughed, I say, softly and to +himself, hoarsely and insolently: "How-how-how-how!" It was as if he +laughed in derision. +</P> + +<P> +And then a strange thing happened. From the opposite stupendous +cliffs, draped in snow, bejeweled with icicles, frowning and desolate, +an ominous black shape flung itself furiously, and made straight for +the eagle, barking hoarsely with rage as it came. Another hollow bark +followed, and a second evil ebony form hurled down from the tottering +cliff-top, and flapped towards the eagle in the path of the first. +Bark echoed bark above the deep mutter of the breakers, and the echoes +along the cliffs answered both uncannily and mockingly. +</P> + +<P> +They were a raven, disturbed from her wool-quilted nest, and her mate; +but if they had been hobgoblins straight from an evil dream, they could +not, in that immense, grim setting, have been much more impressive. +</P> + +<P> +The great black-backed gull said no more, but wheeled on as if nothing +had happened. +</P> + +<P> +The eagle said nothing, and tried to beat on as if nothing had +happened, too. He did not succeed, for the ravens who had been +addressing him most particularly soon addressed themselves personally +to him; and before he knew just how it all came about, they had +summoned a quite amazing and unexpected aerial acrobatic power, and +were shooting and diving, striking and flapping, about his regal head +in a manner that even <I>he</I> could not pretend any longer to ignore. No +one, not even a king of all the birds, feels comfortable under the +imminent possibility of losing an eye—and such a haughty, wonderful +eye, too. Nor did the eagle. And he showed it. One presumes he might +have abolished the pair—one or both—but the eagle never let on what +he presumed. What he <I>knew</I> was that he had nothing to gain in a fight +with such super-hooligans, and everything to lose, for one wound only +might mean a dead eagle <I>viâ</I> starvation and a dead raven—what was a +dead raven worth, anyway, to him, or anybody else? +</P> + +<P> +Therefore the eagle changed his mind about continuing his course, which +would have taken him above the ravens' nest. He did it grandly, and +without giving the impression that the ravens had anything to do with +it—he could have squeezed the life out of them with one awful +handshake, if his heart had been as big as his claws. But they had +something to do with it. And they knew it. So did Cob, who laughed +again, hoarsely and as one appreciating a joke, while he wheeled and +wheeled over the following waves, seeing all things and never appearing +to see anything. +</P> + +<P> +Then at last, when the king of all the birds had sunk, like a speck of +floating burnt paper, away over the far, white-mantled hills, the +ravens suddenly evaporated into nowhere. Probably no one had seen them +go except Cob, and Cob was by now a lonely, dwindling speck away over +the restless ocean. Then he was not. He was coming back, swinging +along with great, easy, shallow half-flaps, so sublimely lazy that he +seemed merely to swim through the gale. But he covered distance; there +was speed as well as majesty in his flight, for all that. +</P> + +<P> +In a very short time he was above the cliffs, silent, sinister, almost +stealthy. One of the ravens came back suddenly, diving over the crest, +half-demented with anxiety to cover her eggs from that stony stare of +the sea-rover; and Cob, seeing where she had come from, surrendered +himself to the gale, hurtled down-wind, veered, tacked, circled, +rocking, and came down in a series of his oblique plunges—smack-bang +into the middle of a gory dinner-party, consisting of the male raven, +five gray or hooded crows, and one silver herring-gull, feasting upon +the carcass of a dead sheep. +</P> + +<P> +Every head went up, every eye blinked, every wing half-opened, every +beak shut tight as Cob, whom everybody had thought to be miles away by +that time, threw forward his wings, umbrella-fashion, flung them up, +hat-fashion, fanning wide his tail, dropped his giant webbed feet, and +came to anchor with a rush. Then he folded those wonderful pinions of +his, foot by rustling foot, stared stonily at the amazed, mute company +around him, and, throwing back his immaculate, smooth, low-browed, +spotless head, laughed to the winds, hoarsely, loudly, wildly—a rude, +baleful, transport of mirth: +</P> + +<P> +"How-how-how-how-how!" +</P> + +<P> +The raven did not laugh. He had to feed his sitting wife—not counting +his big self—in that bitter weather, and he was pluming himself upon +having turned the eagle from sight of this gift banquet from Providence +as well as his nest. The gray crows saw no cause for merriment, +remembering how big the great gull was, and how small are these little, +long-wooled, black-faced hill sheep. Moreover, sheep do not often +oblige by getting turned turtle in a cleft of rock, and being unable to +right themselves before poor, starving, wild hunters—I won't swear +who, but it was not the raven <I>this</I> time—can come and peck their eyes +out. +</P> + +<P> +Cob looked at them again—all five of the gray crows sitting staring +straight down their own black gouge-beaks, hunched, cold, out-at-heels, +and dejected. Then he laughed again—burst into another wild, jeering +fit of merriment, and fell to work. +</P> + +<P> +First of all, he pointed out to the raven—his beak was the +pointer—that he was sitting upon the choicest portion of that sheep, +and must make way therefrom <I>instantly</I>. Next, he turned his head and +looked—only looked—at a gray crow that had presumed, upon the turning +of his broad, black back, to recommence feeding, and that hooded crow +moved one yard in one second—out of reach. And next, Cob, who +apparently loved discipline and cherished good manners, started his +banquet, and allowed the others to start theirs. +</P> + +<P> +But it was an unholy feast. Cob tugged and tore like a butcher without +any knives. At times he nearly fell backwards, when the meat gave way; +at times he bolted, and gulped, and choked horribly; at times he was +nearly standing upon his head, and at other times upon his tail; and, +in case the others should find the woolly outside, where they alone +could feed, too easy, he was continually breaking off, to rush—a +red-headed demon from hell now—at the raven, or glare at the crows and +remove them yards, as if his eyes could kill. As for the herring-gull, +he raced and danced in a crazy circle round his giant clansman, +apparently smitten with delirium at the luscious titbits he was obliged +to watch vanishing down Cob's bright throat. +</P> + +<P> +The raven, however, was growing desperate. He was under contract to +Fate to feed his wife. She would freeze there on her nest in the snow +among the icicle-studded ledges else. And every time he had got hold +of a big enough dainty to tug free and fly off with, Cob had cut in and +collared the said morsel. As a matter of fact, friend raven was a +better carver than the sea-pirate, had a beak better suited for the +grisly purpose. Finally, the black one got hold of a piece of meat, +and did not let go. He hung on, and, before anybody realized that he +had moved, Cob's yellow-and-red-painted bill—nearly all red now—had +closed upon that raven's neck. There was one wild, asthmatical croak +from the raven, a whirl of sturdy black and overshadowing +black-and-white wings, and the raven was jerked clean head-over-heels, +where, among the heather, he lay for a brief second, kicking +ignominiously, on his sable back. +</P> + +<P> +Here the crows fled to strategic positions upon bowlders, waist-deep in +heather, hard by, expecting a like fate, and leaving the herring-gull +to gobble up what he could in the confusion, and risk his life in the +process, when suddenly, above the beating of wings and the hiss of +wind, all distinctly heard, and jumped at, the sound of a single, +horrible, instantaneous, metallic clash. +</P> + +<P> +Cob's agonized yell, the clash itself, and the whir and rush of wings, +as every bird there present literally flung itself into the air, seemed +really, though of course they were not, coincident—such is the +quickness with which these wild creatures act. But Cob alone remained. +</P> + +<P> +He stopped in mid-spring horribly, and suddenly, as if a Hand had +reached up and plucked him back. For a second his wonderful wings beat +and beat tremendously, frenziedly, with a noise you could hear all up +the hill; then he fell back in one demented, frenzied mix up of +bashing, smashing pinions, legs, tail, and whirling feathers. +</P> + +<P> +That clash, which had jarred Cob's frame from head to hind-toe, was a +trap, <I>alias</I> a gin, <I>alias</I> a clam, and the rack of man's Inquisition +of the wild. He had stepped upon it; it had gone off, and caught him +by the right leg, and, being anchored by a chain, had refused to let +him go when he sought to remove himself, trap and all. +</P> + +<P> +What followed during the next minute or two it would scarcely be fair +to so fine a bird to print. Moreover, it was unnice to behold. +Wild-folk have a habit often of going temporarily insane when they +first find themselves trapped, because the trap represents to them the +most supreme, the most unbearable, of all terrors—loss of freedom; and +freedom is to them more than life, especially to birds, and more +especially still to those whose lives are dedicated to the wild, free +sea. +</P> + +<P> +At the end of that time Cob lay exhausted upon his side, one mighty +pinion pathetically trailing in the snow, his beak open, his whole jet +and spotless white body shaken and convulsed with pantings that were +almost sobs. He seemed in danger of dying there and then upon the +spot, with sheer, sickening horror or a broken heart. +</P> + +<P> +The herring-gull was a silver line—about as big as a thrip—to +seaward. The gray crows climbed the heavens to landward, like flies +that climb a window-pane. Only the raven had not gone, quite. +</P> + +<P> +The raven was a bird, of course, and every bird has got to do its duty. +There can be no shirking. <I>His</I> duty was to supply food to keep the +fires of life burning in his mate as she sat upon her icy nest. His +duty was to see that his eggs, <I>their</I> eggs, hatched out; and with him +the motto was: "The end justifies the means." This bird, this +sea-rover, this big pirate, alone stood between him and the discharge +of duty. There was no other way, no other food; he had searched. +Wherefore, the raven stayed; he knew all about traps, few better, and +he stayed, waiting, if it please you, for Cob to—die! +</P> + +<P> +But Cob would not oblige. He had not got a broken and crushed leg, as +the raven possibly expected. He was not injured, as he should have +been, according to program; only puffed. The mercy of Allah had seen +to it that some teeth of that instrument of vile torture that had hold +of him were broken off, and that his leg should have been caught in the +gap thus formed. Moreover, the trap had not been looked after; it was +rusty, and did not shut quite properly. The spring was weak, or some +grit had got in, or something, and a smart rat would have got out of it +easily, but a rat is not a gull, and knows too much. +</P> + +<P> +Thereafter, nothing happened for a long while. Cob's first delirium +seemed to have spent him, and perhaps taught him how much a leg can +hurt when tugged by the full lift of sixty-nine-inch wings, especially +when one tries to whirl round upon it when it cannot turn. +</P> + +<P> +The raven sat on his lichen-decorated, snow-draped bowlder, hands in +pockets, so to speak, abominably untidy, with a pessimistic hunch of +the shoulders, but a light in his eyes, a strangely malignant, +devilishly roguish leer, that belied his appearance. Perhaps he was +waiting to see if Cob during his struggles obligingly touched off any +further deadly surprises that might lie hidden in the vicinity. One +never knows. He had seen a gray crow double-catch himself in two traps +lying close to one another—once. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing happening, however, that raven presently sailed in on his fine +work. He broke his neutrality with a sudden dry rustle of wings, and +clumsily half-hopped, half-heavily napped, down to Cob, lying there +still and silent, but very much awake, upon the snow. He almost seemed +to be rubbing his hands, or, rather, his claws, that ebon rascal. This +was, indeed, a game after his own heart. +</P> + +<P> +Cob never moved when the raven arrived. I suppose he knew all about +ravens, and what one may expect from them. He only stared at him with +one cold eye, a tense, lop-sided stare; and he mouthed a little—if one +may be permitted the expression—with his beak, like a man moistening +his lips. +</P> + +<P> +The raven looked him over critically, leeringly, insolently, with a +hateful air of ownership. Then the raven sharpened the gouge thing +which he called his beak—wheep-wheep—upon a stone, as birds do, and +tightened his feathers, as if almost visibly tucking up his sleeves +for—well, for the job. +</P> + +<P> +Then he tweaked Cob's tail, apparently just to see how much alive he +was. But Cob did not move, beyond drawing one webbed leg—the free +one—up under him. +</P> + +<P> +Then the raven dug him under the wing—punched him in the ribs, so to +speak. But Cob did nothing more than cringe—cringe from head to +hind-toe, like a worm. +</P> + +<P> +Then suddenly, startlingly suddenly, with the full stroke, the dreaded +pickax blow, of all the ravens, he let drive straight at Cob's clear, +shining eye—the left one, with which Cob, with his head twisted, had +all along been regarding him. He had disclosed his hand, that raven. +It was devil's work. +</P> + +<P> +Till that moment Cob had never moved, as we have said. Save for his +one eye and his quivering, one would scarcely have known that he lived. +That was his game, perhaps. Who can tell? For a stolid, slow-thinking +gull may have, in his way, just as deep, or low, a cunning as a +brilliant-brained raven. Anyhow, in that fiftieth of a second allowed, +just when it seemed as if nothing could save his eye, Cob's head +snicked round and up, and he slid the enemy's beak down off his own +with as neat a parry as ever you saw. And he did more. He caught hold +of the said raven's beak, got a grip on beak in beak, and once having +got hold, he kept hold. This was nothing new to him. It was his +way—one of his ways—of fighting rival great black-backed gulls. But +it was new to the raven, and he had not previously thought out any +proper counter to it. (There is a counter, I think.) Result—caught +raven as well as caught gull. +</P> + +<P> +Then it was that raven's turn to go mad, and dance a paralytic kan-kan; +but he could not get any change out of that gull. Cob hung on almost +as well as the trap hung on to him, and far more twistfully. He was +quite at home, of course. He had been brought up to this sort of +thing. It was the official regulation gull way of fighting under set +rules, but he could rarely get any other bird than a gull to fight with +him like it. It was not the raven's way of fighting, though, and I +think he felt himself in a trap. He certainly acted like a bird out of +its senses, while the gull, flapping hugely, and forgetting, in the +excitement, his own bondage, gradually forced the raven's head back and +back over his back, till that raven was in the unenviable position of +staring over his own back at his own tail, upon which he was +ignominiously sitting. Also, his neck was half-dislocated, and he was +nearly choking. And about this time it began to dawn upon him that it +did not pay in the wild to monkey with great black-backed gulls, even +trapped ones. He swore, as well as he could, in a gurgling croak. +Then—— +</P> + +<P> +Clash! +</P> + +<P> +Horrors upon diabolical horrors! Another trap? +</P> + +<P> +The same ghastly thought flashed to both birds' brains at the same +moment, and both literally sprang bodily up into the gale in one +maddened leap, both forgetting all else in the panic to be gone. +</P> + +<P> +Both stopped at the same instant, with a jerk that nearly unhinged +every bone in their bodies. Both yelled with terror at the identical +moment. +</P> + +<P> +Both were released—as by the cutting of a string—at the same fraction +of time, and both hurtled aloft at the same fear-blinded, rocket-like +speed. +</P> + +<P> +But both had not been caught by the same kind of trap. +</P> + +<P> +It was the jerk that had freed Cob from the really quite light hold, as +we have already explained, of the jaws of the steel trap. +</P> + +<P> +And it was the jerk that had torn out some of the raven's +tail-feathers, and left them in the jaws of the—gray, old, hill fox. +</P> + +<P> +And it was the fox who was standing all alone, watching, with oblique +eyes, the two great birds fast dissolving with every desperate, +stampeding wing-beat into the hurrying cloud-wrack and the wild +seascape—in opposite directions. He had made a good stalk, but had +sprung a little short, had brer fox. +</P> + +<P> +Upon a day, weeks later, we find the raven, whose young had left the +nest, stolidly soaring over a small, flat island, golden with furze, +purple with heather, pale-rose chiffon where it was covered with +sea-pinks. +</P> + +<P> +In addition to these, only one other hue, beside green, was there upon +that island gem floating on the jade-green sea, and that was a patch of +black and white! It flashed to the eye of the raiding rogue-raven, and +he altered course towards it, when it turned into a female great +black-backed gull, running, literally racing, to her nest, which the +raven could now see, with its two big, buff, dark-splashed eggs. +</P> + +<P> +Down flopped the giant gull upon her treasure, and began yelling, +"How-how-how-how!" at the top of her voice. +</P> + +<P> +But the island seemed empty of life, and her yelling useless. +</P> + +<P> +Down dropped the raven in front of her. +</P> + +<P> +Down winnowed the hen-raven at the back of her. +</P> + +<P> +And, both together, they approached. And all the time the great +black-backed gull continued to yell, "How-how-how-how!" +</P> + +<P> +At last, when he had got close enough, the cock-raven lunged at her, +or, rather, underneath her. She parried his stroke, and—the hen-raven +lunged. Nothing now, she knew, could save her eggs, unless she rose to +fight the cock-raven. The hen-raven then ran in. She only required a +second in which to ruin each egg, but she never got it. +</P> + +<P> +Nobody saw the avalanche coming, but everybody heard it arrive. It was +of snow-white, and it was of jet-black, and it knocked the cock-raven +one way, and sent the hen-raven, picking up her skirts, as it were, and +fleeing, the other. And the name of the avalanche was Cob. +</P> + +<P> +I fancy he considered that he bore a grudge against that cock +bandit-raven. Perhaps in dreams he could still feel that trap on his +leg. Who knows? He certainly used to wake up with outcries, and he +equally certainly made that cock-raven shy of that island for evermore. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE WHERE IS IT? +</H3> + + +<P> +No one would have thought of looking for any living beast in the raffle +of dried twigs and tamarisk "leaves" between the crawling, snake-like +roots of the feathery tamarisks if it had not been for the noise. The +noise was unmistakable, as the noise of a fight always is; and the only +other living thing near the spot, a tiny, tip-tailed, brown wren—a +little ball of feathers, dainty as you please, and all alone there, and +out of place down by the terrible, snow-covered, wind-tortured estuary +shore—made shift to remove herself, making remarks—wrens can't help +saying what they feel—as she flitted. +</P> + +<P> +Then the combatants fell out—literally. Up from the solid earth +between the twisted roots they seemed to come, but that proved the art +of one of them in concealing his front-door from the curious, and down +the bank of the sea-wall, over and over and over, squeaking the most +murderous language, and grappling like pocket-devils—tumbled a little +jet-black and a little dark-brown beast. +</P> + +<P> +They continued the duel upon the dry gravel below—the finest and the +whitest gravel ever you did see—and they would apparently have gone on +for goodness knows how long if a gray-white, thin, worn post a couple +of yards away had not turned into a heron and stalked an ungainly stalk +towards them. +</P> + +<P> +Then they fell apart, and one of them, at any rate—the brown one—ran +away in the shape of a water-vole—water-"rat," if you will—the heron +making spear-lunges at him with his bill as he ungainlily skipped at +the other's tail all the way up the bank. The other fighter, the black +one, could not rightly be said to have turned into anything very +much—at least, not anything that any one could swear to. It just +seemed as if a dark blur whizzed about—more bird-like than +beast-like—around the astonished and prancing heron, and then into +nowhere. It was like watching a blue-bottle in a tumbler, and very +extraordinary. The heron never even professed to follow it or lunge at +it. He preferred the water-vole, whose agility was not too fast to see. +</P> + +<P> +At the place where it had come from, the mouth of the hole, it +stopped—this beast that could move quicker than eye could +follow—stopped so suddenly and completely that its change from almost +lightning motion to stony motionlessness in the fraction of a second +was nearly as amazing as its first marvelous exhibition. It stopped, I +say, and became a—a rat. +</P> + +<P> +To nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of a thousand, the word +"rat" conveys only one impression. This rat did not fulfill that +impression. In fact, there is more than one kind of rat, and though +fate and their fathers' Kismet has cursed them all with a name of +shame, they are not all the kind of people that made it so. There is +the foreigner, the invader, the common brown rat, who is accursed; +there is the old English black rat, whom the accursed one has nearly +wiped out into little more than a ghost; and there is the water-rat, +who is not a rat, but a vole, and would thank you to remember the fact. +</P> + +<P> +And this rat was a black rat, as black as jet, shark-jawed, star-eyed, +elfin-eared, snake-tailed, lean, long-legged, and graceful—a very +greyhound among the rats. He was there, in that dancing-floor of the +winds by the estuary, because no common or sewer rats were there. They +were anathema to him, and they were worse—death in many horrible +forms. He had been there all the summer, all the autumn, and all +the—— No, by whiskers! he was not going to remain there all the +winter. He had his limit, and he hated cold; and here, down by the +flat, sodden, mud-choked shore of the estuary, it was so cold that if +you didn't jolly well mind what you were up to and keep your tummy +always full, you went to sleep, and—never woke up any more. +</P> + +<P> +A little pile of mussel, winkle, and shore-crab shells, and the +backbone of what had been a stranded fish, close to the mouth of the +hole, showed the rat's account-book to date; but there was a line to be +drawn even in this trade. That dawn—if you could call the gray dark +of a snowstorm dawn—he, wondrously adventurous, had gone shell-fish +collecting, away out upon the freezing wet mud-ooze. He had got three +mussels; a muddy face; muddier feet; nearly an eye pecked out by a +mighty, great black-backed gull; three chivyings from herring-gulls; +one nip from a crab who ought to have been dead; two winkles under big +stones that took half-an-hour to shift; one dead pigmy shrew—length +two inches—with a hole in its skull, no brains, and a horrible smell; +nearly his life removed by the swoop of a kestrel falcon and the +javelin-stab of a heron's beak; and twenty minutes' hard cleaning to +remove the mud-stains that were not properly off—to his nice +liking—yet. And, to add to that, he had no sooner finished than he +found that some clumsy fool of a water-rat—vole, I mean—with a mania +for mining, had run a shaft into his hole, and brought the whole roof +crumbling down upon his scrupulously neat and tidy nest of fine hay and +carefully shredded rush—the only approximately warm corner he +possessed in all that biting cold—so that days of labor would not +repair the silly damage; and he had had to enter into a free fight with +and turn the fool out, nearly losing his life, for the fourth time that +short, dark, bitter day, in the process. And now he had to clean +himself all over again! +</P> + +<P> +No wonder he was fed-up, and decided to quit. He loved the dank marsh, +the brackish channels, the long, lone wind blowing through the +tamarisks, and the smell—salt, seaweed, mud, and fish—of it all; but +in this—weather, when the cold here, even in shelter, was greater than +the cold in any other spot—and the unchecked wind cut like swords of +ice—he realized that one must be an eider-duck or an Iceland gull, a +northern diver or an Arctic owl, to stand it, and he was none of these. +Wherefore, though the dusk had made the dull day only a little more +dark as yet, and the pink, luminous frost-haze still hung in the west, +he called down his hole to his wife—his one and only wife, but that +was not his fault—and quitted. +</P> + +<P> +Ten minutes later you behold our black rat—if you had eyes quick +enough, but it was a matter of momentary glimpses, anyway—trekking up +a ditch. You have pretty well got to take my word for it, because, +though sometimes you saw him for the half of a second, mostly you +didn't, and couldn't tell whether there was his wife only, or he only, +or both. Really there were both, but our black friend with the +embarrassingly, the abnormally, long tail and the genteel head—Mr. +<I>Mus rattus</I> on Sundays, if you please, and in nowise to be confused +with that <I>canaille</I>, Citizen <I>Mus decumanus</I>, the common brown +rat—had not the slightest intention that any one should see him, if he +could help it. His wife might be trusted to look out for herself. And +for this reason, perhaps, his march was a progress to wonder at. +</P> + +<P> +Did a flock of wild-duck come over from the sea with whistling wings, +he did not so much get under the over-hanging grass as <I>be</I> there. Did +a "gaggle" of wild-geese go by high over, clamoring like hounds, he +went out like a blown candle. Did a party of teal—for it was the +magic hour of "flight," when all wildfowl shift their quarters to feed, +or not to feed—fairly hissing with speed, like masterless bullets, +dash over, he—well, he was not before you could realize that he had +moved. +</P> + +<P> +Then up and flew round them a shape, and the name of that shape was +death. It might have been a gull with hawk-like form. It might have +been a hawk in gull-like light-gray uniform. And it might have been an +owl with gull-like dress and hawk-like lines. Whatever it was, it was +clipper-built, swift, and in fighting trim. As a matter of fact, it +was neither gull nor hawk nor owl, but a harrier, a hen-harrier—that's +its name, not its sex, for it was a cock—and the same is a half-way +house, so to speak, between hawk and owl. Possibly because they are +crepuscular, harriers may be thought more rare than they are. This one +was "crepusculing," and—the black rat did not like it. They had met +before, and Mr. Ratus had gained a lively dislike for this hawk-owl +combination, greater than his respect—which itself was not small—for +owl or hawk. +</P> + +<P> +Seeing nowhere to go, and nothing to hide in when he got there, our Mr. +Ratus shifted from one spot to the other when the harrier made his +cat-like pounce—yes, he was something cat-like, too—and had the +pleasure of seeing the harrier's uninviting talons grab a clawful of +grass, which, by all powers of judgment, ought to have been black rat's +fur. +</P> + +<P> +A mere hawk, or even an owl, might have considered this rebuff enough, +but not the harrier. <I>He</I> wafted himself ten feet aloft on his long +narrow vans, and, flapping owl-like, or almost butterfly-like, began to +beat, and the beating of the harrying harrier, up and down, is one of +the most trying ordeals, for the game beaten for, in the wild. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Ratus sat where she was, he presumed, playing the same bluff. +</P> + +<P> +But both were without cover, and the black rat, I fear, devoutly hoped +that she would be fool enough to move and give herself away first; +whilst she, on her part, was cursing him for many kinds of a fool for +starting their "flitting" before it was dark. +</P> + +<P> +While she sat and froze—in both senses—however, the black rat, rigid +as a beast cut out of coal, with one bright, shining eye upon the +harrier beating up and down, was probing the dusk with the other eye. +And presently he thought he saw his chance. He would have had to move, +anyway, I fancy, for the strain of sitting there bang in the open was +unendurable. His nerves would have snapped. So he went to his +chance—a hole in the bank of the ditch. +</P> + +<P> +I say he went, but I only take it to be so because he got there. One +could not actually see him go. One had only an idea, quite an +uncertain idea, that something, most like a swift bird, had passed up +the ditch, and one could not swear even to that. It seemed impossible +that the flying something had been a four-legged animal. +</P> + +<P> +It was the black rat. Nor did he go straight. He went, if I may so +put it, every way at once, ending up with a merry-go-round dance with +death—the harrier was pouncing savagely—round a tuft of grass, at +such a speed that he looked exactly like the rim of a quickly spun +bicycle-wheel—a halo, that is to say, and nothing else. +</P> + +<P> +And then—he was crouched, panting, inside the hole, wondering whether +his heart or his lungs would be the first to burst. And then? Oh, and +then he—cleaned himself, naturally and of course. What else did you +expect? He was the original black rat of Old England, and one of the +cleanest animals on earth. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Ratus, having vanished past finding while the hunt to the hole was +on, presently scented her lord out, when the night had come and the +harrier was gone, and together, starting like antelope at every hint of +a sound, they traveled up the ditch, and up the bank of a stream that +the ditch folded into. +</P> + +<P> +Once an owl—the nomad, short-eared owl of the marshes—let forth a +hoot that would have sent a nervous lady into "astericks," and sent +<I>them</I> into no-where, as if it had detonated a charge of that lively +mystery called T.N.T. under their dainty feet. Once, just as they were +lapping like dogs at the edge of the ice that was conspiring to span +the brook, an otter shot up his head—jaws wide and dripping—almost +under their long and pointed noses, and they, with one accord, and +driven by their long tails acting as a spring, leapt simply into space. +At any rate, they could not be followed by mortal eye, wherever they +did leap to. +</P> + +<P> +And once they met a wandering cat. And that cat seemed to go mad, for +she shifted about the steep bank of that stream, and up, and +about—here she swore because the spikes pricked her—and down a +holly-bush, as if she had got a rocket tied to her tail. She had not, +of course. She was hunting black rats. I suppose she saw them. If +so, she was the only person who did, and I feel sure that, instant as +she was, when she was up the bank or the holly-bush they were down it, +and when she was down they were up. Finally, when her lost temper had +completely run her out of breath, she slouched away, spitting like a +worn sparking-plug, and very much disgusted. And—the black rats +cleaned themselves! +</P> + +<P> +That night was not a profitable one. The shell-fish of the estuary +were gone, and there was little instead on the stream—only snow, and +the snow fell quietly at intervals throughout the night, hiding +everything. Rats, too, are creatures of warmth. They hate cold as +much as the writer, and these two black rats became very miserable. +They had no home, and did not know where to go; and, save for a few +berries, they had nothing to eat. Mercifully, they had plenty to +drink, and that is an item with rats, who die in a very few hours if +they cannot get a drink. +</P> + +<P> +A bitter, dull paling of the sky, which by courtesy we will call dawn, +found them cleaning again, with their hand-like forepaws, exactly like +cats, inside a water-vole burrow. The owner had been out, +bark-chipping, all night—it was the only thing he could find to keep +body and life from parting company—and was not over-pleased, on his +return, to find that he had company at home. A short two-round contest +ensued, during which the water-vole must have felt as if he had taken +on a bit of black lightning. Then the water-vole went away, somewhat +bewildered, to turn some smaller water-vole out of his winter bed; and +the rats curled themselves up, heads between hindlegs, tail encircling +all, with only their ever-ready, elfin ears poking out to give the +alarm, and they slept. And, by the way, it was a saying in the wild +that no one had ever seen them asleep, or knew if, or how, they did +sleep. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing came to disturb them during the day—which was a wonder, for +all the wild was hungry and looking for food—and at the hour when +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Night, busy with her dawn, begins it with a star, +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +they came out, after a prolonged, starry-eyed stare, from their +fastness, and continued their journey. +</P> + +<P> +Things were serious now. They had not fed, and could find nothing to +feed upon but two hawthorn-berries, dropped by the wasteful fieldfares; +but they drank, <I>and</I> cleaned, and proceeded up-stream, with that +caution one only learns in a world full of enemies and empty of friends. +</P> + +<P> +Another six hours of this cold on an empty stomach would send them into +that sleep—the dread, drugged slumber of the cold—from which there is +no awakening in this world, and they seemed to know it. They were +desperate, and their eyes burnt in their sharp heads like gimlet-holes +of light. Desperate they were, as the poor, little, brilliantly +resplendent, and tropic-looking kingfisher had, no doubt, been, whom +they found, frozen into a dried, huddled heap, under the stream-bank, +and so emaciated that, after they had picked his bones, they scarcely +knew that they had touched him. +</P> + +<P> +But anon the face of the snow changed—meaningly for them. Whereas +before they had been alone, almost, in a frozen world, scarcely +crossing a trail but the quadruple track of water-voles or the +chain-pattern impression of a moorhen—nor had seen a living thing but +the square-ended, squat, little, black form of a water-vole out upon an +alder-branch, gnawing bark—they now began to be aware of gradually +increasing company. Not that the company advertised itself, mark you. +Being wild company, it would not; but they knew it was there. +</P> + +<P> +The chain-trail of the moorhen reduplicated itself. It was joined by +that of a water-rail—they saw his ruby eyes and rat-like form in +passing. The fourfold track of a rabbit led the way ahead of them, as +if pointing the path, to be joined by the broken footprints of another +rabbit, and then by the track made by the longer leap of a hare, +fourfold also. The delicate lined marks left by a wood-mouse now kept +company with the others, and anon the little fairy imprints of two +field-voles—short-tailed field-mice, if you prefer. They crossed the +track of another rabbit going, at right-angles, down to the water to +drink, and then the little, busy tattoo of bank-voles. Another hare's +trail, and more rabbits' tracks, began to meander about, but all +heading more or less one way—the way they were going. And then they +stopped dead at the smudged groove and ancient and fish-like scent of +an otter. Moreover, they had scarcely got over that than they came +upon the dog-like tracks, and the smell, like nothing else, of Reynard, +the fox; and, with nerves fairly tingling now, and eyes everywhere at +once, they arrived at last—as the converging trails seemed to say they +would—at the towering, smudged blur against the sky, which was the +farm-buildings. +</P> + +<P> +The black rat peered under the lower rung of a gate into a straw-yard, +and heard the rustlings of little folk—field-vole, bank-vole, and +wood-mouse—who had gone before him. There was no sign of the others; +but that was not strange, for the hares and the rabbits had probably +gone round to the kitchen-garden, for which they were making in their +extremity of hunger; and the otter and the fox were, most likely, +keeping each other off the fowlhouse. +</P> + +<P> +Wherefore, plucking up courage, the black rat skipped into the yard, +and made straight for the manger, where, in the inky blackness under +the open-sided roofs, he could hear the long-drawn blowing and sigh of +fat cattle lying down. +</P> + +<P> +A pale moon came out behind him, and showed him tripping lightly over a +bullock's broad back. Then he was up on the manger-edge, had paused to +make sure, and was down in the manger, picking up crumbs and dust of +linseed-cake and chaff. Three mice were doing the same thing, but fled +at his approach; but he did not trouble about that, for the cattle had +not left even him and his wife a full meal, having blown what was left +of the chaff away, and licked up practically all of the cake-crumbs and +dust. However, it was better than nothing. +</P> + +<P> +The rat's natural curiosity was awakened, and his comparative warmth in +this place, out of the razor-edged wind—oh, what a relief to be out of +that infernal sawing blast!—made him explore. And he ran along the +edge of the manger to a hole in the wall, which led—the peculiar and +indescribable smell said so—through to the pig-sties. But here he +stopped, and his wife behind him stopped. Some one was coming through +from the opposite side—some one who smelt very much worse than any pig. +</P> + +<P> +Next instant both black rats had gone off together like sparks—if ever +sparks were black—and the brown rat, coming through the hole, wondered +what on earth had happened. Then he sniffed at their trail, tried, but +found it impossible, to follow, and passed on. He would have felt +great pleasure in slaying them if he could, and they knew that. +</P> + +<P> +The black rat now essayed to cross the yard to the stable. He could +not very well stop there—up among the rafters, that is—all night, so +he came down, and, with his wife following him, gingerly rustled out +upon the partially snow-covered straw. +</P> + +<P> +Then he got a shock that turned him into a winking series of black +streaks. +</P> + +<P> +Then he got another shock which turned him, literally, into—well, into +black lightning. You never saw anything like it in all your life. You +never would have believed that any living beast could have so +frantically and so furiously got itself about from place to place so +instantaneously. It was—dazzling. It made you blink. It was It in +the agility line, and no mistake. +</P> + +<P> +Firstly, the brown rat, having hidden up in some black corner, with +brown-rat cunning, came hopping out instantly—nay, charging—on the +black rat's trail. And there was murder in his wicked, little, +glinting eyes at he came. +</P> + +<P> +Secondly, a white eider-down quilt—at least, that was what it seemed +like—descended lightly as—as an eider quilt, and as soundlessly, out +of the blue-black sky, and covered the brown rat up. You could hear +his horrid, muffled screaming of rage and fear under the quilt; you +could see the quilt—but they saw that it looked pale brown on +top—lifting about, and feeling for that murder-child of a rat +underneath. Then the quilt got him—you could hear the unspeakably +beastly death-squeal reverberate mufflingly—and then the quilt rose, +still utterly without sound, and one saw it was a big barn-owl, with a +rat—a brown rat—twitching in its white-mittened claws. +</P> + +<P> +But do you think that made any difference? If so, you don't know the +cruel devil of perseverance that is the brown rat. +</P> + +<P> +As the black rat, at the end of his amazing lightning display, reached +the barn, with his mate behind him, he leapt—he could not stop—clean +over the back of one great twenty-inch, glitter-eyed brown ghoul, +called by the death-scream of his colleague—other rats usually answer +it—coming out of a hole. The black rats dashed into the hole like +flickering streaks, but the brown rat had instantly spun upon himself, +and was after them. +</P> + +<P> +The barn was an unfortunate choice. It seemed full of brown rats, and +four of them, in the darkness, instantly took up the pursuit of the now +fairly hunted black couple. Nothing but their miraculous agility saved +those two from being eaten alive, but they came out of the barn on to +the spotless snow on the far side, with only a foot to spare between +their long tails and the mangy, scarred head of the leading brown fiend +behind them. +</P> + +<P> +Straight across the open, like a drawn black bar, they shot, to a +towering building of wood, and along this—here they lost six inches of +the precious twelve by which they led—looking for a hole. They found +it, whizzed in, five brown rats close behind them, nine brown rats hard +behind the five. +</P> + +<P> +They discovered themselves in a great room half-filled with sacks and +the sweet smell of corn, and in and out among these sacks they led +their hunters such a dizzy chase as no man ever witnessed, or could +witness, for the matter of that, since human eyes could not follow it. +But the end seemed positive, anyway. It was only a question of tiring +the black sparks out, for the four brown rats in the place, engaged +upon lowering the weight of the flour in the sacks—one of those rats a +dreaded cannibal of twenty-one and a half inches—joined in the +mobbing, and soon the black rats found themselves in such a position +that there was no escape—no escape for any but a black rat. For them +there was one way. And those two living electric sparks on four feet +took it. They went up the wall! +</P> + +<P> +I don't know, but I guess that, as the black rats' upper jaws were +longer and sharper and more shark-like than the brown rats', and their +tails very much longer, they got a spring off the tail—and legs, +too—and had an agility in hanging on to knots and crannies above that +possessed by the brown ghouls. Be that as it may, they did it, and got +a respite under the floor of the room above, before their enemies, +traveling more normally, and by holes, could swarm up after them. +</P> + +<P> +Then the two, cornered at last, with one last desperate rush, shot up +through a hole in the boards, out into the middle of the room on the +first floor, and stopped dead. +</P> + +<P> +Ah! they stopped. Good reason, too. Good reason had the five brown +rats, excited with blood-lust, hard on their tails, to stop also. +</P> + +<P> +They found themselves suddenly revealed in the middle of a big room, +furnished mainly with a few sacks, and flooded with a dazzling, +blinding glare of electric light, that seemed brighter than the very +sun. +</P> + +<P> +There they were, all seven, black and brown, struck rigid, plain and +clear for any to see. And four men and two dogs stood there seeing +them. They, those men and dogs, had just come quietly for their +evening rat-hunt, turning on the light suddenly, for the place was a +mill as well as a farm, making—from the mill-wheel—its own +electricity. +</P> + +<P> +There was a strained, aching pause for about as long as a man takes to +gasp. Then the dogs sprang in, and one of the men jumped to the only +hole in the room they had not previously stopped up. +</P> + +<P> +But the black rats! The brown rats died, at intervals, fighting +horribly, as cornered brown rats do. In five minutes they were, all +five, dead—that is, all that had come into the room and been cut off. +The black rats, however, in five minutes, were not dead. Nobody seems +to have seen them, after the hunt had once begun, till the others were +killed. Even then all four men aver that they could never rightly +swear that they saw them. They saw lines, and streaks, and flashes, +and whirls, and halos of black, which might have been rats—and the +dogs said they were—but no one could swear to it. At times these +giddy phenomena were among the rafters, at other times they were on the +floor, and yet again they were going up or coming down the walls; but +all the while both men and dogs seemed to be everlastingly too late, +and hunting them where, half-a-second before, they had been. In fact, +they perpetually had been, and were always where snapping jaws and +beating sticks were not. +</P> + +<P> +At the end of half-an-hour the men, mopping their foreheads, even in +that cold, gasped, "Lor' love yer! Did yer ever see th' like?" +</P> + +<P> +At the end of three-quarters of an hour the men flung themselves, +gasping, on to the sacks of flour, and the dogs, panting, on to the +floor—done. And the black rat and his mate, lively as ever, perkily +watched them from the rafters. +</P> + +<P> +Then the men and dogs went away, the light went out, and presently +great sounds of war below suggested that the brown rats on the +ground-floor were having the time of their lives. So were the two +black rats, but a different sort of time. They were feasting upon meal +and grain. And there, so far as I know, as they were like birds, +flying among the rafters like black lightning if molested, they live to +this day. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +LAWLESS LITTLE LOVE +</H3> + + +<P> +She rolled over and regained her feet in a flash, to find herself facing +a dark beast, with a huge, bushy, white tail, held up straight like a +pleased cat's—but this was a sign of warning, not pleasure—that shone +ghostily in the gloom of the mysterious, dread thorn-scrub. And the face +of the beast was the face of a black and grinning devil, and its eyes +shone red. +</P> + +<P> +She stood there, shivering a little, with the tiny young thing crawling +weakly away from almost under her feet, and the long, vivid, raw gash +that the white-tailed beast, coming from nowhere special out of the +night, had set upon her shoulder—a murderess caught in the act. +</P> + +<P> +On three legs—her left hindleg had been bitten off by a trap set for a +hyena—emaciated, with all her natural buoyant courage gone out of her, +her wonderful agility gone too, she felt instantly in her heart that she +could neither face this diabolical-faced foe, nor yet get away from it. +This same crippled condition had spoilt her hunting forays, and, driven +by hunger, had made her nose into other people's nurseries, and be caught +just on the point of slaying somebody else's baby, when the owner had +come home, like a streak out of the night. +</P> + +<P> +But that was not the worst of it, for she was longer than the enemy, a +bit, and might have put up a good fight—she had fought for her life, as +a matter of course, ever since she left her mother's side—if the enemy +had not brought with her an ally. It was not visible to the eye, that +ally, but it was to the nose—a most distinct and appalling stink, and it +could be felt, for it made her nostrils smart. Apparently, then, that +white tail was intentional, was as a red flag, insolently displayed, +warning all to beware of the stink. Well, there is more than one way of +holding your own in the wild, and a most unholy smell is not such a bad +way, either, when you come to think about it. +</P> + +<P> +The owner of that nameless odor was a polecat—not our polecat; worse +than that—and—well, you know the breed. Fear they know not; neither is +pity with them a weakness, especially where the lives of their young are +concerned. This one did not wait. She attacked quicker than you could +cry "Knife," taking off with all four feet together, in a peculiar and +patent way of her own. +</P> + +<P> +The would-be murderess, who was long, and absurdly short in the leg, too, +just like her opponent, only with a more graceful and not such a +thick-set body, turned on herself in a snaky fashion, and her neck, that +the fangs had aimed at, was not there when the polecat arrived, but her +teeth were, and they closed on the polecat's cheek. +</P> + +<P> +The latter gibbered horribly at the spark of pain, and set herself really +down to fight. +</P> + +<P> +The intending murderess said nothing at all, but, unbalanced with her +game hindleg, having no force to push or spring with, and being very +weak, she knew she was done for directly they closed to the clinch. +</P> + +<P> +In a few seconds the polecat had her down, and only an awful, mad, +desperate clashing of fang against fang kept the attacker off her throat. +It could not last. +</P> + +<P> +Then it was, at that moment, that a sharp little, gray little, +dark-spotted, clean-cut, close-cropped, intelligent head, on a snaky, +long neck, peeped out of the shadows, and peered about, as if to see what +in whiskers all the pother was about. The head might have been there by +chance, but it wasn't. Its owner had been running her trail for hours, +and looking for it for days, and didn't mean to let her go, now that he +had finally come up with her, polecats or no polecats, smells or not. +But he was not a fool. He knew the game, the bitter, cruel game of +death, as it is played throughout the wild. With man the inexorable law +is, "Get on or get out." In the wild they phrase it another way: "Kill +or be killed." Man puts it more politely, perhaps, but it's all the same +old natural law, I guess. +</P> + +<P> +The head and snaky neck developed a long, creamy, tawny-spotted body, and +the body a long, banded, tapering tail—all set on legs so short, they +scarcely kept the owner off the ground; and the name of that beast was +genet. The same are a sort of distant relation of the cats, a fourth +cousin once removed; but it is necessary to tell you, because you might +think they were beautiful weasels, otherwise. <I>And she was a genet</I>, +too—the murderess that might have been. +</P> + +<P> +Then the new-comer moved. Then he began to move, and—here! It was just +like the buzzing of a fly in a tumbler. Certainly you could say that he +was still there, but you could not swear that you actually saw him. +</P> + +<P> +The first that the polecat knew of him was that red-hot fork-like feeling +that means fangs in the back of your neck. The polecat spun on herself, +and bit, quick as an electric needle, at the spotted thing, that promptly +ceased to be there, and, to use the professional term, she "made the +stink" for all she was worth. She forgot all about the long female +would-be slayer of her children, and the genet was mightily thankful to +drag herself clear, but she would not have been she if she had failed to +get her fangs home, as a parting shot, before she went. +</P> + +<P> +Then, I fancy, she was ill; and, upon my soul, I don't wonder. It was +enough to asphyxiate a whale-factory hand. But the male genet was not +ill, or, if he was, he was moving from place to place too quickly to give +the fact away; and by the time he shot up a tree, like a long, rippling, +cream and tawny-dappled, banded line, he left that polecat considerably +redder than when he found her, and weak, as if she had been bitten by +leeches. The polecat had certainly saved her young, or thought she had, +although I cannot swear that the female genet had really meant them harm; +but she did not look as if she had saved much else. However, she held +the field of battle, and the foe had fled, and that is supposed to be the +sign of victory; but that had been done by her "gassing" methods, so to +speak, not by fighting alone. +</P> + +<P> +Rippling about among the branches, an incarnation of grace personified, +and hunting for her by nose alone, for in the moonlight her exquisite +creamy, dappled coat was invisible—a real piece of magic, this—the male +genet quickly found her for whom he sought. She remained low, lying +along a bough, line for line, shadow-patch for shadow-patch, flat as the +very bark, and as undulating, until she felt sure that he would run over +her; then she rose, spitting and snarling in his face, cat-like and +vicious. +</P> + +<P> +It was a poor kind of thanks for having saved her life, perhaps, but it +was her way—<I>then</I>. And, anyway, who can blame her? She had never met +any living creature that was not a foe or an armed "unbenevolent" neutral +in all her life, and she did not know that any other category or creature +existed, the recent fight notwithstanding. +</P> + +<P> +But the male genet neither ran nor fought. He dodged her snap, by a +tenth of an inch, almost without seeming to move, and there he stood +looking at her meekly. She leapt to him, and he shot off, as she arrived +upon, the place where he had been. Perhaps she knew that only a genet, +or a mongoose, could do that trick in a manner at once so machine-like +and precise; and after that she merely sat, bent in a curve, with her +lips up. But her spring had given her away, and he saw that she was +lame. Perhaps he saw, too, the gleam of hunger, the wild, cruel gleam +that forgets all else, in her eyes; but who am I to say whether he +understood it? +</P> + +<P> +Be that as it may, the male vanished suddenly and without explanation, +doubling on his trail and going out like a snuffed candle. He was in +view, as a matter of fact, several times during the next few minutes, +climbing quietly; but the dark blotches of the leaf-shadows magicked him +into invisibility, and no one could tell where he was, till suddenly the +silence was smitten by one piercing squawk somewhere among the greenery +above. Then a crash, wild flutterings, a hectic commotion, and he and a +terrified guinea-fowl came down together, more nearly falling than he +liked. Indeed, he must have let it fall, or gone himself with it, as he +slid past, grabbing for holds, if she had not dropped quickly to the next +bough and taken a hold, too. Then, side by side, they hauled the warm, +feathery, fluttering thing up, and he slew swiftly, in order to silence +the noisy prey, who foolishly kicked up such a noise, as if maliciously; +for he knew—and perhaps the gleany (guinea-fowl) did, too—how quickly a +crowd may gather to interfere in an advertised "killing" in that wild. +</P> + +<P> +The female genet, however, was past caring about risks. She had reached +a stage of hunger when no risks can overshadow the risk of starvation, +and she had the guinea-fowl by the throat, and was sucking its blood +before the other had time to realize what she was at. Then, with fine +discrimination, she ate the breast and thigh, and later might, or might +not, have let him have a look in, if some blotched shape had not slid up, +without sound, across the blue black night sky, and, halting in the tree, +begun, apparently, to crack nuts very sharply and very quickly. +Whereupon, without saying anything, the genets faded out. +</P> + +<P> +It was nothing much, really—only the noise she makes when the giant +eagle-owl is angry; but when you are a genet, with a body under two feet +long, you may find it rather a bore, if nothing else, to remain cheek by +jowl with an angry eagle-owl three feet or so across the wings, with the +feline temper of an owl, and armed, owl-like, to the teeth, if I may so +put it. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-150"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-150.jpg" ALT=""An angry eagle-owl"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="454" HEIGHT="667"> +<H4> +[Illustration: "An angry eagle-owl"] +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Now the question came as the two genets arrived at the ground—would she +follow him, or would he have to follow her? He was determined, anyway, +that nothing short of calamity should part them. Yet I don't see, since +he never uttered a sound, how she understood him to say that if she would +follow him he would find her food, even though she was still hungry, for +she had not yet got to trusting him much more than she trusted any other +beast, and seemed to think that he was half as likely to eat her as to +get her something to eat. Such a thing as another creature finding her +food for only just friendliness—love was out of the question yet, or out +of her question—was an idea her suspicious nature could not yet grasp. +However, she followed. +</P> + +<P> +Twining and twisting, turning and tripping, in and out among the bush and +the tree-trunks, soundless, and quite invisible, except when they crossed +a moonbeam—and then nearly so, because the moon has a trick of, as it +were, dissolving the colors of even fairly conspicuous creatures—they +crept on their low way. There was not a sound that they did not crouch +for, often flat as a whip-lash—and that wild is full of sounds by night, +too—not a puff of air that they did not throw up their sharp little +muzzles to test, not a movement or the hint of a movement which their +eyes did not fix with a suspicious stare. +</P> + +<P> +They passed a hippopotamus feeding—a sheaf at a mouthful—upon long +grass; they came upon three wild dogs eating an antelope and gibbering +like gnomes; they beheld two striped zebras stampeding from a lion; they +got into the middle of a herd of elephants—but what must those giants +have seemed to them, almost at ground-level?—and did not know it, so +silent can the mighty ones be, till they heard the unmistakable digestive +rumblings; they happened on the tail of a leopard, observing a young +waterbuck antelope, and retired therefrom without his suspecting them; +they watched some bush-pigs rooting in a clearing, hoping they might turn +up some insects worth eating; they heard a mother-lion grunting among +some reeds, and were nearly run over by the stampede of zebras that +followed; they chased a rat that ran into a hole in which was a snake, +and it never came out again; they went up a tree after a weaver-bird's +nest, but, from the way the bottle-shaped structure was hung, could not +get at it; they investigated a hare's hole, and found a six-foot mamba +snake, with four-minute death-fangs, in possession; they risked the +thousand spikes of a thorn-bush to get at a red-necked pheasant roosting, +only to find the branch he was on too slender to hold their weight; they +were stalked by a wild cat, and hid in a hollow tree; and were pounced +upon by a civet cat—who was their big cousin—and dodged him most +wonderfully; and were chased by a jackal, whose nose they bit when it +followed them into a hollow log. Finally, they came to the wall, and +stopped. +</P> + +<P> +Their noses told them it was not the wall of a native village, for no +one, not even a man, could possibly make any mistake about <I>that</I>. Also, +their noses may have told them other things. Anyway, the moon saw them, +in the form of two gray lines, slide over the wall and drop silently into +the shadow on the far side. +</P> + +<P> +A wild cat was courting a domestic cat of the bungalow close by, at the +corner of the compound, but, flat as strips of tawny-spotted cloth, they +got past him all right. +</P> + +<P> +A black-backed jackal was gnawing a bit of old hide at the angle of the +wall, and they were forced to make a detour up to the veranda of the +bungalow to avoid that sharp-eared, sharp-eyed one. +</P> + +<P> +Here, on the veranda, they discovered a chair, and the male genet, +standing on hindlegs to see what was in the chair, found himself looking +straight into the electric-blue, purplish balls of light that betokened +another cat, which had been asleep, but was now very wide awake. +</P> + +<P> +He went round that chair in the form of a hazy, wavy, streak, as the cat +shot out of it. The female genet faded from publicity behind a palm in a +pot. But the genet's tail was so long that, with the cat and himself +going round and round that chair like a living Catherine-wheel—both he +and the cat spitting no end—the cat was touching his tail, while he was +snapping at the cat's. Wherefore he moved across the veranda as an arrow +flies, and round the corner, and as he turned the corner he—leapt. +</P> + +<P> +It was a beautiful leap, and it cleared the danger that he seemed bound +to run into, as it lifted in his path, by about an inch. As he sprang he +heard the cat's claws scraping loudly, as she madly endeavored to +stop—too late. +</P> + +<P> +Then the head of the eight-foot python that had been creeping up round +that corner in the process of stalking that cat whizzed by beneath him +like a hurled poleax. +</P> + +<P> +As he landed the genet heard the cat make one sound—only one—and it was +indescribable, and he dropped off the veranda into the shadow of a bush, +where the female genet presently joined him. +</P> + +<P> +There was a small mongoose (my! what a lot of hunters do collect about +the bungalows at night, to be sure!) under the bush, engaged in eating +that precise reptilian form of poisoned death known as a night adder, +which it had just killed. But the genets had other and private business, +and they parted from the mongoose with no more than a snarl, the two +genets to appear next—or, rather, to be no more than guessed +at—crossing the last stretch of moonlight between them and the fowlhouse. +</P> + +<P> +As they did so, a blurred, vast-winged, silent, dark shadow passed +overhead, and a peculiarly piercing whistle stabbed dagger-like through +the waiting, listening silence. Both genets jumped, as if the whistle +had really been a dagger and had stabbed them, and vanished into hiding +before the sound had ceased, almost. They knew that shadow—the owner of +the whistle; they had met her earlier that night—the giant eagle-owl. +But what the fangs and claws was she doing here? After rats, perhaps. +They hoped so, and tried to think she was not after them. +</P> + +<P> +The people who are condemned to live in those parts know that deaths, +many and mysterious, go about there in the night, seeking victims, and +that fowls must, in consequence, be well penned. Yet they die; and it +has been said that where a snake can squeeze into a fowl-house, there a +genet can follow—perhaps dealing with the snake first, and the fowls +afterwards. Certainly, there seems to be no longer, and narrower, and +lower, and more sinuous little beast on this earth than the genet. +</P> + +<P> +The male genet took the problem upon himself as his own special province +to find entrance into places; and the female, her suspicions of him +oozing away more and more every minute, "kept cave." And he found an +entrance, that little, long, low beggar; he found an entrance, a hole up +under the roof, that appeared small enough, in all conscience, to be +overlooked by anybody. +</P> + +<P> +The moon knows how they climbed to it—I don't. And as the male genet +dropped down inside, the female took his place. But even as he landed he +wished he had not. Fear was there before him. +</P> + +<P> +In the smelly, stifling, heated pitch-darkness a fowl squawked with pain, +and others burst into noise above his head. +</P> + +<P> +Then he made a blunder. Surprised certainly, and angry perhaps, he +growled. +</P> + +<P> +Instantly the confusion ceased and hushed to silence; and instantly, too, +round, large, amber-gold balls of light like lamps, to the number of two, +were switched on—fixed upon him, staring, so that he "froze" in his +tracks where he stood, and her crest stood up on the female genet, as it +does on a cat, as she peered through the hole. They had disturbed +something at its killing. +</P> + +<P> +Very few graven images move less than those two pretty but small hunters +did in the nest half-minute, while the fowls settled down again, and the +genets tried—mainly with their noses—to find out what, in the +wilderness or out of it, they had run up against this time. +</P> + +<P> +At the end of that period there fell upon their stupefied ears the sound +as if some one unseen were cracking nuts—nut after nut, very quickly—in +the blackness, and both genets very nearly had a fit—a motionless +one—on the spot. +</P> + +<P> +Then they knew, most entirely did they know, and the knowledge gave them +no end of a fright. It was the giant eagle-owl. She—it was a she—had +beaten the robbers in hole-creeping, had outburgled the burglars, and +outcrept the creepers, though goodness alone knows how. +</P> + +<P> +The only difficulty was, who was going out first, and who alive, and who +dead? +</P> + +<P> +The male genet apparently knew about owls, and nothing of what he knew +had shown that they were cowards. Nor was he a coward; but the wild +hunters we not out to win the V.C., as a rule, I guess; and, if they +were, he was not one of them. He was out to feed, not fight. +</P> + +<P> +Possibly, while he was considering this, standing there with arched +back—by reason of his long body and apologies for legs—in the darkness, +the owl was considering the same thing. Anyway, both seemed to make up +their minds in the same instant, and to act on it. Wherefore they +arrived at the hole under the roof in the same instant, too; and you can +take it from me that there are very few creatures indeed who can go into +a hole, or come out of it, with such an amazing rush as the genet. +</P> + +<P> +The result naturally was war, and red-hot at that. +</P> + +<P> +Grappling, spitting, hissing, growling, snorting, coughing, the two fell +in a heap to the ground—and an owl on the ground is one degree more of a +spiked handful than an owl in the air—where they continued the +discussion in a young whirlwind of their own, much to the perturbation of +the roosting fowls, who woke up and added to the riot. +</P> + +<P> +The female genet had gone out of the other end of the hole, like a cork +out of a bottle, taking a scratch on the nose from the owl with her; but, +finding nothing further happen, she now crept back and peered in. What +she discovered did not give her any comfort, for, although upon her back, +it looked as if that she-owl had been specially designed to fight that +way. She had one fiend's claw gripped well home on the male genet's +shoulder, and another doing its best to skin him alive; while her beak +was hammering the gray top of his weasely-looking head. True, the male +genet's fangs were buried up to the socket in the owl's throat, but that +was no proof that he had found either her windpipe or the equally useful +jugular vein, and, if he did not pretty quick, it looked as if it would +never matter, so far as he was concerned. +</P> + +<P> +I like to think of what that little, long, crippled female genet did +then, in that well-like blackness and that smelly heat, with the chance +of retreat open to her, and no one to say her nay. Without hesitation, +she dropped to the ground beside the scuffle, and flung herself into +it—into the winnowing, slapping radius of big pinions, that beat and +beat and beat, smothering all with feathers and dust. One wing caught +her squarely, and she fetched up against the wall, winded and dazed; but +she was back again in a flash, dancing on her toes, and, suddenly +flattening, shot in, level with the ground, like a snake. +</P> + +<P> +She arrived. She felt feathers against her nose—she could not see. The +wings pounded her flatter. She laid hold, biting in as deep and as far +as she could get. +</P> + +<P> +As a matter of fact, she had got the owl by the neck, but one would have +thought she had turned on a young volcano by the confusion that followed. +Both genets shut their precious eyes, and hung on, while that owl beat +herself round and round in one last wild flurry, coughing horribly and +humanly the while, and cracking nuts. Finally she collapsed as suddenly +as a pricked bladder, and lay still—a great, mixed-up feathery heap, +limp and pathetic, with her vast flung-out wings. +</P> + +<P> +The two genets backed away, glad enough to be done with such a fiery, +feathered fury. The male genet stumbled a little, and sat down. He was +nearly as red as the sun on a stormy dawn, but all the blood was not his. +</P> + +<P> +They did not seem to trouble further about the great foe lying beside +them. Certainly she pervaded the air with a musty smell that was not +attractive, or, at least, not attractive when fowls were by; and it was +to the fowls they turned, the female first, the male later, after he had +done some very necessary licking. +</P> + +<P> +I fancy that, though dizzy, the male genet was rather proud of himself. +He had brought his lady-love to such a feast as she may have dreamed of, +and she had saved his life. That gave them a fellow-feeling that looked +well for his prospects in love. But I do not think he had quite realized +how hungry that beautiful velvet-skinned damsel of his choice was till +that minute, and then he was given no time to think about it. +</P> + +<P> +The dark over his head burst like a mine, and feathers and noise +enveloped him whirling. That represented the female genet coming down, +fixed to the throat of a hapless fowl. She sucked the blood, and flew at +another. Ordinarily she would have removed that one and found it enough; +but men who have been "broke," when they got suddenly rich, seem to go +temporarily mad with the lust of spending, and so it was with her; only, +her madness was the lust of killing. +</P> + +<P> +She killed, leaping and wrenching at the poor, screaming birds' throats, +blinded to the world with excitement, drunk with blood. That is an awful +intoxication, and makes even men, let alone wild, carnivorous beasts, do +unmentionable things. Also, the smell of blood was too much for the male +genet, and he presently rushed, with flying tail, into the crimson orgy +too. +</P> + +<P> +They were some time at this craziness; and when they had finished, they +and the fowls that were still alive could only lie and pant together +among the contorted slain, the blood—you would never believe how a +cockerel will bleed—and the carmine-tinted feathers. You might not +believe me if I told you how many fowls they had killed, but it was a +most disgraceful number, and quite inexcusable. +</P> + +<P> +And then, even as they lay there, dead-beat, they started suddenly and +together, for, almost like a blow, the fact dawned upon them that it was +day. Night had stolen away, and dawn discovered them at the killing; and +goodness alone knows how long they had been at it—ten minutes or hours. +Anyway, here it was, and they leapt to their feet together. +</P> + +<P> +As they hurried out they had to pass the place where the carcass of the +owl <I>had been</I>! It was gone—mysteriously sauntered as a corpse into +nowhere. Owls are uncanny creatures at any time, but moving about when +dead is not usually a recognized habit of theirs. The genets sniffed +anxiously, and ran the trail to the hole under the roof, since it +happened to be on their way. Through the hole it went, and into the +air—literally into the air. In other words, that owl had simply +"bluffed" death when she realized that she was near death. The bluff had +come off; and at a later, and what she judged a proper, time, she had +just, and of course silently, flown off by the way she had come; and—as +I live!—a fowl had gone with her. +</P> + +<P> +One minute later an unsuspected martial hawk-eagle precipitated himself +out of a big, hoary, old fig-tree, a hundred yards away from the +fowlhouse, on to one of the genets' disappearing tails. This is the +world's most general view of a genet, by the way—its disappearing tail; +and it is given to very few to see the beautiful, dark-blotched, creamy, +little, lithe, long beast that the ringed tail belongs to. Of course, +the eagle was too late. +</P> + +<P> +Two minutes later, a late leopard, returning to his lair after a blank +night's hunt, saw the tail of the female genet, who was leading, +disappear into a hollow tree. The male had not time to get in as the +leopard sprang, so he shot up another tree close by, disturbing a mamba +cobra, whose color was green, and whose bite was death, as it lay asleep +among the twined vines. The legless terror fell to the ground and +streaked for its hole, and the following leopard only just managed to +bound out of its way as it did so. +</P> + +<P> +Then, leaping light as thistle-down, coughing harshly, the leopard went +up the tree after the male genet, and appeared to have cut him off from +life and liberty for ever. +</P> + +<P> +The genet climbed beautifully, and dodged round the tree-bole, and in and +out among the trails and the leaf-bunches of matted creepers, with +amazing speed; but the whole time the leopard's paw, all hooked claws +bared, was whip-whip-whipping the air, only just behind that lovely, +long, ringed tail of the genet, and more than once touched it. +</P> + +<P> +Finally, hard driven, panting, at the end of his tether, it seemed, the +genet was forced out upon a branch, farther and farther, slowly and +more-slowly, the leopard creep, creep, creeping, almost flat, well spread +and craftily, his paw, well out in front, hooking at the luckless little +genet, till the twigs began to bend under the poor hunted creature, and +all hope seemed gone from him, for the ground was sixteen feet below, and +there was nothing between. And then—ah! but it was a fine effort!—just +when it seemed that he could go no farther, and that the next terrible +hooking round-arm stroke of the leopard must fish him into the +annihilating scrunch of the terrible jaws, whose foul, hot breath already +played upon him, the genet sprang. +</P> + +<P> +It was a wonderful spring; the little beast had gathered every last ounce +of his strength for it, and he literally seemed to sail out upon the air. +Sixteen feet to the ground he bounded, and twenty-two feet out from the +bole of the tree he landed, and—well, what d'you think of that? +</P> + +<P> +Quick was the leopard—to our eyes he seemed to come down almost on the +heels of the genet—but not quick enough, for he had first to gather +himself on an uncertain, swaying footing. Wherefore, by the time he got +to the ground, bounding like some great rubber ball, he had the pleasure +of seeing the male genet's tail vanishing also into the small hole in the +hollow tree. +</P> + +<P> +And there he left them, because perforce he could do nothing else. And +there, too, we leave them, curled up side by side in the darkness and +safety, reconciled, and a happy couple at last. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +X +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE KING'S SON +</H3> + + +<P> +They found the king's son lying in a bed of reeds with his sister, the +king's daughter, and although the prince and princess fought royally, +as befitted their rank, they were smothered up roughly in sacks and +carried speedily—the queen might return at any moment and want the +captors—to the Governor of all the Provinces, and the Governor spake +thus: +</P> + +<P> +"Oho! A royal pair, eh? They shall be sent to the capital, but first +we must put them in an inclosure while we knock up some kind of a cage." +</P> + +<P> +And into "an inclosure" were they, therefore, cast, and it was small +and bare, but for one box with dried grass in it; and the walls of the +place were of corrugated iron nine feet high, so that escape looked +impossible. Ransom was out of the question, and rescue a wild, but +still faintly possible, dream—they could even then hear their father +speaking in a mighty voice very far away, but their mother, they knew, +would be following their trail in terrible silence. +</P> + +<P> +Meantime they were king's children, and it behooved them to carry +themselves as such in the presence of the enemy. Wherefore did they +neither cry nor grieve (outwardly), nor sulk, nor cast themselves down +or about with despair or rage. They just sat down side by side, and +put their heads together, and stared with haughty insolence at the +common crowd, "the lesser breeds without the law," who gathered to +inspect them. It is not every day men get a chance to spit at and make +mock of a king's son, whose father, as like as not, killed one's mother +or little brother with no more thought than you or I would kill a +rabbit, and the crowd made the most of that chance. +</P> + +<P> +But luckily night, who was their godfather, came stalking swiftly +westward, as he does in those wild parts, and flung his protecting +cloak over them, and the crowd melted to its fleshpots, and the magic +of the dark settled down over all. +</P> + +<P> +One by one the little lights twinkled out in the huts and tents of +their captors, and the deep bass drone of men's voices within mingled +with the shrill cackle of women, and the high song of the mosquitoes +without; and the smell of cooking and tobacco together came to them, so +that they sniffed aloofly and stirred from their places. +</P> + +<P> +A pariah dog, lean and yellow, came to eye them furtively through the +chinks of the corrugated iron, and the horses snorted and stamped in +their pickets, as the night breeze carried to them their scent. +</P> + +<P> +Time passed, and the shrill voices of the women-folk ceased, the deep +mutter of the men died gradually down, the lights faded, the scene was +lit up only here and there by the sudden glow of a fire kicked into +blaze by a sentry, but the song of the mosquitoes never ceased. +</P> + +<P> +Then arose and uprose the strange, uncanny voices of the night, which, +taken together, made up a background to the great silence which they +seemed to accentuate. And the king's son bounded again. They were to +him as a mighty call, those voices, from his own land—the land of the +wilderness. +</P> + +<P> +The rumbling thunder of his father's rage, breathing of death and +destruction, had ceased now; but there were plenty more sounds, and the +king's son, listening, knew them all. The distant "Qua-ha-ha!" of a +troop of zebras going to drink; the peculiar snort of an impala +antelope, scenting danger; the far-away drumming of hoofs of a startled +herd of hartebeests; the bleat of an eland calf, pulled down by who +knows what; the "Hoot-toot!" of a hippopotamus, going out to grass; the +sudden shrill "Ya-ya-ya-ya!" of a black-backed jackal close at hand; +the yarly, snarly whines of a hunting leopard; the snap of a +crocodile's jaws, somewhere down in the nearby river; and, last, but by +no means least in ghostliness, the awful rising "Who-oo!" followed by a +sudden mad chorus of maniacal laughter, which told that somewhere a +gathering of hyenas were—at their work! +</P> + +<P> +The king's son was moving about the prison now, examining what he could +see—especially of the walls—with his wonderful, proud eyes, and what +he could not with whiskers and nose. He made no sound, of course—not +so much as a whisper; and when his sister joined him, they were simply +intangible, half-guessed shapes, drifting—there is no other word for +it—through the gloom. +</P> + +<P> +A man, even a colored one, might look long into that inclosure and, +unless he caught the sudden smolder at the back of their eyes, never +tell where they were. Indeed, the inclosure was in pitch-darkness +itself, by reason of its high "tin" walls; and even when a weird yellow +moon came and hung itself up to add to the general uncanniness of the +scene, the prison of the king's son showed only like a well of ink. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly the silence and the voices of the crickets were broken into by +the sound of scramblings by night. A nightjar fled from the tree +overhead to the accompaniment of strange noises; and an unseen jackal, +who had crept up to the very huts pessimistically, in search of +anything awful, or offal, fled with a startled scurry. Apparently +something with claws was trying to scrape away the corrugated iron. +</P> + +<P> +Came then a scrawling scrape, and a thump. Then silence. But after a +bit the noises began again—a fresh lot, and more violent. The pariah +dog, who had come to investigate with his tail in the air, went away +again, and quickly, with his tail between his legs; and in the same +moment the king's son's head appeared over the top of the corrugated +iron wall in silhouette against the staring, surprised moon. +</P> + +<P> +Of course, and quite naturally, every sentry was asleep, or else even +they could not have failed to realize that the sounds of desperate +scratchings that followed were no ordinary phenomena, and might bear +looking into. +</P> + +<P> +Presently the king's son's body followed his head, and he sat for a +moment, balancing clumsily on that narrow top, before vanishing +suddenly, to the accompaniment of a heavy thump that was the last sound +he made in the place. +</P> + +<P> +Further and even more frantic scratchings followed, and anon the king's +daughter, who certainly meant to die rather than be left alone in the +hands of the foe, eclipsed the moon. A pause, and she, too, vanished +downwards with a thump that was the last sound she made there in that +place also. +</P> + +<P> +A minute later, and she had joined her brother under the thorny guard +of a mimosa. +</P> + +<P> +For a moment or two the pair stood rigid as rock carvings, looking +back, crouched a little, and deadly silent. Then the king's son turned +and led the way to the river at a loping trot, and his sister followed +in his tracks. They shook the dust—literally and daintily as a cat +shakes dew from her feet—of the hated captors' fastness from their +feet in little momentary halts as they went, and the place knew them no +more. +</P> + +<P> +But there is one point I should like to insert here. Go and try to +climb over a corrugated iron wall nine feet high, and with nothing but +the bare earth to take off from, and see how you succeed. Further, +when doing it, remember that these royal children were so young as to +be little more than babies. Then you may tell how they accomplished +the feat. I do not know exactly to this day. +</P> + +<P> +It is to be hoped that by this time everybody will be aware that the +king's son and the king's daughter were lion cubs, the survivors, +therefore the strongest and the fittest, of three lion cubs in a +litter. It required, you will admit, some resource, courage, and +intelligence to do what they had already done, considering their age; +but the worst was to come. Having got out of the frying-pan, they must +now face the fire, and be quick about it, too, if they didn't want to +be traced and recaptured at dawn. +</P> + +<P> +Arrived at the river's edge, they stopped and stared out across the +dark swirls and unknown, cold depths. Lion cubs, as also the young of +every other African animal, must assuredly be born with an instinctive +and a very lively dread of all rivers and their occupants. Any +horrible invention of death, they must have known, might be expected to +lurk there, ready waiting for them in that underworld of dark waters; +but if they felt fear, they never showed it, and the pride of their +birth held true. Their hesitation was only momentary. The terror had +to be faced, bravely or fearfully, as they would, but still faced, and +bravely it was done. +</P> + +<P> +Slowly and coolly the king's son waded out into the black, chill +waters. He felt the current, which was strong, plucking like invisible +great fingers at his legs; he felt the cold strike through tawny, +spotted fur and skin to his belly, but he never looked back. His feet +were whirled from under him; he trod upon nothing, cold, cold +emptiness, and that was enough to terrify any grown beast, let alone a +baby; but he struck out right manfully, and his fine eyes and face took +on that regal expression of haughty determination that you see in the +face only of King Leo himself and his mate, and in no other beast in +the world. And the king's daughter unhesitatingly followed—a real +princess, by gad, sirs! +</P> + +<P> +Steadily the pair swam, heading instinctively, one presumes, up-stream, +to counteract the drift of the ever-shouldering current. There was, +perhaps, from two to five feet of water under their sturdy paws; but +had it been twenty or thirty, I, personally, believe it would have made +no difference. There were probably also other things under and around +their sturdy paws—things very much worse and less innocent than any +water—things they must have, dimly, at any rate, if not acutely, been +aware of in an inbred sort of way; but they made no difference either. +</P> + +<P> +"Make way for the king's son and the king's daughter. It is their will +to cross the river. Hear, all of you loathly horrors, you lurking +terrors—make way. Who dares check the will of the king's son?" +</P> + +<P> +Once there came a mighty swirl on their right hand—or right paw, if +you like—and the waters parted, with waves and the spouts of a geyser, +to give up the monstrous nightmare head of a hippopotamus. Once +something cold and leathery and ghastly touched the bottom of their +padded feet; and once—but this was too awful for any expression by +pen—something else, equally cold, but smooth, coiled, writhing, round +the king's son's left hind-leg, but providentially slid clear again, as +he kicked like a budding International. +</P> + +<P> +Then came the ordeal. It arrived in the shape of two knobs, that just +were suddenly, and remained, motionless in the mocking moonlight, on +the surface of the water. It might have been merely some projection +from a half-sunken log. It might, but—well, there had grown in the +air an unspeakable stench of musk, and that wasn't there before the +knobs showed up. +</P> + +<P> +Both lion cubs saw, both little royal ones smelt, and in some dim way, +warned probably by a terrible knowledge handed down to them from their +ancestors, both baby swimmers knew. Terror—real terror, of the +white-livered, surrender-or-stampede-blindly-at-any-price kind—could +never, it seems to me, come into those fine, regal eyes; but the +nearest approach that was possible occurred in that instant, and they +swam. Ah, how those infant lions swam! What had gone before was mere +paddling; and whether or not they had ever swum before in their short +lives—and I doubt it more than a little—there could be no question +about them now; they swam like practiced hands, and almost as fast. +</P> + +<P> +Followed a pause, terrifying enough in all conscience, and then, +slowly, silently as a submarine's conning-tower goes under, so dived +those knobs, and vanished almost, not quite, without a ripple. +</P> + +<P> +The cool night-air showed the breath coming from the broad, brave, +water-frilled cubs' heads in gasps. The silence gave away their +frantic panting. You could literally see them straining every baby +nerve and muscle, could note the jerks with which they fairly kicked +themselves along. And the opposite bank, a black wall of bush and +reeds, was very near now, yet far—oh, how far, to them! +</P> + +<P> +Ssee-shhrr-r-rr-r-shrhh! +</P> + +<P> +As a torpedo hurtles hissing along barely below the surface of the +water, so hurtled the head—the head with its wicked eyes on knobs; the +head with its vast, scaly, long snout, its raised nostrils at the tip, +its shuddering array of jagged teeth, its awful, armed, diabolical +aspect of conscious power—straight at the king's son. Without warning +had it come, and with still less had it attacked. +</P> + +<P> +Swim, oh, swim, little king's son, for your very life! But the king's +son did not swim—at least, not in that sense. He turned. Yes, that +is right—turned; and the monstrosity of the armed snout, that same +being a crocodile, of course, was upon him even as he did so. There +would have been no time to turn after—no life! Still, the king's son +may not have known that. Maybe he turned, as a man attacked by a dog +does, because he felt, in a cold, nervy sort of spasm all up his spine, +the terrible defenselessness of his hind-limbs. And as he turned, he +struck—bat-bat!—struck with all his talons unsheathed; struck with +every ounce and grain of power, and force of brain to back that power, +in his system; struck as only a cornered cat can strike; struck like +a—lion. +</P> + +<P> +The result was astounding. +</P> + +<P> +The crocodile had aimed, true to a hair—you bet, he being a croc.—to +grab the king's son's hindlegs, and pull him under. He had not +reckoned on the turn, and the turn did it. His snout struck hindlegs, +which were not where they ought, by his calculations, to have been, but +were four or five inches away to one side. +</P> + +<P> +Quick as only a reptile can be, he canted, to remedy the error, but the +impetus of his ten-foot bulk was still upon him; it carried him by. +You cannot stop ten feet of bulk and five-feet-seven of girth of flesh +and bone and muscle and armor-plates, going at Old Nick may know how +many knots, in half-a-yard, you know; and it was the half-a-yard that +did the trick. +</P> + +<P> +The king's son was aware, as he half-rose and delivered that desperate +blow, of a mighty bulk shooting by, of an overpowering, sickening +stench of musk, and of eyes, through the foam and the water—two +little, wicked, unspeakably cruel eyes on knobs. +</P> + +<P> +<I>His chance</I>! And, quick as light, he took it. Ough! +</P> + +<P> +The rest was chaos. +</P> + +<P> +And that is about all, I think—unless you would like to know that +their mother, the king's consort, who had been working grimly along on +their trail since dusk, slid swiftly down the bank in that crisis, a +fiery-eyed, long, gliding shape, and plunging into the watery inferno +utterly recklessly, brought out, one by one, dripping, shivering, and +by the scruff of the neck, first the king's son, then the king's +daughter, and stopped not till she had placed them high up the bank, +safe among the thorn-scrub, where they crouched together, side by side, +listening to the cataclysmal threshings of the blind devil down in the +black waters below there; and their father, the king, came +up—pad-pad-pad-pad—behind them, to thunder out defiance at all the +world above their sturdy, broad, intelligent heads, and purr his joy at +their return. Moreover, he looked proud as he stood there in the +moonlight, that royal beast; and I like to think it was not all looks +either. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE HIGHWAYMAN OF THE MARSH +</H3> + + +<P> +There was some sort of violent trouble going on down in the reeds +beside the dike. The reed-buntings—some people might easily have +mistaken them for sparrows, with their black heads and white +mustaches—said so, swaying and balancing upon the bending reeds, and +calling the makers of that trouble names in a harsh voice. +</P> + +<P> +And all the rest of the reed-people were saying so, too. It was an +amazing thing how full of wild-folk that apparently deserted reed-patch +was. Each bit of the landscape, each typical portion, is a world of +its own, with its special kind of population. This one produced +unexpectedly a pair of sedge-warblers and a reed-warbler, atoms who +gyrated and grated their annoyance; a willow-tit, who made needle-point +rebukes; a water-rail, with a long beak and long legs, running away +like a long-legged pullet; a moorhen very much concerned as to her +nest; a big rat very much concerned as to the moorhen's nest, too, but +in a different way; a grass snake, who glistened as if newly painted in +the sun; and a spotted crake, who is even more of a running winged +ventriloquial mystery than the corn-crake of our childhood's hay-times. +</P> + +<P> +All of them were on thorns—though on reeds, really—and evidently +highly rattled and in a state of nerves over the trouble in the reeds. +And not much wonder either, for, judging by the sounds, murder was +being done in there among the secret recesses of the swishing green +stems—murder cruel and violent, in spite of the sunshine and the light +of day. +</P> + +<P> +And then, all of a sudden, in the midst of almost a gasp of silent +horror, a moment of speechlessness on the part of the wild lookers-on, +out came the trouble, rolling over and over and over upon the soft, +short-cropped grass of the dike-bank, and—they all saw. Also, they +all, except the little warblers, who were safe, more or less, and +stayed to blaspheme the public nuisance, instantly and at the same +moment remembered appointments elsewhere, and went to keep them with a +haste that was noticeable and wonderful. +</P> + +<P> +There before them was a hare. But a hare is a gentle and altogether +negligible wild-person. This hare, however, was fighting, and fighting +like several furies, and grunting, and making all sorts of unharelike +motions and commotions against another beast; and that other beast was +most emphatically not a hare. +</P> + +<P> +It—or, rather, he—was big, as we count bigness among four-footed +wild-folk in Britain to-day. Probably he could stretch the tape to +twenty-three inches, of which about sixteen consisted of very long, low +body, with sturdy, bear-like, dumpy legs, the rest being rather thick, +furry tail; and, though nobody—without steel armor—might have cared +to take on the job of weighing him alive, he would have turned the +scale at about two pounds eight ounces, or perhaps a bit more. Not a +big beast, you will say; but in the wild he ruled big, being snaky and +of a fighting turn, so to say. He was, in fact, the very devil, and he +looked it—hard as nickel-steel. A dull, tawny devil, with a peculiar +purplish sheen in some lights—due to the longer hair—on his short, +hard coat, turning black on his throat, legs, and tail—as if he had +walked in black somewhere—and finished off with patches of creamy +white on head and ears. There was an extraordinary air of hard, tough, +cool, cruel, fighting-power and slow ferocity about the beast—a very +natural born gladiator of the wild places. +</P> + +<P> +Men called him polecat, apropos of nothing about him, apparently, for +he had no connection with poles or cats; or foumart, apropos—and you +wouldn't have needed to be told if you had got to leeward of him just +then—of his <I>very</I> unroselike smell—that is, fou—foul, mart—marten, +his nearest relation; or, again, fitchett, as our forefathers termed +him. +</P> + +<P> +But never mind. What's in a name, anyway? A big sloe-hare, with a +leveret or two <I>not</I> for sale—and that doe's leverets must have been +in the rushes somewhere—may, upon occasion, show unexpected +fighting-powers. And this one did. The polecat was kicked in the +stomach, and kicked and scratched in the ribs, and thumped on the nose, +and kicked and scratched and thumped on the head, before he could get +in the death-stroke, the terrible lightning-thrust at the brain's base, +which, like the sword-stroke that ends the bull-fight, dropped the +victim as if struck by electricity. +</P> + +<P> +And then he had whirled, and darted headlong for the reeds. He +galloped in an odd, jumpy, sidelong gallop, as if he were a sort of +glorified wild dachshund. +</P> + +<P> +It did not take him long to inspect the reed-patch, to search it from +end to end with his nose. His mind was soon made up to the fact that +the wretched leverets had vanished, and that no scenting of his keen +nose could find them. They had gone, evidently, quitted, like the pair +of obedient children that they were, while their mother was cleverly +holding the foe, and making demonstrations in his front. And now the +pair of them were probably far away, lost past all finding among the +mazes of the fields. And there was nothing for him to do but go and +dine upon the old hare, which he did, taking, according to his custom, +little more than a bite and a sip before passing on. +</P> + +<P> +Then he turned and meandered off on the war-path. And this was a +serious business, and a busy one. It was downright hard labor, for he +worked his ground properly and for all it was worth, having a lot to +kill, and not much time to kill it in. +</P> + +<P> +At times he sat bolt-upright, and stared knowingly around—because his +short legs gave him such a limited view otherwise. At times he climbed +a mole-heap. At other times he hunted head down—and again one noticed +the hound-like manner—in every possible direction, questing, casting +here, casting there, working back, throwing forward, describing +circles, and poking into and out of every reed-patch, bramble-heap, +furze-clump, or other bit of cover that that coverless land offered. +</P> + +<P> +And then suddenly he stopped. And then suddenly he ran forward. And +then suddenly, the scent carrying him right smack-bang out into the +open, he dropped flat and began to crawl. +</P> + +<P> +He crept and he crept and he crept across that absolutely bare, flat +ground, with never a tuft of fur or a feather of a single live thing +upon it to be seen, till one might have thought that he had gone mad, +and was stalking an illusion—as many, not beasts, have done before +him; only they were men, and blew their brains out—or went bankrupt +instead—afterwards. +</P> + +<P> +Finally he stopped. And this was the oddest thing of all, because, if +any creature could show intense excitement without showing it—that is +to say, without muscle, eyelid, hair, or limb moving—that polecat did +then. And yet, stare as one would upon the absolutely bare grass, +dotted only here and there with a stone, or a rat's skull, or a +daisy—all looking alike in their whiteness from a distance—not a +living, breathing thing was to be seen. +</P> + +<P> +And yet there was a living, breathing thing there. Indeed, there were +several. It was only the eye that was deceived, not the nose—at +least, not the polecat's nose—by motionlessness. +</P> + +<P> +Right in front of the polecat, within spring, still as the very ground, +the huffish, whitish check of a peewit, lap-wing, or green plover would +have been mistaken for one of the many stones; the thin, curving +top-knot for a stem of the thin, harsh grass: the low curve of the dark +back, with its light reflections in green, for no more than the natural +curve of the close-cropped turf. And she was on her nest, which was no +nest, but a scrape, backing her natural assimilation with her +surroundings to see her through. +</P> + +<P> +And the polecat knew she was there, and he knew she was on her +nest—she would not have been fool enough to keep there otherwise. His +nose told him—not his eyes, I think, for that was nearly impossible. +The thing was, he wanted her to move. That was what he was waiting +for. No more than the twitch of an eyelid would do to show which end +was head and which tail; for he could only smell her, and, in a manner, +would have to pounce blind if she did not move. +</P> + +<P> +She did not move, however, and in the end he had to pounce blind, +anyhow, so suddenly, so unexpectedly, when it did come, shifting like a +streak, that there seemed to have been no time to shout even, or gasp. +</P> + +<P> +Yet that peewit found time in that fraction of a second to rise, open +her wings, and get two feet into the air. And then the polecat took +her, leaping with unexpected agility, and pulling her down out of +limitless freedom and safety. There was just a rush, a snap, a +wild-bird squawk, and down the pair went, to the accompaniment of +furiously fluttering wings and in a cloud of feathers. +</P> + +<P> +She had made a slight mistake in her calculations, that peewit, a +matter of perhaps a quarter of a second, but enough. Nature has not +got much room for those who commit slight mistakes in the wild, I +guess; they mostly quit the stage before passing that habit on, or soon +after. +</P> + +<P> +For a moment there was a horrible, strenuous jumble of fur and feathers +on the ground, and then the polecat's flat head rose up on his long +neck out of the jumble, his eyes alight with a new look, and his lifted +upper lip stained with a single little bright carmine spot. The peewit +was dead. +</P> + +<P> +He pivoted upon his shanks and examined the nest. It was empty. +</P> + +<P> +He got to his feet with rapidity, and, in great excitement, dropped his +head and began hunting. In a minute a mottled pebble seemed to get up +under his nose and run. He snapped at it, and it fell upon the grass, +stretching out slowly in death—a baby peewit. +</P> + +<P> +He circled rapidly, stopped, swerved, and, at the canter, took up +another scent. Suddenly, in a tussock of marram, his nose and he +stopped dead. Nothing moved. Then he bit, and a second +buff-and-black-mottled soft body stretched slowly out into the open as +death took it—a second baby peewit. He circled again, fairly racing +now, and so nearly fell over a third pebble come to life that it +scuttled back between his legs; but he spun upon himself like a snake, +and caught it ere it had gone a yard. He snapped again, held it, +dropped it, and another downy, soft, warm chick thing straightened, +horribly and pathetically, in the unpitying sun, and was still—a third +baby peewit. +</P> + +<P> +But there were no more. He hunted around and around for the next ten +minutes, but never struck a trail. Evidently there had been only +three. And all the time father-peewit, who had just come back from +dinner, swooped, and stooped, and dived, and rocketed, and shot down +and around, his wings humming through the still air above as he went +clean mad, and seemed like to break his neck and the polecat's back in +any and every one of his demented abysmal plunges, but somehow never +did quite. +</P> + +<P> +And all the time, also, the polecat, without seeming to take the +slightest notice of him, was watching him out of the corner of his eye, +waiting, hoping for a chance while he hunted. +</P> + +<P> +But this was not intended as an exhibition of "frightfulness," though +the beast had slain far more innocents than he could eat. It was part +of his duty; and though men have accused his kind of being possessed of +a joy of killing, the accusation is by no means proven. And, in any +case, the accused might reply to civilization, "Same to you, sir, and +many hundreds of times more so." +</P> + +<P> +Anyway, he now picked up a young peewit and made for the nearest dike; +then along this, and presently into the water and across to the other +side, swimming strongly and well; then along a smaller dike, hugging +the reeds as much as possible, and pursued by a running fire of abuse +from the sedge and marsh and grasshopper warblers, from wagtails, +meadow-pipits, reed-buntings, larks, and all the small-bird population +of those parts, till he came to the sea-bank, called by the natives +"sea-wall." This was a high, grass-bearded bank designed to constrain +the waters of the estuary, and there, in a hole, curtained by a +dandelion and guarded by the stiff spears of the coarse marram grass, +he stuffed his victim. +</P> + +<P> +The burrow was not empty when he came to it, for it already contained +two moorhens' eggs; but there was still room for more, and one by one +he fetched the remainder of his victims, mother and all, that way, and +stuffed them into the burrow, with a plodding, steady, exact doggedness +of purpose that was rather surprising in a mere wild beast who, if seen +casually, would have appeared to the ordinary man to be merely +aimlessly wandering about the landscape. And, mind you, this was not +quite such a simple and "soft" job as it looked. Grit was needed to +accomplish it, even. +</P> + +<P> +There was, for instance, the sudden, far too suggestive, swirl in the +water as he crossed the dike for the third time, loaded, that gave more +than a hint of some unknown—and therefore the more sinister—haunter +of those muddied depths of pollution, who took a more than passing +interest in the smell of blood, and must, to judge by the swirl, have +been too big to be safe. And that was probably a giant female eel, as +dangerous a foe as any swimmer of his size—though he ate eels—might +care to face. Then there was the marsh-harrier—and the same might +have been a kind of owl if it wasn't a sort of hawk—who flapped up +like some gigantic moth, and dogged his steps, only waiting—he felt +sure of it—for the polecat to slip, or meet a foe, or have an +accident, or something, before breaking its own avine neutrality. +Then, too, there was the stoat, or, rather, not the stoat only, but the +stoat and his wife, who would have murdered him if they had dared, and +took to shadowing and watching him from cover in the most meaning sort +of way. And, finally, there was the lean, nosing, sneaking dog, the +egg-thief, who had no business there with his yolk-spattered, +slobbering jaws, plundering the homes of the wild feathered ones—he +who was only a tame slave, and a bad one at that. But the dog followed +the polecat into a jungle-like reed fastness, and—almost never came +out again! When he did, it was to the accompaniment of varied and +assorted howls, and at about the biggest thing in the speed line he had +ever evolved. He was no end glad to get out, and the distant haze +swallowed him wonderfully quickly, still howling every yard of the +way—for, mark you, that polecat's teeth, once felt, wore nothing to +laugh at or forget. +</P> + +<P> +These things he accomplished as the night was beginning to fall, and +the solemn eye of the setting sun—such an eye of such a setting sun as +the estuary alone knows; bloodshot, and in a sky asmoke as of cities +burning—regarded him as he finished and stood back outside as one who +considers. He was a grim figure of outlawry and rapine, alone there in +that lonely place, amidst the gathering, dank gray of the marsh mists, +the red rays touching his coat and turning it to deep purple, and his +eyes to dull ruby flame; a beast, once seen, you would not forget, and +could never mistake. +</P> + +<P> +But his work was not yet done. He was hungry again, but for him there +could be no more food yet, and he turned with the same immutable and +dumbly dogged air that characterized so many of his actions, and made +off down the "sea-bank." Once he hid—vanished utterly would better +express it—to avoid the passage of an eel-spearer, an inhabitant of +the estuary almost as amphibious and mysterious as himself. Once he +very nearly caught a low-flying snipe as he leapt up at it while +cutting low over the top of the "bank"; and once—here he sprang aside +with a half-stifled snarl and every bristle erect—he was very nearly +caught by a horrible steel-toothed trap, set there to entertain that +same dog we have already met, by reason of the small matter of a late +lamb or two that had suddenly developed bites, obviously not +self-inflicted, in the night. Then he crossed the dike at the foot of +the sea-wall, shook himself, sat down to scratch, and straightway +hurled himself backwards and to one side, as something that resembled a +javelin whizzed out of six straggling, upright, faded, tawny reeds at +the water's edge, by which he had sat down. The javelin struck deep +into the little circle of lightly-pressed-down grass where his haunches +had rested, and he caught a glimpse, or only a half-glimpse, of weird +onyx eyes, and heard strange and shuddery reptilian hissings. Eyes and +noises might have belonged to a crocodile, or some huge lizard thing, +or snapping turtle, but the javelin was clearly the property of no such +horror, and was very obviously a beak—now, by the way, withdrawn. +</P> + +<P> +Followed the harsh rattle and the swish of big feathers and vast +wings—he felt the draught of them—the dim outline, as it were, of a +ghost, of some great shape rising into the gloom, and as instantly +vanishing over the sea-"wall," and he was alone, <I>and</I>—there were now +three upright and faded reeds in the clump near which he had sat him +down by the water's edge to scratch, <I>not</I> six. The Thing, the +portent, the apparition, or whatever you like to call it, had been the +<I>other</I> three; yet you could have sworn to the six reeds before it +moved. And the worst of it was that he did not know from frogs and +fresh water what the Thing was. He had never glimpsed such a sudden +death before, and had no burning desire to do so again, for he was +shrewd enough to know that, but for that fling-back of his, the javelin +would have struck him, and struck him like a stuck pig, perhaps through +the skull! Oh, polecat! The bird was a bittern, relation of the +herons, only brown, and if not quite so long, made up for it in +strength and fiery, highly developed courage. +</P> + +<P> +Caution is not the polecat's trump card, as it is the cat's, but if +ever he trod carefully, it was thence onwards, as he threaded the +dike-cut and pool-dotted gloom. He came upon a lone bull bellowing, +and gave him room. He came upon something unknown, but certainly not a +lone bull, bellowing too; it was the bittern, and he gave that plenty +of room. He came upon two moorhens, fighting as if to the death, but +<I>he</I> was the death; and slew one of them from behind neatly, and had to +go back with it, past both bellowings, to a second burrow in the +sea-bank, where he put it; and later he came upon only seven great, +mangy, old, stump-tailed, scarred, horrible ghouls of shore rats, all +mobbing a wounded seagull—a herring-gull—with a broken wing. +</P> + +<P> +The gull lived, but that was no fault of the polecat's, for she managed +to run off into the surrounding darkness what time he was dealing +warily but effectively with one of those yellow-toothed devils of +murderous rats—whose bite is poison—in what dear, kind-hearted people +might have said was a most praiseworthy rescue of the poor, dear, +beautiful bird. (The poor, dear, beautiful bird, be it whispered, had +herself swallowed a fat-cheeked and innocent-eyed baby rabbit whole +that very day, before she was wounded; but never mind.) +</P> + +<P> +The polecat, after one wary sniff, did not seem to think the rat worthy +of a journey to the sea-bank and decent burial, and passed on, the +richer for a drink of rat's blood, perhaps, but very hungry. He came +upon a redshank's nest in a tuft of grass. +</P> + +<P> +The redshank, who has much the cut of a snipe, plus red-orange legs, +must have heard or seen him coming in the new, thin moonlight, and told +all the marsh about it with a shrieking whistled, "Tyop! tyop!" But +the nest contained four eggs, which the polecat took in lieu of +anything bigger, carrying two—one journey for each—all the way to the +sea-bank, to yet another hole he had previously scraped, or found, +therein. One of the other two eggs he consumed himself, and was just +making off with number four, when something came galloping over the +marsh in the moonlight, splashing through the pools, and making, in +that silence, no end of a row for a wild creature. +</P> + +<P> +The polecat stood quite still, with his long back arched, his sturdy, +short forepaws anchored tense, and his short, rounded ears alert, and +watched it come, not because he wanted to, but because there did not +happen to be any cover thereabouts, and to move might give him away. +</P> + +<P> +When he saw that the beast was long and low, and short-legged and +flat-beaded, his long outer fur began to bristle. Those outlines were +the trade-marks of his own tribe—not his own species only—and were, +he knew, more likely to mean tough trouble than anything else. Then he +realized that the path of the new arrival would take it right towards +him, and that was bad, because to move now and get out of the way was +hopeless. Also, he could see the size of the beast now, and that was +worse than bad—some ten inches to a foot worse. +</P> + +<P> +The beast held a wild-duckling in its jaws, and the little body, with +its stuck-out webbed feet, flapped and flopped dismally from side to +side, as the animal cantered along with a somewhat shuffling, +undulating gait. And then the polecat became transfixed. He had +recognized the new-comer. He knew the breed, and would have given a +lot not to have molested that redshank's abode and be found there. +</P> + +<P> +The strange beast—palpably a large, sinuous, and wicked +proposition—came right up to the polecat, standing there rigid, erect, +motionless, and alone in the moonlight, with the fourth egg between his +paws, and then stopped dead, almost touching him. Apparently, it saw +him for the first time. Certainly it was not pleased; it said so under +its breath, in a low growl. +</P> + +<P> +The polecat said nothing, perhaps because he had nothing to say. +</P> + +<P> +The beast was an otter, and an old one. Also, it appeared to be +suffering from a "grouch." +</P> + +<P> +The polecat felt uncomfortable. He was eyeing the other's throat, and +marking just the place where he meant to take hold, if things came to +the worst; but he knew all the time that the otter, although its eyes +had never been removed for a fraction of a second off his face, was +really watching the egg. The otter was a female; probably she had +young to feed; the presence of the duckling darkly hinted at it. If +so, so much the worse for the polecat. +</P> + +<P> +Then the otter put down her duckling, and growled again; but the +polecat might have been carved in unbarked oak for all the sign of life +that he gave. Then—she sailed in. +</P> + +<P> +It was really very neatly and prettily done, for, as an exponent of +lithesome agility, the otter is—when the pine-marten is not +by—certainly quite It. The polecat seemed to side-twist double, +making some sort of lightning-play with his long neck and body as she +came, and—he got his hold. Yes, he got his hold all right. The only +thing was to stay there; for, as he was a polecat and a member of the +great, the famous, weasel tribe, part of his fighting creed was to +<I>stay there</I>. +</P> + +<P> +When, however, hounds fail to puncture an otter's hide, any beast might +be pardoned for losing its grip; but he did not. Between the tame +hounds' fangs and his smaller wild ones was some difference—about the +difference between our teeth and a savage's, multiplied once or twice; +and the old she-otter, who had felt hounds' teeth in her life, realized +the difference. Also, it hurt, and the polecat did not lose his hold. +</P> + +<P> +Then, maddened, wild with rage, the rage of one who expects a walk-over +and receives a bad jolt instead, that old she-otter really got to work. +She recoiled like a coiled snake, and the polecat felt fire in one loin. +</P> + +<P> +It looked like the contortions of one big, furry beast twisted with +cramp, by the moonlight. You could not possibly separate the +combatants, or tell that there were two. But the polecat only fought +because he dared not expose his flank with the foe facing him. Now, +however, as they both rolled he— +</P> + +<P> +Hi! It was done in an instant. At a moment when the roll brought him +on top, and when the otter was shifting her own hold for another, and +more deadly, which might have "put him to sleep" forever, he +miraculously twisted and writhed, eel-fashion, and with one mighty +wrench—a good strip of his skin and fur had to go in that pull, but it +couldn't be helped—he had broken the other's hold, leapt clear of the +clinch, and was gone. +</P> + +<P> +The otter was up before you could guess what had happened, and was +drumming away on his heels; but she soon pulled up, realizing that a +polecat may be slow in the books, but not so slow in real life, with +her to assist speed. Anyway, she seemed slower; and, in any case, she +could not hope to follow him in the intricacy of holes and cover he was +sure to take to, like a fish to water. Moreover, she was spitting up +blood, result of friend polecat's neat and natty strangle-hold on her +throat, and felt more in need of the egg—which she had won, at any +rate—than a wild-goose chase. +</P> + +<P> +Like a thin, wavy line through the night, friend polecat betook himself +to the sea-bank, to a hole in the sea-bank, to the very depths of that +hole; and there, in the shape of two angrily smoldering, luminous orbs +shining steadily through the pit-like dark, he stayed. Most of the +time, I fancy, he used up in licking his wounds. They needed it, for, +though clean, the punctures from the otter's canines had gone deep, and +a red trail of drops marked the polecat's route to his lair—one of his +lairs. +</P> + +<P> +Not, be it noted, that he was entirely ignored. Blood-trails are +always items of interest in the wild, especially in the dark hours +while man sleeps. Thus there once came to the mouth of the hole +scufflings, and the noise as of an eager, inquisitive crowd—rats, who +hoped for a chance to get their own back on a detested foe. But one +evil snarl from the wounded beast removed them, convinced that the time +was not yet. +</P> + +<P> +Once, also, something sniffed out of the stilly night, and that was a +fox; but one snap from within, a perfectly abominable smell, and the +narrowness of the accommodation proved too much for brer fox, and he, +with an insolent cock of the brush, retired. +</P> + +<P> +Then, too, there was a rabbit, not looking where he was going, who got +half-way down the burrow before he realized the awful truth, and went +out backwards, like a cat with a salmon-tin on its head. +</P> + +<P> +But along towards dawn there came an altogether different sort of +sound, somehow—a sort of a little chuckling sound; and the polecat, +answering it, came out. He looked rather less awful now than when he +had gone in. A form was standing outside—a dark, low, long form, like +himself; and, like himself, you could easily become aware of it without +seeing it, even with your handkerchief to your nose. +</P> + +<P> +It was his wife, smaller, but no less dangerous, than he. She was +carrying an old hen-redshank in her jaws, its long beak and one of its +wings clearly silhouetted against the moon. And apparently she would +be very pleased if her husband would come out of the hole and make room +for her to stuff the redshank into it. +</P> + +<P> +Then, together, they moved at their indescribable, undulating +gait—they looked like a snake between them in the moonlight—along the +sea-bank, till they came, with caution and many clever tricks of +vanishing, in case anybody might be watching, to yet another burrow, +screened completely and very neatly guarded by the splayed leaves of a +bunch of frosted sea-holly. +</P> + +<P> +Both beasts went into the burrow, at the end of which was a nest +containing live things, which squirmed and made little, tiny, infant +noises in the darkness. They were the polecats' children, four of +them, all quite young, and all very hungry and very lively indeed; and +they explained a good deal of the reason for the stores of food set by +in other burrows in the "sea-wall." +</P> + +<P> +But they did not explain quite all, for, unless Mrs. Polecat liked her +dinner high—and there was nothing I could find in her methods to show +that she did—or unless Mr. Polecat had got a craze for collecting +specimens and eggs, or forgot where half of his trophies were hidden as +a natural habit of absent-mindedness, one cannot quite see the reason +for hiding so much so soon, before the young could feed upon the +"specimens." +</P> + +<P> +However, I suppose the two beasts knew their own business best. The +old male polecat seemed to, anyway, for just as the first flicker of +dawn was paling the eastern sky he went off down to the mist-hidden +dike, and, in no more than ten short minutes, returned with an eel, +protesting violently in that horrible way eels have, which he promptly +proceeded to decapitate and eat. +</P> + +<P> +The afternoon had still some little time to run, when the waving grass +down the side of the sea-bank and the half of a glimpse of dull tawny +gave away the male polecat leaving his "earth" for the war-path once +more. Was he ever anything else than on the war-path if he moved +abroad at all? +</P> + +<P> +That, even from above, was, I swear, all the indication he gave of his +exit. Now, although it is a rule in the wild that self-advertisement +is most unhealthful, there may be times when a beast like the polecat +may not advertise itself enough. And this was one of those times. +</P> + +<P> +Far overhead, circling grandly on effortless, still, great pinions, +swimming, one might say, in the dome of the sky, a big bird, known as a +buzzard, was staring downwards with the flashing, sheathed glance of +all birds of prey—and aviators—at the world below. She, too, had +young, and simply had to find a meal. The hour was late, and her +success <I>nil</I>. Perhaps that accounted for much. Perhaps, however, all +she saw was that half-glimpse of dull, tawny fur, which accounted for +still more; that is to say, she probably made a mistake. +</P> + +<P> +Anyway, the polecat was suddenly aware of a sound like the swish of a +lady's skirt in the air above him, and of a dimming of the light. He +sprang forward first, and glanced up second—knowing the rules of the +wild. But he was too late, for instantly the long, hooked talons of +the bird came down through the grass, and gripped. It was an awful +handshake, for the bird was a buzzard, we said, who is a sort of +smaller and less kingly edition of the eagle, without the imperial +power. +</P> + +<P> +For a few seconds there followed an awful struggle—great wings beating +mightily downwards, beak hammering, and fangs meeting the hammerings +with audible clashings. It seemed that the bird could not quite lift +the beast, and that the beast could not quite retain connection with +solid earth. +</P> + +<P> +And then the bird rose, slowly, strainingly, with her vast pinions +winnowing the air with deep "how-hows!" Like mighty fans rose she, +still gripping the struggling polecat hard by the back in a locked +clutch of steel—up and up, and out over the estuary, growing slowly +from a great bird to a medium-sized one, to a smaller, and a smaller, +all the time fighting, it seemed, like a mad creature, to gain the +upper air, to climb to the clouds, as a drowning man fights his way +upwards in the water. And there was reason—the old polecat's jaws +were fast shut in a vise-grip, as of a Yale lock, upon her throat. +</P> + +<P> +Never a sound broke the silence that brooded forever—in spite of the +wind—over the lake-like, flattened expanse of the estuary save the +deep "how-how!" of the buzzard's superb pinions as she climbed slowly +into the sublime vault of the heavens; never a sound from bird or from +beast. The beast hung on, dumbly dogged, with fangs that met in the +flesh beneath the stained feathers; and the blood of the bird mingled +with the blood of the beast as it trickled slowly down over his mangled +head, upon which one fearful claw of the buzzard was clutched in an +awful grip. +</P> + +<P> +The bird struggled dumbly also, upwards, ever upwards, gasping, with +open beak and staring eyes, fighting vainly for the breath she could +not draw, till at last the two were no more than a speck—one little, +dark, indefinite speck, floating athwart the great, piled, fleecy +mountains of the clouds. +</P> + +<P> +And then, quite suddenly, so suddenly that it was almost like pricking +a bladder, the end came. The magnificent, overshadowing pinions +collapsed; the bird reeled, toppled for an instant in the void, and +then slid back and down, faster and faster and faster, turning over and +over, in one long, sickening dive back to earth. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-190"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-190.jpg" ALT=""Turning over and over, in one long, sickening dive back to earth"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="450" HEIGHT="670"> +<H4> +[Illustration: "Turning over and over, in one long, sickening dive back to earth"] +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +A watcher, had there been one, might have seen, just as the last rays +of the setting sun touched the steely reaches of the estuary, turning +them to lakes of crimson, something, somebody—or bodies, truly, for +they were locked together—suddenly appear, streaking down headlong +from out the heavens. There followed a single terrific splash far out +over the tide, an upheaval of waters, a succession of ripples hurrying +outwards, ever outwards, to tell the tale, and then—nothing. +</P> + +<P> +Next morning, as the sun rose, a party of mournfully shrieking +black-backed, herring, common, and black-headed gulls were gathered +around the soaked and bedraggled carcasses of a polecat and a buzzard, +stranded by the falling tide upon a mud spur, and still locked savagely +and implacably in death. +</P> + +<P> +Half a mile away, in the darkness of her burrow, the she-polecat +stirred uneasily in her sleep, and, waking for a moment, stared out at +the still, silent, secret marshes, wondering, perhaps, why her mate had +not returned. +</P> + +<P> +And ten miles away, far up in their great nest among the boughs of a +mighty Scotch fir, three downy, but already fierce-eyed, buzzard +nestlings craned their necks upwards, calling hungrily, and wondering +why their mother had not returned; while their father shot and swerved +backwards and forwards over the tree-tops, mewing and calling, uneasily +and lonelily, to the clouds for his wife, who had so mysteriously +disappeared. And so—fate and the end. +</P> + +<P> +This only remains to be said—the female polecat and the male buzzard +did, in spite of Fate, manage to rear their young. And if the +gamekeeper and the collector, the sportsman and the farmer, have not +been too cruel, those young are alive-to-day. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE FURTIVE FEUD +</H3> + + +<P> +There was a sun. You could not see it much because of burning, dancing +haze, but you could not get anywhere without feeling it. Almost +everything you touched—sand, rock, and such like—blistered you; and +the vegetation, where it wasn't four-inch thorns and six-inch spikes +and bloated cacti, was shriveled yellow-brown, like the color of a +lion. Perhaps it was a lion, some of it. How could one tell? +</P> + +<P> +Lizards, which were bad; and scorpions, which were worse; and snakes, +which were worse than worse, lay about in the sun, as if they were +pieces of leather drying. You could not see them—which was awkward, +for some of them held a five-minute death up their sleeve—partly +because they matched their surroundings, partly because they were +still. They were colored burnt to hide in a burnt land. +</P> + +<P> +Yet it was possible to be bright and gay and unobtrusive in this place, +too—if you were cold-blooded enough not to boil dry and explode before +getting a drink—for under some trees lay, in the old-gold, yellow, +black-shade-streaked, tawny-red grass, a sleek and glistening, banded, +blotched, and spotted, newly painted python. Yes, sirs, a python +snake; and you couldn't see it in its new levee uniform—the old one +lay not fifty yards away—any more than you could see the other, and +plainly attired, bad dreams—so long as it did not move. Its length +was not apparent, because it was coiled up; but it would have uncoiled +out into something most alarming if stretched, I fancy. +</P> + +<P> +The jackal made no sound as he came, tripping daintily, graceful and +light as a rubber ball, into the scene, blissfully oblivious, +apparently, of the fact that any other next step might awake a volcano +under his feet. +</P> + +<P> +He was a black-backed jackal; red-tawny sides, fading to nearly white +under-parts; black back, grizzled with white hairs, neatly ruled off +from the rest of him, like a big saddle; large, wide-awake ears; long, +thin legs; bushy tail; very knowing eyes, and all complete—part wolf, +part fox, and yet neither and something of both. No one living could, +perhaps, have been agile enough to measure him, but he looked over two +and a half feet from nose-tip to tail-root; and you can add, possibly, +a third of that for the tail. But he was all there, whatever his +length, every short hair of him, and none of the swarms of buzzing +flies around seemed anxious to settle upon him. +</P> + +<P> +He picked his way across to the shade of the trees, slouching quite +casually, apparently; though how he avoided treading upon any of the +sudden deaths variously thrown about seems a mystery. And just short +of the shade of the trees he stopped. He had spotted, or scented—the +latter is most likely, for the smell beat a chemical-works, a +slaughter-house, and a whaleship rolled into one—the big snake. +</P> + +<P> +The big snake remained motionless, and made no sign. Goodness knows +whether it was asleep, if snakes ever do sleep. It certainly had its +horrible eyes open, fixed in an evil stare at anything, or nothing, +after the fashion of snakes, who are cursed in that they cannot shut +their eyes to things. (Imagine the position of some people in this +world if they were afflicted like the snakes!) +</P> + +<P> +For about a minute that jackal stood like a carved beast in wood, with +the original bark left on his back. Then he began to sink, slowly, +gradually, till he lay as flat as a punctured bladder. And the picture +of that little black-backed fellow—that <I>Canis mesomelas</I>, if you like +official terms—all alone there, and surrounded by a dozen deaths at +least, and all nasty, doing the stalking act upon that python was +great. He stalked. My! how he stalked! And with reason, for he was +taking on, perhaps, the biggest thing in the hunting line that he had +ever tackled, and it was a million to one that, if he did not win, he +died, and horribly, too; and he knew it. Ordinarily he would have been +the python's prey. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-194"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-194.jpg" ALT=""That little black-backed fellow doing the stalking act upon that python was great"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="443" HEIGHT="536"> +<H4> +[Illustration: "That little black-backed fellow doing<BR>the stalking act upon that python was great"] +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +There was a little snicker, as it were, in the air as his fangs closed, +and the python, waking one-twentieth of a second too late, lifted its +head. Then, short and crisp—snap! +</P> + +<P> +Talk about tweaking a lightning-flash by its tail! It would have been +a wake to what followed then. +</P> + +<P> +The jackal knew what to expect—by instinct, I suppose. Anyway, he did +not wait longer than it takes to scrunch as hard as possible with +canine teeth as sharp as knives, and leap clear. +</P> + +<P> +Ho did it, however, and stood well back, with his ears cocked and his +head on one side. It was as if he were panting, "Now, let her +rip"—and she did. +</P> + +<P> +A hurricane in a cage, a volcano in an eligible house-lot, a geyser in +a water-jug—what you will; but they were all tame alongside that +python, after the little black-back had got his fangs home. +</P> + +<P> +You know the size of pythons? 'Bout the biggest things in snakes there +are going, bar two; and this one was not a baby. But nobody can +properly measure their strength. This one unwrapped itself in one +awful swiftness, and wrapped itself up again more awfully swiftly and +in worse knots. Then things became hazy, and one could only tell by +the dust, and the sand, and the grass, and the leaves, and the other +things flying around that something was happening. +</P> + +<P> +But the jackal did not seem to care. He only sat well back, with jaws +open and very red tongue lolling, obviously doing a dog-laugh to +himself. Perhaps it touched his sense of humor to think that so small +a beast as he, with just one scientific bite, should create such a deal +of disturbance. But the—er—aroma could not have amused even him, and +he was, as you might say, salted to stenches; for, though he was on the +up-wind side, even there it was enough to knock flat anything that the +python's tail could not reach. It was a most stupendous stench—a sort +of weapon of defense, or danger-signal, that these big snakes have. +</P> + +<P> +Now, perhaps it was the reek that drew the purr. Purring is generally +looked upon as a nice and comfy sort of a sound, but <I>this was not</I>. +</P> + +<P> +The jackal just heard it intruding upon the confusion of the python's +last contortions, as if suddenly, and it seemed to come from the +ground, and the sky, and the surrounding scenery all at the same time. +There was nothing nice and comfy about it at all. The jackal removed +himself, at sound of it, about four yards in as many bounds, and every +grizzled scrap of fur along his black back stood on end. If we had +heard it, we should have reached for our rifle, and felt tingly all +down our spine, for that was the sort of purr it was—a horrible, +hungry, suggestive, cruel, and blood-curdling sound of ghoulish +pleasure. +</P> + +<P> +The jackal ceased to dog-laugh, and his tail was between his legs, for +he knew that purr, and its name was death. Death angry is bad enough, +but death pleased— +</P> + +<P> +Louder and louder the purr became, till it seemed, as the python began +to lash out the very last of its life, apparently, to fill the whole +place. Finally, it became real, and—a shape walked slowly out of a +thorn-bush. +</P> + +<P> +It would be blatant exaggeration to call that shape a lion. +It—he—had been one. He was now a walking hat-rack. Never have you +seen such a lion. Never had the jackal seen such a lion, even; and he +had done business—of the snatch-and-run order—with lions all his life. +</P> + +<P> +However many years that lion had lived, to kill mercilessly, Heaven +alone knows; but how on earth he had contrived to avoid for some time +being equally mercilessly killed by hyenas, or wild hogs, Heaven and +himself alone knew, too. He was a very, very old lion, a derelict of a +lion, a shadow of a ghost of one, mangy, tottering, toothless—come +down to eat snakes killed by others, even by jackals. +</P> + +<P> +Then the jackal went away, dejected and disgusted. He was honestly +proud of his slaying of that python. +</P> + +<P> +It was the biggest screw-up of courage he had ever accomplished in his +life, and to be done out of his rewarding big feast by that purring +skeleton of a king of beasts! It was too much even for his pessimistic +philosophy. +</P> + +<P> +"Yaaa-ya-ya-ya-ya!" he howled, with his nose pointed to the brazen sun, +and melted away among the accursed thorn-scrub with a look about him +that said, as plainly as words, "And that's what comes of hunting in +daylight." +</P> + +<P> +The jackal, after a long skirmish and a drink, retired homewards +towards sunset, when suddenly, from a tuft of grass ahead of him, a +shadow shot and vanished. He picked up the trail at once, diagnosed it +as that of a hare, and gave chase. +</P> + +<P> +It was a fine chase, characterized by every aspect of first-class +trailing, and carried along at such a speed that the quarry never got a +chance to stop and get its second wind. Indeed, the quarry never had a +chance to stop at all, until it was stopped, and the manner of that +happening was strange. +</P> + +<P> +Whether designedly driven, or whether by chance, one cannot tell, but +the fact remains that the hare took a "line of country" which, if +persisted in, would lead her close past the jackal's lair, or, rather, +his wife's lair. This was important—for the jackal. +</P> + +<P> +Once, indeed, our hunter all but overran a small—but quite big +enough—boa-constrictor, which must have aimed to drop from a tree upon +the hare passing below, and missed. It was in an even more evil +temper, in consequence, than snakes usually are, and struck at the +jackal with its head and shut mouth. The jackal quietly side-stepped, +snapped, missed, and made off after his quarry, and about five hundred +yards farther on he came up with "puss"—dead. +</P> + +<P> +The jackal sat on his bushy tail, stuck out his fore-feet straight, and +stopped as quickly as ever he could. Then he snarled, and full right +had he to snarl. +</P> + +<P> +The hare was lying on her back, weakly kicking out the last of her life +with her hindlegs, and a stocky, short-nosed, evil, leering, +side-striped jackal was standing over her. <I>He</I> had done the deed. +And our black-back knew that side-stripe, had met him before. The two +families lived only a few hundred yards apart, and it was Mrs. +Side-stripe who was responsible for our friend's wife's crippled +condition at that moment. This was a typical side-striper, one of the +creeping, hunting-by-surprise-and-pounce sort, and it may be that he +had never run down any prey worth speaking about in his life. In a +way, he was the very opposite from our black-back, who was mostly legs, +and a bit of a sportsman, and, I believe, really delighted in a good +ringing hunt. Wherefore there was not much cause for surprise at the +bitter blood-feud that had gradually grown up between them, till now +things had come pretty well to a head. +</P> + +<P> +The other beast folded back his lean upper-lip till his teeth +glistened, and grinned at him—a menacing grin. I don't know if he +guessed that it was, by all the laws of the chase, the black-back's +hare, but he knew that he had pounced upon her as she passed—pounced +like a cat, as was his way, what time he was profiting by his enemy's +absence to keep that enemy's lame wife indoors, and from hunting even +for insects or fruit, by prowling round her lair, and threatening her +with growls. Perhaps he had designs upon her puppies. Perhaps his +wife had. And perhaps Mrs. Mesomelas knew that. It is difficult to +tell. +</P> + +<P> +There was a sort of a blackish-tawny line drawn to the +side-stripe—whose other and learned name was Adustus—and back. It +scarcely seemed possible that the black-backed little chap had moved, +but he had—leaped in and out again, chopping wickedly with a +sword-like gleam of fangs as he did so. The other pivoted, quick as +thought, and counter-slashed, and, before you could wink, Mesomelas was +in and away, in and out, once, twice, and again. One bite sent a +little flick of the other's brown fur a-flying; one missed, one got +home, and the side-stripe's ugly snarling changed to a yap to say so. +</P> + +<P> +Twice the two beasts whirled round and round, like roulette-balls, the +black-back always on the outside, always doing the attacking, dancing +as if on air, light as a gnat. Once he got right in, and the foe +sprang at his throat. He was not there when the enemy's teeth closed, +but his fangs were, and fang closed on fang, and the resulting tussle +was not pretty to behold. +</P> + +<P> +Mesomelas cleared himself from that scrunch with very red lips, but +never stopped his whirling, light-cavalry form of attack. He was +trying to tease the other into dashing after him, and giving up the +advantage which his foe had in size and strength, but it was no good; +and finally Adustus suddenly scurried into cover, redder than he had +been, and our black-back, too, had to bolt for his hole, as an +aardwolf, clumsy, hyena-like, and cowardly, but strong enough for them, +scenting blood, came up to investigate. +</P> + +<P> +Mercifully, the side-stripe seemed to attract the more attention, or +shed the more blood, and while the aardwolf was sniffing at his +hole—not intending to do anything if the jackal had a snap left in +him, which he had, for the aardwolf possessed the heart of a sheep, +really—the black-back managed to dash out and abscond to his hole with +the hare. When the aardwolf came back, and sniffed out what he had +done, he said things. +</P> + +<P> +Our jackal's head appeared at his hole next dawn as a francolin began +to call, and a gray lowrie—a mere shadow up among the +branches—started to call out, "Go away! go away!" as if he were +speaking to the retreating night. A gay, orange-colored bat came and +hung up above the jackal's den—well out of reach, of course—and a +ground-hornbill suddenly started his reverberating "Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" +and, behold—'twas dawn! +</P> + +<P> +The jackal scuttled down to the river to have a drink, which he got +rather riskily among the horns of drinking, congregated hartebeests, +impala, and other antelope, and returned with the leg-bone of a +bush-buck, which had been slain the night before by a leopard, and he +went to ground very quickly, for the great spotted cat could be heard, +grunting wrath, at his heels. +</P> + +<P> +Then the day strode up, and the light, creeping in, showed our jackal, +curled up and fast asleep, in his lair, as far away as he could +possibly get in the space—two ant-bears', or aardvarks', holes run +into one—from his also curled-up wife. +</P> + +<P> +Later—for it was quite chilly—he came out to sleep in the sun, under +a bush, till the sun, in turn, half-baked him, and he retired again to +the den. +</P> + +<P> +The days were, as a rule, for the jackal, a succession of sleeping +blanks, but at the end of this day it was the fate of a small +python—small for a python—to hunt a pangolin—who was as like a thin +pineapple with a long tail, if you understand me, as it was like +anything, or like a fir-cone many times enlarged, only it was an +animal, and a weird one—into that den of thieves. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Mesomelas, she appeared to shoot straight from dreamless slumber +on to the pangolin's back in some wonderful way, and Mr. Mesomelas, he +bounced from the arms of Morpheus into—the jaws of the snake? No, +sirs; on to the nape of that snake's neck, if snakes may be said to +have napes to their necks. But to get hold of the neck of a python is +one thing, to keep there quite a different, and very risky, affair; and +our jackal, who was no pup, knew that. If that legless creation of the +devil could only have got his tail round something, our jackal might +have been turned into food for his food, so to speak. Wherefore, +possibly, he was frightened. It was like taking hold of a live wire by +the loose end. Moreover, the space was confined, and there were the +whelps and all, and I rather fancy black-back was more frightened to +leave go and stay than he was to hold on and run. +</P> + +<P> +Anyway, he held on and ran. +</P> + +<P> +An old, fat zebra stallion, round-barreled and half-asleep, snorted +suddenly, and stared with surprise at the sight of a black-backed +jackal galloping as fast as circumstances would permit him, with the +wide-mouthed head of a python in his jaws, and the remaining long, +painted body trailing out behind. The snake was not going with any +pleasure, and his wriggling tail was feeling for a hold every inch of +the way, and if he could have got one—oh, jackal! But he could not, +for the jackal kept on going, and the snake's after-length kept on +trailing out straight, like a loose rope behind a boat, through the +perishing glare and the heat-flurry that seemed to be making the whole +world jump up and down, as it does when you look at it over the top of +a locomotive-funnel. +</P> + +<P> +Snakes take a long time to die, or to <I>seem</I> dead, even with a double +set of glistening sharp teeth scrunching as hard as their owner knows +how into their neck. At last, however, after a final series of efforts +to get, and keep, in the shape of a letter S, the python's tail +gradually ceased to feel for a hold, and the writhing strain in the +jackal's jaws relaxed. Still, our Mesomelas was taking no chances, and +he galloped home with his capture before he stopped, as proud and happy +an old dog, rascally jackal as ever cracked a bone on a fine day. +</P> + +<P> +He was a little puffed, and more than a little puffed up, and it may +have been that he did not keep his eyes all round his head, as a jackal +should always do. Anyway, there, in the gathering shadows of night, +came a waiting, watching shadow, that was presently joined by another, +and the two—their eyes glinted once in a nasty metallic fashion—stood +head to head, watching him. +</P> + +<P> +By the time Mrs. Mesomelas had hobbled out to view the "kill" for +herself, and snarl her appreciation—truly, it was a strange way of +showing it—with thin, wicked ears laid back, and more than wicked +fangs bared, the waiting, watching shadows had crept forward a little, +on their bellies, head up, and—Mrs. Mesomelas, with the quick +suspicion of motherhood awake in her, saw them. +</P> + +<P> +The snarl that she whipped out fetched the jackal round upon himself as +if stung. Then he saw, and understood, and rage flamed into his +intelligent, dog's eyes. It was the side-striped jackals, Mr. and +Mrs., plotting to loot his "kill." +</P> + +<P> +It was the black-back who attacked. Perhaps he knew that one secret of +defense is swift and unexpected offense. Anyway, he attacked, sailing +in with his dancy, chopping, in-and-out skirmishing methods; and Mrs. +Mesomelas, on three legs and with the bill for the other to be settled, +helped him. +</P> + +<P> +It was very difficult, in the tropic dust, to follow what exactly +happened next. For the next few minutes black-back was here, there, +and everywhere, leaping and dodging in and out like a lambent flame. +The human eye could scarcely follow him, but the human ear could hear +plainly the nasty, dog-like snarling and the snap of teeth. +</P> + +<P> +The side-stripe, as I have said, was the weightier beast, but the +black-back never gave him the advantage, which he sought, of the +close-fought fight. +</P> + +<P> +More than once he was chased, but only to lead his foe into the open, +where he could play his own game to his own liking; and at last, when +the moon rose, and his mate had the female black-back driven back to +her last ditch, so to speak, at the entrance to her lair, the +side-stripped jackal, spouting blood at every joint, it seemed, +collapsed suddenly, and apparently gave up the ghost. +</P> + +<P> +Now, our black-backed jackal was not a young beast, and he was up to +most wild-folks' games—which was as well. He approached the corpse +with caution, and as he poised for the last spring the corpse was at +his throat. Black-back, however, was not there, but his tail was, and +the side-striped one got a mouthful of the bushy black tip of that. +Whereupon Mesomelas recoiled on himself, and for a moment a horrible +"worry" followed, at the end of which the other dropped limply again, +this time, apparently, really done for. +</P> + +<P> +Very, very gingerly the black-back—himself a red and weird sight in +the eye of the moon—approached, and seized and shook the foe, dropped +him, and—again that foe was a leaping streak at his throat. +</P> + +<P> +Mesomelas side-stepped, and neatly chopped—a terrible, wrenching +bite—at his hindleg in passing. It fetched him over, and he lay +still, the moon shining on his side, doubly and redly striped now. +</P> + +<P> +This time it was Mesomelas who sprang at his throat—to be met by +fangs. But in the quarter of an instant, changing his mind after he +sprang, he shot clean up in the air, and came down to one side, and, +rebounding like a ball, had the other by the neck. +</P> + +<P> +For one instant he kept there, hung, wrenching ghastlily, then sprung +clear, and, backing slowly, limping, growling horribly, flat-eared and +beaten, the side-striped jackal began his slow, backward retreat into +the heart of the nearly impenetrable thorns, where the winner was not +such a fool as to follow him. And the black-backed jackal never saw +him again. Living or dead, he faded out of our jackal's life forever. +</P> + +<P> +And when he turned, his wife was standing at the entrance to the +"earth" alone. The other, the female side-striped jackal's form, could +be dimly seen dissolving into the night—on three legs. +</P> + +<P> +"Yaaa-ya-ya-ya!" howled Mesomelas. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE STORM PIRATE +</H3> + + +<P> +The sea-birds were very happy along that terrible breaker-hewn coast. +Puffin, guillemot, black guillemot, razorbill, cormorant, shag, fulmar +petrel, storm petrel perhaps, kittiwake-gull, common gull, eider-duck, +oyster-catcher, after their kind, had the great, cliff-piled, +inlet-studded, rock-dotted stretch of coast practically to +themselves—to themselves in their thousands. Their only shadow was +the herring-gulls, and the herring-gulls, being amateur, not +professional, pirates, were too clumsy to worry too much. +</P> + +<P> +Then came the rain-shower. Not that there was anything in that. +Rain-showers came to that land as easily as blushes <I>used</I> to do to +maidens' cheeks—rain-showers, and sudden squalls, and all manner of +swift storm phenomena. But behind the rain-shower, or in it, maybe—it +blotted out cliff and inlet and sandbar and heather-covered hills, and, +with the wind, whipped the sea into spume like an egg-whisk—came he, +the storm pirate. +</P> + +<P> +A guillemot—you know the guillemot, the fish-hunter, who flies under +the waters more easily than she flies the air above the waters—had +risen, and was making inshore with a full catch, when the squall caught +her without warning. For a little she faced it, her wings whirring +madly, her body suspended in mid-air, but she not making headway one +inch against the sudden fury of a forty-mile-an-hour wind. Then, since +she could no longer see the shore, which was blotted out with hissing +rain, she turned and ran down-wind, like a drawn streak, to the lee of +a big stack of rock. +</P> + +<P> +The next that was seen of her, she was heading out to sea at top speed, +in wake of the rain-shower and the squall, which had passed as suddenly +as it had come; and behind her, pursuing her with a relentless fury +that made one gasp, shot another and a strange bird-shape. Its lines +were the lines of the true pirate; its wings long and sharp-cut; its +beak wickedly hooked at the tip; its claws curved, for no gentle +purpose, at the end of its webbed feet; its eye fierce and haughty; its +uniform the color of the very stormcloud that had just passed—dun and +smoked cream below, and sooty above. True, he was not big, being only +twenty-one inches—two inches less than the herring-gull. But what is +size, anyway? It was the fire that counted, the ferocity, the "devil," +the armament, and the appalling speed. Just as a professional boxer of +any size can lay out any mere hulking hooligan, so this bird carried +about him the stamp of the professional fighter that could lay out +anything there in that scene that he chose—almost. +</P> + +<P> +The guillemot flew as never in all her life had she flown before, and +every known artifice of dodging she had heard of she tried, and—it all +failed. The terrible new bird gained all the time steadily, following +her as if towed by an invisible string, till at last he was above her, +his wonderful wild scream was ringing in her ears, his cruel eyes +glaring into hers, his beak snapping in her very face, his claws +a-clutch. +</P> + +<P> +No, thank you. In sheer terror she opened her beak and dropped her +fish. It fell like a column of silver, and in a flash her pursuer was +gone—nay, was not gone; had turned, rather, into a second column, a +sooty one, falling like a thunderbolt, till he overtook even the +falling fish, and wonderfully snatched it up in his hooked bill ere +ever it could touch the waves, without a word or explanation of any +kind whatever. +</P> + +<P> +That, apparently, was his manner of getting his living; a strange +manner, a peculiar way—the way of the pirate on the ocean. +</P> + +<P> +Despoiled, but safe, the guillemot rattled away "for another cast"; but +the foe settled, riding lightly on the lift and fall of the +bottle-green waves. +</P> + +<P> +Here he was no longer a wonderful phantom spirit of the storm, but just +a bird that might have been passed over at first glance as simply a +seagull. But not at a second glance. +</P> + +<P> +Men called this strange bird Richardson's skua, or Arctic skua, or +lesser skua, or, officially, <I>Stercorarius crepidatus</I>, or, most +unofficially, in the vernacular, "boatswain," or "man-o'-war," or +"gull-tormentor." Apparently you could take your choice what you +called him. But he did not belong to Mr. Richardson really. He +belonged to nobody, only to himself, to the wind and the rain, that +seemed to have begot him, and to the grim north, from which he took his +other name. He might have claimed the gulls as his near +relations—they loathed him enough. +</P> + +<P> +For a long time he sat on the lifting, breathing swell, floating idly. +There was nothing else on the face of the lonely waters except himself +and a flock, or fleet, I should say, of razorbills and guillemots, very +far away, who alternately showed all white breasts, and vanished—as +they dived and rose all together—like white-faced, disappearing +targets, and one gull, who wheeled and wheeled in the middle distance, +with one eye on the divers and one on the skua, as if, gull-like, +waiting on a chance from either. +</P> + +<P> +Then at last the skua rose again, and swept hurriedly out to sea to +meet a small black-and-white speck that was coming in. It was a +little, rotund, parrot-beaked puffin, loaded with fish—sprats—four of +them set crossways in his wonderful bill. He seemed to know nothing +about the skua till that worthy was upon him, and then, as he fled, +after a furious chase of about three minutes, he suddenly surrendered +by letting fall all his spoil. +</P> + +<P> +The skua caught up one sprat before it hit the surface, but, being too +late to overtake the rest, seemed to take no further notice of them, +but swept on, to settle upon the water a mile away and preen himself. +And this was where the waiting, watching gull came in—the +herring-gull. He sprang to strenuous life, and, arriving swiftly at +full speed over the spot, snatched up off the surface, and by clumsily +attempting to plunge, two more of the sprats, before the skua could +intervene. +</P> + +<P> +Then it was that a terrible and a totally unexpected thing happened, +and yet, if one comes to think about it and study the matter more, the +most natural in the world; probably, also, on those wild seas, even +common-place. Only, you see, there was no interval at all between the +skua sitting placidly on the lap of the waves, eyeing the gull +vengefully, and that same skua shooting straight upwards, all doubled +up, on the top of what appeared to have been a submarine mine in a mild +form in active demonstration. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-208"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-208.jpg" ALT=""Shooting straight upwards on the top of what appeared to have been a submarine mine in a mild form"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="443" HEIGHT="660"> +<H4> +[Illustration: "Shooting straight upwards on the top of what appeared<BR> +to have been a submarine mine in a mild form"] +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +This submarine mine, however, in addition to the burst and heave of +torn and upflung falling waters and foam, had a visible heart, a great, +shining, wet, torpedo-shaped body, which rose on end beneath the +stricken bird, and fell again with a splintering crash that shot up the +heads of the diving birds half a mile away. It might have been a +thresher-shark, or some other northern shark, or it might have been a +dolphin, which is bad, or a killer whale, which is a good deal worse, +if it had not been a great gray seal seeking dinner; and its effect on +the luckless skua was the effect of a battering ram, and the skua that +fell back again with the fall of snarling water was to all intents and +purposes a corpse. +</P> + +<P> +But it was a good thing that he was so. Had it been otherwise, had he +tried to get away or fluttered, there would have been no more of him. +That is to say, the head of the seal came up—or its wet and suggestive +big nose did—and poked about, trying to find the bird. It had +evidently meant to grab him, to engulf him utterly and forever in the +first rush; but something—some unlooked-for lift of a wave or turn of +the bird—had made the shot miss, or nearly miss, so that the bird had +been hit by the bloated six-footer's nose, instead of being crushed in +its teeth—its terrible long and glistening array of murderous teeth. +</P> + +<P> +All the same, the nose blow was bad enough. It was like being hit by +the beak of a torpedo at full speed, fit almost to bash a boat in. +</P> + +<P> +The seal was quite evidently looking for the bird, and, equally quite +evidently, seemed bound to find him. To know why it did not at once +see him is to know that the seal's view, from below the surface, of the +world above is about a twelve-foot circle of white-gold light, that is +all; and the skua, floating limp and floppy, had been, by chance, till +then always carried hither and yon by the waves just outside that +circle. But that chance could not last. +</P> + +<P> +Then came the other seal. Came she easily and gracefully, as a seal +should in her element, effortlessly gliding along, her head from time +to time up like a dog's—some gentle dog's, say a mild-eyed +spaniel's—looking about. She was just a female seal. She knew +nothing of the bird or her companion, who were at sea-level, and more +often than not hidden in the trough, till she came sliding down the +slope of a round-barreled swell, practically on top of them. Then it +was too late to avoid mutual recognition. +</P> + +<P> +Quick as sound she had seen, had realized, had spun on her apology for +a tail, and had gone, leaving a little trail of foam behind her to +prove her speed and her coyness. But, quick as light, the magnificent +male seal had sunk from sight, leaving a little chain of bursting +bubbles behind to mark his speed. And the last that was seen of that +lady seal was a speck far on the horizon, going like a masterless +torpedo, alternately leaping forward through the air and shooting along +on, or just under, the surface—switchbacking, they call it; and that, +I dare to fancy, if it proves anything, proves that the coyness was +only make-believe, and that she had allowed the daring admirer to catch +her up and force her to act as if she were already vanquished and using +the last arts of swift swimming she knew. +</P> + +<P> +It left the skua, however; left him still floating, floating, floating +up one long breaker's side, and sliding down its other side to its +fellow behind, towards the shore—always towards the shore. It is true +that the tide was falling offshore, but that made no difference to the +currents of those parts, which were independent currents and of a great +force. They were shouldering the skua steadily to land, and if you had +dropped a line overboard there, with an ordinary lead on, you would +have felt them pulling at it, and taking the lead along like a live +thing. And the currents were Fate, so far as that bird was concerned. +</P> + +<P> +There was a little inlet, and a little bay in the inlet no larger than +a good-sized dining-table, and seaweed, green and red, upon the +rock-bowlders that encircled it, and old-gold patches of sand between +the rock-bowlders, and green grass behind the rock-bowlders, and +brown-plush furze behind the green grass, and a patch of blue sky over +all. And in the middle of the little bay in the inlet, bob-bobbing on +the lap-lapping of the littlest waves, that—sifted out by then, as it +were—had found their way so far, floated the skua, the Richardson's or +Arctic skua, dead, to all appearances, as the proverbial door-nail. +But that was not the rub. The rub was in the—ah! +</P> + +<P> +"He-oh!" pealed down the clear, ringing bugle-cry from above, and a +shadow floated upon the reflections a-dance on the surface in the +little bay in the little inlet—floated and hung, so that it exactly +covered the skua like a funeral pall; floated, and hung, and came down. +As its claws scraped a bowlder, and it furled its long, narrow vans, it +was revealed as the big herring-gull—him we left out upon the face of +the waters, watching and waiting on chance. +</P> + +<P> +His spotless expanse of head and neck alone marked him, gave him away, +a speck you could see for a mile. His size—just on two feet—proved +what his snowy hood proclaimed, in case there were any doubts. A +smaller gull, an uncommon common gull—of eighteen inches—came and +looked, to make quite sure—and went away again. The herring-gull, in +spite of his silly name, has a reputation, and a "plug ugly" one. +</P> + +<P> +And the herring-gull, he—did nothing. That is the strength of the +herring-gull—doing nothing. He can do it for an hour, half a morning, +or most of a day. His battle-cry might well have been, "Wait and see," +but he must be one of the few living, breathing things on this earth +who have made the game pay, and—lived. He might have been a lump of +chalk, or a marble carving, or a stuffed specimen, or asleep, or dead, +for all the signs of living that he gave. One began to wonder if he +ever would move again. He had been a bird, but was now the life-size +model of one cut in alabaster, with clear pebbles for eyes—they were +quite as hard and cold as that, his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +And all the time the body of the skua floated, and danced, and drifted, +and lifted in, making an inch on one wavelet, to lose three-quarters of +it on the next, but still, unnoticeably perhaps, but undoubtedly, +gradually, surely, for all that, drifting in. +</P> + +<P> +Somebody has written somewhere that gulls never touch a carcass on +land. Sometimes they touch things on land which were not carcasses +before they touched them. This gull, however, did not wait for any +landing. Perhaps he knew that, once stranded, the gray crows might +come to assist him in their own peculiar way, or a raven, who would not +assist him at all, except into the next world, if he did not relinquish +all claim to the feast. Anyway, whatever we poor mortals may kid +ourselves into thinking he did or did not know, or what we may think he +ought to have known, he began operations as soon as the skua came +alongside, so to speak—that is, drifted against the particular bowlder +upon which the sphinx-like herring-gull happened by chance—always by +chance, of course—to be standing. +</P> + +<P> +Now, there is no particular joy in having your eyes hammered at by a +blunted sharp instrument, like a herring-gull's beak, for instance, +even if those eyes happen to be shut, as I think the skua's were, and +the instrument wielded with the extreme clumsiness of the half-trained, +as I know the herring-gull's beak was. But, all the same, it was the +kindest thing that could have happened, for, had it not been for that, +the skua was like to have drifted in that fashion from that little +inlet out upon another sea; not the one connected with the inlet, but +one where you can drift forever, and whose name is Death. The physical +pain, however, brought him round. He was only stunned, and the agony +of the eyes, or eye, rather, was acute. +</P> + +<P> +He opened the other eye—a wonderful, piercing, fierce orb. He +contracted his feathers. The world grew from a mist in that eye to a +little bay in a little inlet, with the seaweed-covered bowlder-rocks, +the old-gold sand, the green grass, the brown-plush furze, and the +patch of wonderful blue sky over-top. Then it took in the spotless, +gaunt form of the herring-gull, and—he remembered that he was a skua, +only some twenty-one inches long, 'tis true, but still a skua, to be +treated and respected as such. +</P> + +<P> +Wherefore, who so surprised as that big father of herring-gulls when +the bedraggled, smoky-hued thing under his bill, which he may, or may +not, have taken for a corpse, woke up, returned to life suddenly, and +erupted into his very face, with the yells of a fiend, the weapons of a +fury, and the rage of several devils? He yelled, too, that +herring-gull, not entirely with rage, and did his best to get under way +as quickly as might be, but became, before he knew where he was, +altogether too busy even for that. +</P> + +<P> +Not being in the habit of performing optical operations upon Arctic +skuas as a rule, he had nothing in his memory to warn him of what +followed, nothing to put him up to the absolutely diabolical fury of +the onslaught he had to meet in the next few seconds. He certainly did +his level best with such weapons as Nature had given him, but his +blunt, hooked beak and the claws he had not got seemed suddenly meager +against the hammering, tearing, stabbing, rending dagger weapons of +his—"meal." +</P> + +<P> +The skua saw red, and the herring-gull saw mainly red skua, as he was +hurled back and down under the first rush, and instantly, without a +second to recover, was hurled, equally helplessly, the other way, +shrieking for his very life, and decorating the air and the old-gold +sand with a pretty little cloud of his spotless feathers. +</P> + +<P> +He fought with the desperation of almost all the wild-people, when +there is no help for it; hammering, too, but wildly and clumsily. The +skua fought with the cunning and precision of the professional, plus +such a rage as can only be described as berserk. +</P> + +<P> +It was not a long fight. Perhaps the skua felt that, after his +collision at sea, his bolt would be soon shot, and he had better do +what he was going to do as quickly and thoroughly as possible. +Certainly he did appear to do so; and when at length he drew back, +rocking and gasping like a drunken creature, the famed purity of that +herring-gull's uniform was a thing of beauty no longer. That part of +him, indeed, which was not red was mud, or sand, or green slime, and in +his eyes was the most worried and tired look you ever saw. +</P> + +<P> +He rocked, too, in his gait, as he ran and blundered, and he gasped +with his beak open. When he rose, which he did without any sort of +procrastination, he rocked worse than ever, and twice nearly fell, and +once hit the water, before finally slowly dragging himself away upward, +flapping low and heavily across the little waves. +</P> + +<P> +With the one available eye—the eye left him in working condition by +the herring-gull's clumsy efforts—flaming like a live-coal, that +implacable skua watched him go. He may or may not have known it, of +course, but I feel pretty certain that he would a few thousand times +rather have been standing there upon the old-gold sand, with only one +eye doing duty and an unspeakable agony in the other eye, than be that +herring-gull in the condition he was then, going back to the bosom of +his tribe. It is not a thing to dwell upon in polite society, but I +tell you that the gull-folk do not always treat their wounded well, and +there would be no chance, no earthly chance at all, of his finding a +place in all that vast horizon of sea and sky and island where they, +the ceaseless, never-resting "White Patrol," would not eventually find +him. +</P> + +<P> +Then the skua lay down, and thereafter surrendered himself to that +utter reaction which birds, who live more intensely in action than +almost any other creatures, have brought to an apparently exaggerated +pitch. He did not sleep, but he did not move, and every muscle in him, +every fiber, every nerve, faculty, organ, was surrendered utterly to +rest. +</P> + +<P> +Night came fluttering her sable wings across the scene, breathing and +sighing audibly in the first silence that wild landscape of storms and +squalls had known throughout the day, and the skua moved. His neck +went up straight, and his head turned, looking sharply this way and +that, fierce apprehension written upon him. +</P> + +<P> +There was nothing one could see to give cause for this. A flock of +curlew were passing, wailing one to the other, across the sunset; a +string of late gulls trailed athwart the sky; and a wedge of those +beautiful little wild-duck known as wigeon was letting itself down to +the shores of the inlet. Far out to sea a black line, which might have +been a sea-serpent if it hadn't been scoter ducks, trailed undulating +over the waves, and a single great white gannet plunged from aloft into +the deep at intervals with a report like a sunset gun. But they were +all innocent, except in the opinion of the fish and shell-fish, and no +manner of folk to trouble the pirate skua. Set a thief to catch a +thief, however. And, besides, there was blood on the bird and around +him, or the taint of it, and blood is the devil and all in the wild. +There was nothing to be <I>seen</I>. No. That was the worst part of it. +It was what was unseen that the skua was thinking about. +</P> + +<P> +Wherefore, then, our friend of the pirate rig rose and walked stiffly +to the summit of one of the bowlder-rocks right at the water's edge. +He was by no means recovered yet, or in any condition for a fight in +that desolate scene, and had to select the most strategic position he +could crawl to. He did, and awaited Fate's reply. +</P> + +<P> +The day died, and the moon came out to wink and dodge and play a +foolish game of hide-and-seek in and out among the clouds. She showed +the skua, a black knob atop of the black blob of his bowlder, +apparently fast asleep, invisible if we did not know he was there. She +showed black dots bobbing upon silver lanes, which were sea-duck of +various kinds—scaup, long tail, scoter, and the rest. She showed a +line of old, rotten posts, broken off short by the waves, along a +sand-ridge, which were wild-geese; and she showed three big, white +swans—wild-swans, wilder even than the geese—floating like ghosts in +the enchanted light. +</P> + +<P> +But she also showed other things, indistinctly, 'tis true; but +enough—quite enough. She revealed for an instant, as she shone on the +spot on the sand where the skua had sat, the fact that the sand seemed +to be alive, horribly alive, as if the pebbles had taken legs and ran +about. It was a sudden, ghastly flashlight, hidden as soon as seen, +and it gave one the shudders. Those pebbles were crabs mad with +hunger, as crabs always seem to he. +</P> + +<P> +They had arrived there as if by magic—been creeping in ever since +dusk, probably (one of the things that were unseen); but whether blood, +or feathers, or taint of blood, or what horrible, ghoulish system of +espionage drew them, is not for me to say. They were there, anyway, +and—and—well, and then they were not there. The next flashlight of +the moon showed that some others had taken their place. This was +ghastly, for the others were bigger than any shore crabs, and they +hopped, and they sat up hunched, like hobgoblins, and—they scratched! +This last identified them, for the soulless, shelled crab-people are +not given to scratch much—at least, not in <I>that</I> way. They were +rats—shore rats. The last designation is necessary, for there are +rats <I>and</I> rats, all bad, but the shore rat is the worst. How many +sleeping birds, wounded, tired, or unalert, die at his hands, or, +rather, his teeth, in the course of a year would amaze anybody if +known, and the shell-fish he relieves of life are legion. +</P> + +<P> +The hard, horny carapace of a retreating crab scraped, in the dead +silence, against the rock-bowlder on which the skua sat. He made no +move at the sound, the suggestive sound; but his feathers were shut +down quite tight, and he looked far smaller than usual. When birds +shut down their feathers in that fashion they put on an armor coat, as +it were, through which very little can pierce. It showed that he was +ready. +</P> + +<P> +And you think that the mere shore crabs could be nothing to him. But a +few hundred ravening shore crabs, with their lives for sale—all +digging pieces out of you in the dark—are not so easy a proposition to +dispose of as people may think. Try it. +</P> + +<P> +One of the rats turned suddenly and faced towards him. The skua could +see its little, cruel eyes gleaming like gimlet-holes in the wall of a +lighted room. Then another, and another, and another did the same. +</P> + +<P> +The skua was scarcely bleeding at all now, but he had left enough of a +trail for <I>them</I>—they who make a specialty of the job. And they +followed it. Hopping grotesquely across the mottled, hurrying patches +of moonlight they came, one behind the other, and without noise. +</P> + +<P> +The skua remained as still as the bowlder he sat upon. In that +position, even peering closely, you would never have seen him, unless, +like ourselves, you knew he was there. But he was drawn together, +drawn in all his muscles like a tense spring, and—though this his +persecutors could not know—he was recovering from his hurts rapidly, +with the wonderful power of recuperation of all the wild-folk, who pay +their price for it in clean, hard living. +</P> + +<P> +Then suddenly there was a scuffle below him in the dark. One of the +rats squeaked a little, acknowledging receipt of a crab's pincers +closed upon him, or her. Followed the sounds of some scuttering, +confusion, and the horrible slide and scrape of horny shells upon +stone. Then silence, and the skua knew that, in that wonderful way +they have, the crabs, at any rate, were gone—for the moment. +</P> + +<P> +Remained, however, the rats, and one peered up over the bowlder the +next instant, its eyes glinting in a momentary splash of moonlight +fiendishly. Also, his quick ears could hear the soft creepings of the +others on every side of the bowlder, back and front. They had +surrounded him, and, like wolves, would now rush, and then—and +then—— They had gone. +</P> + +<P> +Yes, there could be no shadow of doubt about it. There had come an +instant's furtive, hurried movement, a glimpse—no, half a glimpse—of +hunched forms hopping through the dark, and they were no more. +</P> + +<P> +The skua stared, and as he stared a great terror seized him. What more +deadly form of death than themselves had they suddenly become aware of, +to cause them to invite themselves into nowhere in that magic fashion? +</P> + +<P> +In the dead silence that fell, he could hear nothing, see nothing. Yet +he felt—indeed he knew—something seemed to tell him, that a deadly +foe was at hand. +</P> + +<P> +Hours passed. They were minutes really, but they seemed hours to him. +Nothing happened; nothing showed. But the rats did not come back. +Therefore, whatever incarnation of death it was that removed them must +be there still. He knew that. That lonely, wounded bird knew that. +And he was right. +</P> + +<P> +Behind him, practically invisible, flat to the ground, a long, low, +narrow, dark shape was lying crouched, creeping, creeping, creeping +towards his tail. Slowly, almost painfully slowly, it drew upon him +gradually, so gradually that the distance between them could scarce be +seen to lessen. And soundlessly, so soundlessly that even his quick +ears, trained far beyond the quickest human aural perception, could not +hear it. +</P> + +<P> +Then, so quickly that the eye could not follow it, the crouching form +made its rush. +</P> + +<P> +The skua was sitting motionless, with his head looking straight in +front of him. The dark form came from behind, and there would have +been no time for the skua to move before the thing, whatever it was, +had him by the back of the neck, and dead, save for one little tiny +fact. As it propelled itself forward, in the first bound, the claws of +the beast's hindpaw's scraped upon a stone. It was only a little +sound, and it gave the skua barely a fraction of a second's warning; +but, he being a wild thing, it was enough. +</P> + +<P> +Quick as light the bird had half turned upon one side, and flung up one +claw and wing to cover his neck, whilst his head jerked round hindpart +before in the same atom of time. +</P> + +<P> +Thus it happened that the beast, unable to stop, found himself with his +head and eyes being dug at by a hooked beak, and his jaws closed upon a +skinny leg instead of upon the skua's spinal column, as he had +intended, which would have put the skua out of life like turning out a +gas-jet. +</P> + +<P> +And it was then, in that instant, that the moon chose to dodge from +behind a cloud and reveal the beast as a big, long, lean, and hungry +dog-stoat. Probably he had thought that the skua was a gull, and a +wounded one. There is a difference, however, between the skuas and the +gulls, though they bear a family likeness. He discovered the +difference now, and for the next few minutes was not overjoyed at the +knowledge. +</P> + +<P> +One cannot do much blood-sucking to weaken one's prey out of a scrawny +leg that resembles a twig wrapped round with leather. And the stoat +found this out, too, and he would have shifted his hold to the bird's +body like a flash, if he had been given a chance, but he never was. +</P> + +<P> +Before he knew what was happening, he was blinded by the beating of +vast wings, his claws began to slip and slide, and—oh, horror!—still +slipping and sliding, he found the bowlder going from him. It went +from him, receding downwards with terrifying rapidity, and the dancing, +silvery, sparkling water was sliding below, too. +</P> + +<P> +Being a stoat, he hung on with V.C. doggedness and courage; but it was +the worst thing he could have done. Moreover, as it was, he forced the +bird to attempt reprisals in mid-air—a terrible proceeding. +</P> + +<P> +Now, this was difficult, might almost seem impossible; but the skua is +one of the most wonderful flyers that haunt the seas even—and most of +the best are there—and what he could not execute in the air was +scarcely worth mentioning. It included in this case a perfectly +diabolical scraping of the foe's head with his available claw, and +after that, since the dogged stoat did not leave go, and the pain was +excruciating, a wonderful bend forward, and, at a pronounced and +dangerous angle, a fiendish stabbing at the stoat's head with his +murderous beak. This last involved a drop of nearly a hundred feet, +but it did the trick. +</P> + +<P> +Blinded, dazed, shaken, and maddened by the agony of blows upon his +sensitive nose, the stoat opened his jaws to grip higher up the leg; +and in an instant he was gone, turning over and over, down, down, down +to the hungry waves below. +</P> + +<P> +Ten minutes later the skua was calmly and safely asleep upon the top of +a frowning black stack of rock, untroubled, I think, even by dreams of +the terrible things he had gone through. +</P> + +<BR> +<HR WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center"> +<BR> + +<P> +Next morning, an apparition of wonder and fierce beauty, the skua, +quite recovered except that he had a lameness in one leg and a weakness +in one wonderful eye that would last him a lifetime, came racing +down-shore out of a stormcloud into the full gold of the sun at some +seventy miles an hour. He was in pursuit of a common gull who, with +more luck than judgment, had caught a fish. +</P> + +<P> +The gull held on for a few minutes, on and in and around the horizon, +going like the wind up and down and around, as for his life, with +friend skua ever close to his tail, before a wild yell, which he could +not mistake, sounded in his ear, and he dropped the prize. The skua +executed his wonderful dive, and caught the gleaming silver thing +before it reached the waves, and shooting up again, was just about to +continue his course, when a constant and peculiar flickering above the +beach caught his telescopic eye. +</P> + +<P> +He checked, flung up, came round beautifully effortless, and headed +towards the sight. Probably he knew what it was, had fathomed it even +from that distance. It was a gang of gulls flying round and mobbing a +hapless wounded gull on the beach. +</P> + +<P> +It was a foul thing to do, a horrible, blundering, clumsy murder, done +slowly; but even so, it was all over before, with a scream that rang +like the battle-cry of a Highland chief, and set the murderous heads up +in wild alarm, the skua came shooting, twisting, turning, diving, and +darting right into the heart of the crowd. +</P> + +<P> +And they went circling, and wheeling, and hurling down-wind like sheets +of paper, those murderous sea-birds, dispersed and scattered over the +face of the waters, and were gone almost without a word. +</P> + +<P> +Then the skua came lightly down, rocking on the wind, and settled +beside the poor, draggled, white body, no longer white, upon the +shingle, which had been so foully done to death by gulls of various +clans. He may, or may not, have known it, but I can tell <I>you</I> that +the gull was the self-same herring-gull who had tried to kill him the +day before. Now he—but we will draw a curtain here. +</P> + +<P> +Next day the skua went away, and the fishing wild-folk breathed a sigh +of relief as they watched him go, and for three days peace brooded over +the winged fishers of those parts, so that birds could feed upon what +they caught, nor be in fear of getting hunted for it. But upon the +fourth day the skua came back. And he was not alone. A dusky, nearly +brown—for they vary much in color—female skua came with him. And in +due course they built them a home on the ground among the heather, and +they guarded their treasured eggs and reared with amazing fierce +devotion their beloved young. +</P> + +<P> +Before his advent that strip of wild sea-coast had been, mercifully, +without its skuas. Our bold buccaneer, however, having won his +footing, took care to see that, so far as one bird could accomplish the +great task, it never should be again. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +WHEN NIGHTS WERE COLD +</H3> + + +<P CLASS="poem"> +And the Northern Lights come down<BR> + To dance on the houseless snow;<BR> +And God, who clears the grounding berg,<BR> + And steers the grinding flow,<BR> +He hears the cry of the little kit-fox<BR> + And the lemming on the snow.—RUDYARD KIPLING. +</P> + +<P> +A snipe rose suddenly, and began to call out; a capercailzie lofted all +at once, with a great rush of winged bulk, above the snow-bound forest; +and a white hare slid, like a wraith of the winter, down a silent +forest aisle. +</P> + +<P> +Then came the White Wolf of the Frozen Wastes, the terror of the +blizzard, ghost-like, enormous, and swift. In dead, grim silence came +he, loping his loose, tireless wolf's lope, and stopped at a windfall, +where two forest giants, their decaying strength discovered by the +extra weight of snow, lay prone, one across the other. +</P> + +<P> +For a moment he paused, nose up, testing the still, cold air; then he +leapt upon the upper fallen tree. He had, seen up there and clearly, +an enormously thick and woolly coat, that magnified his already record +size. You see him trotting along the tree-trunk. Then he stopped and +stared down into the dark hollow under the upper tree. Then he +sniffed—audibly. Then he licked his nose—and very red was his +tongue. Then—but this he couldn't help, I verily believe, as he +balanced there with his pricked ears and bright eyes—he whined. +</P> + +<P> +And instantly his little, impatient, dog-like whine was answered by a +deep, deep growl, that seemed to come out of the bowels of the earth. +</P> + +<P> +He was just in time, as he leapt lightly off the windfall, to avoid the +rush of a vast brown bulk, reeking of carrion, furry, terrible, with +live-coals for eyes, and threshing the air with claws Heaven knows how +long, which hurled itself like an avalanche out of the hollow at him. +And that thing was a bear. +</P> + +<P> +Now, bears do not, as a rule, without extraordinary reason, in that +land, rouse themselves out of their winter sleep for the mere whine of +a wolf. They are impregnable where they are, and know it. The +extraordinary reason, however, was present. The white wolf was +sniffing at it now—the bear's blood-trail to the windfall. Bruin had +been roused once before that day—by beaters. He had then been driven +forward, shot at by hunters, wounded, escaped, and returned to his den. +But—but, I give you my word, if those beaters, those peasants, had +known the White Wolf of the Frozen Waste was out, nothing in the wide +world would have induced them to beat for bears or anything else in +that vicinity. +</P> + +<P> +The white wolf stretched himself to a canter, and slid away through the +forest, dropping the trees past him like telegraph-poles past a +railway-carriage window. He looked like the very spirit of winter, the +demon of the snows, and stood for that in the ignorant minds of the +sparsely scattered people—perhaps because at a short distance he was +nearly invisible. His white coat, which was simply a conspicuous curse +to him when there was no snow—which was one reason, maybe, why he +retired from the limelight to some lonely fastness during summer—was +an incalculable asset to him in winter, and he knew it. +</P> + +<P> +He ran, with his smooth, loose, effortless lope, perhaps a quarter of a +mile, then stopped, and putting up his head, howled a howl so full of +hopeless, cruel yearning, so vibrant with desolation, that it sounded +like the cry of a soul doomed forever to seek something it could never +find. It was a lugubrious yowl there, in that setting, and it made +one's scalp creep all over one's cranium. +</P> + +<P> +And instantly almost, even as the last, long, horrible echoes died, +sobbing adown the blue-haze perspective of the forest glades, the +answer came—a far-away, fluttering, wandering howl, like the moan of +the wind in its sleep. +</P> + +<P> +The white wolf waited a moment, then howled again, and the ghastly +sound came back to him, louder and nearer this time. +</P> + +<P> +A third time he howled, and the forest cringed under the reply. +</P> + +<P> +Then at last the shadows between the ranked tree-trunks took unto +themselves life, and eyes, eyes in pairs, horribly hungry, cruel +port-holes of brains, with a glary, stary, green light behind them, +suddenly appeared everywhere, like swiftly-turned-on electric lamps. +There was a whispering rush, as if giants were swiftly dealing cards in +the silence, and—the White Wolf of the Frozen Waste was away, racing +like a cloud-shadow, rapid and impetuous as a greyhound, at the head of +a pack of one hundred and twenty-nine empty-stomached wolves. +</P> + +<P> +They made no sound as they tore, compact as a Zulu impi, over the +spotless white, because they had no trail to follow, only this huge +devil of a leader; and they had their work cut out to follow him, for +he was the longest-legged male wolf any of them had ever set eyes upon. +</P> + +<P> +Straight as a twelve-inch shell the white wolf headed back to the +fallen trees and the bear's den. When he reached them, he stopped so +abruptly that the wolves behind him almost sat on their haunches in the +effort to pull up. Those that failed fell sideways under a rain of +wicked snaps from him, that followed one another quick as the stutter +of a machine-gun. +</P> + +<P> +The pack did not stop—at least, not the flanks of it. They swept on +without a pause, out and round, like flood-water round a knoll, joined +at the far side, and—were still. As a maneuver, a military maneuver, +swift, unexpected, faultless, and silent, it was perfect. +</P> + +<P> +For as long as a man takes to light a pipe there was dead silence, +broken only by the quick motor-like panting of the pack. And one +hundred and twenty-nine pairs of eyes regarded the fallen trees. +</P> + +<P> +Then the white wolf, all alone, with hackles up, stepped forward and +leaped upon the trunk of the tree that was poised upon its fellow. He +ran lightly up it till he was exactly above the hollow formed by the +junction of the two trees, then stopped, looking down. +</P> + +<P> +Half-a-dozen of the older and more cunning wolves followed him; the +pack surged forward until both trees became lined with a row of wolves, +without breaking the circle of the main pack outside, and then stopped. +All this in silence. +</P> + +<P> +Then—but you could almost hear the trees breathe while he did it—the +white wolf yawned very deliberately, and whined, insolently and very +audibly. +</P> + +<P> +The answer was instant. +</P> + +<P> +Something rumbled within the den, deep down, like a geyser. +</P> + +<P> +The white wolf whined again, and sprang aside just as the bear, +maddened with the pain of a .450-caliber rifle bullet in his stomach, +and seeking a sacrifice, hurled out of the dark and up over the +tree-trunk, striking, with appalling nail-strokes, right and left; and +the quickness of those strokes was only a less astonishment than the +agility of the wolves getting out of the way of them. But—but he had +come out to abolish one wolf, that bear; not one hundred and +twenty-nine. +</P> + +<P> +The white wolf dropped without a sound upon the bear's great, broad +back. The half-dozen old wolves followed him like figures moved by a +single lever. The pack sucked in with the rush of a waterspout. The +bear vanished under a wave of fangs and tails, as a sinking boat +vanishes beneath the billows. And the rest was the most diabolical +devils' riot that ears ever heard. +</P> + +<P> +The bear unwounded, even if he had been induced to come out at all, +might have fought his way home again; but the bear wounded and cut off +was a different matter. He battled as only a cornered bear can battle; +but the exertion of it gave the .450 bullet its chance, and he +died—horribly—as they die who are pulled down by the starving +wolf-pack, and that is not printable at all. +</P> + +<P> +He took three wolves—smashed-in-heads and chests—with him to the +other world, that bear, and left three others well on the road there. +<I>All six</I> followed him by the path he had gone when the pack had done +with him; but the losses might not improve the temper of the pack, +though they partially stayed the hunger of a few. And the white wolf +seemed to know that. Full devilish indeed was the cunning of that +brute. +</P> + +<P> +Scarcely was the last bone cracked, scarcely the last wisp of skin +snapped up, than the white wolf, wet, and red and wringing over the +head, was away again, at full speed—and his full speed was a thing to +gasp over—with a wild and rousing howl that gave the pack no time to +ponder on its casualties. +</P> + +<P> +This time also there was no trail, so the pack had full leisure to +concentrate all its energies upon the job in hand, or paw, I should +say—namely, galloping. No, racing would be the only word; for the +white wolf, knowing his kind, perhaps, gave the pack no leisure to grow +dangerous over its losses or its hunger. Only idleness gives time for +questions to be asked about leadership, and he kept them busy; and if +they wanted to keep up with him at all, they must needs extend +themselves to the full. +</P> + +<P> +Soon he led them to a clearing running, straight as a railway cutting, +through the forest. Out in the clearing, he dropped his head, howled, +flung half round, and began to follow tracks; but the scent was enough +for him without the tracks. They were the footprints, the +sleigh-trail, and the hoofprints of the beaters, the hunters, and the +pack-horses, loaded with game from the hunt of the day that had just +gone. +</P> + +<P> +For a moment the pack, even <I>that</I> pack, his pack, the pack of the +White Wolf of the Frozen Wastes, checked a little, shied, and were +dumb. They were used to his leading them upon some hectic +murder-raids, but never one quite so blatant as this. +</P> + +<P> +Quickly, however, the real pain in their empty stomachs got the better +of them, and they swept round and began to follow—half-a-dozen here +and there—with whimpers. And then, the excitement spreading, they all +rushed in, and breaking out, with a blood-curdling rush, into the +full-throated chorus, "Yi-yi-i-ki-yi!" of the wolf-pack in full cry—an +M.F.H. who had never heard wolves might have mistaken it for the music +of a pack of hounds if he had listened to it from a distance—they +swept on after the vanishing white brush of their leader, like some +great, hurrying, dark cloud-shadow, up the trail. +</P> + +<P> +Anon, going always at their tireless wolf-lope that no beast in the +world can outdistance in the end, they came to a village. Some of the +beaters lived at this village, and had remained there. The wolves +swept on and round the miserable place—some actually raced through the +snowed-up street—and took up the continued trail on the other side. +</P> + +<P> +Anon they came to an open plain, where the trail split, many of the +beaters that were left striking away to another village where they +lived; but the white wolf tore straight on along the main trail, the +trail of the hunters, the attendants, and the pack-horses. And the +shadows of the wolves in the moonlight kept pace with them all that +terrible way. +</P> + +<P> +The plain looked flat, but was gently undulating, like some gigantic +ocean petrified; so that, in due time, the pack, still giving tongue +wildly and terribly, saw before them, far, far ahead, a procession of +dots straggling along over the endless, unbroken white. And instantly +their music shut off as if at the wave of an invisible hand. +</P> + +<P> +Then, as the quarry ran from scent to view, they raced. All their +long, loose, nickel-steel-limbed, tireless gallop before had been +nothing to their flying speed now. The taint of the blood of the +slaughtered game from the chase was in their sensitive nostrils. It +was like the sight of rare wines to a drunkard. Shift! Say, but the +way those long-legged demons ate up the distance between them and their +prey was awe-inspiring. It was uncanny. It was almost magic. It was +awful. +</P> + +<P> +Then things happened, as you might say, with some rapidity. +</P> + +<P> +Three shots rang out in the silence—three shots in quick succession. +They were fired at the wolves by the only man in the group who had an +efficient rifle, but were really meant to recall the sleighs with the +sportsmen <I>and</I> the rifles, which had gone on. +</P> + +<P> +The wolves spread out into a long line; the ends of the line crept +forward swiftly on either hand, and the whole pack raced to the attack +in the formation of a Zulu impi—in the shape of a pair of horns, that +is. When the points of the horns got on the far side of their "prey," +they rushed together, and turned inwards, still at full gallop. +</P> + +<P> +At this juncture the sleighs came back—at the gallop, too. +Four .450-caliber Express rifle bullets, one .375-caliber magazine and +one .315-caliber magazine bullet, arriving among the wolves in quick +succession produced no confusion. Not a wolf stopped. Each beast +continued its tireless gallop, swerving and dispersing as it raced, and +without uttering a sound, till, almost before you could realize what +had happened at all, there was a dwindling crescent of gray specks in +the background, and four or five other gray shapes—two kicking—lying +about in the foreground. +</P> + +<P> +But—and this is where we come in—neither there in the distant +snow-haze nor close in by the crowding hunting-party was the white wolf. +</P> + +<P> +He had been last on view far in advance of, and heading, the point of +the right-hand horn of the swiftly encircling pack—his usual place, by +the way—but from the moment the returning sleighs hove in sight, and +the bar-like gleam of the moonlight could be seen upon the ready +rifle-barrels—he had seen that, too, and knew its meaning—he had +been—nowhere. +</P> + +<P> +Now, before the encircling horns of the pack closed round, one of the +pack-horses, maddened with fear, had stampeded and got clear away. +That horse was galloping now madly across the plain, hidden from view +by a gentle swell of ground, and—the white wolf was racing alongside +of it; and away behind—for few could keep up with the tremendous speed +of the white wolf—another, and an ordinary gray wolf was gliding in +their tracks. That was a female wolf, who more than once before had +found it a profitable investment to keep her eye upon the doings of the +great white leader. +</P> + +<P> +She saw the white wolf leap, beheld his wrenching side-stroke at the +terrified horse's throat, heard the horse scream, and watched it bound +forward. Followed another leap of the relentless giant white shape; +the horse seemed to stumble in full gallop, and next instant came down +headlong. The rest was a whirl of snow, flying hoofs, and a horrible +worrying sound. Then all settled down, and as she tore up she found +the white wolf feeding ravenously against time, bolting his meal as +only the wild members of the dog tribe, hyenas, and vultures can. She +was starving, that she-wolf, but she halted upon her hams, such was the +reputation of the white leader; but when he failed to snarl at her, +she, too, fell to, and bolted her meal like a crazy thing. +</P> + +<P> +Directly he had fed enough the white wolf flung round upon his heels, +and, with a single quick whimper, was gone, streaking over the plain +away from the hunters, away from the scattered, discomfited pack; away, +away, as he had never galloped before. But, then, before he had always +been the hunter. This time, if he knew anything of "Pack Law" and the +temper of the pack over this bad defeat and heavy loss, coming on top +of the bad bear "break"—this time, I say, it was he who was, or, at +any rate, might be, the hunted. And he had reasons—very sound and +private reasons—why he must not meet even one wolf of the pack in +combat. Wherefore he streaked, stretched flat, and doubled into a bow, +his shadow chasing him, and the she-wolf—afraid to be left +alone—chasing his shadow. +</P> + +<P> +Very often before the white wolf had caused the pack to run into +dangerous and decimating trouble, but always with a feed at the end. +He had never before sold them a pup, as the saying is, like this one. +Moreover, he felt that his slaying of the horse secretly—and they were +bound to scent out and read that—would not improve matters. Wherefore +he guessed that, after years of restless rule, it was about time to +quit, and he quitted. But unfortunately there is only one thing harder +than becoming leader of a big wolf-pack, and that is, ceasing to be +leader and—live. +</P> + +<P> +Five miles over the desolate waste of white—and what is five miles, or +ten, or fifteen, to a desperate wolf?—the two beasts ran into a +river—literally into a river. Ice stretched far out from the bank, +yet the river was so wide that they could scarce see the opposite bank. +They could see the grinding, growling ice-blocks floating all round +them which they plunged in, however, and they could feel the icy bite +of the water—water that would stop the action of a man's heart. +</P> + +<P> +But the white wolf did not attempt to swim to the opposite bank, or +mean to. He made a detour, and landed upon the same side he had +started from. He did that three times, the she-wolf always following +faithfully, because she had now become too frightened to stay alone and +do anything else; and then he started upon another mad gallop of miles, +but this time along the bank of the great river. +</P> + +<P> +Finally he stopped and stared out over the ice, the thick water, and +the gnashing pack-ice. Far away, it seemed, through the snow-haze, he +could see a wooded height, an immense island, round which the river +looped in two great arms. +</P> + +<P> +He knew the spot—trust him. +</P> + +<P> +No beast in its senses would try to swim the long distance across to +that island, but from time to time a hunted deer had made the attempt, +and a few of those that tried it had survived the ordeal and populated +the island. More than once, in heavy snow, the white wolf himself, at +the head of his pack, had hunted a deer down to that very spot, and had +watched its head fade across the water into the distance. Once he had +started to follow; but the pack had turned back, and he at length after +them, snarling at their heels. Now he knew how long the swim looked +from the deer's point of view. +</P> + +<P> +It was an ugly proposition. But—he turned his head in the stillness, +broken only by the multitudinous voices of the ice, and heard a far, +far distant multitudinous murmur, and that was no ice, and it settled +him. It was the united voice of the pack <I>on his trail</I>! +</P> + +<P> +He paused, ran up and down, gave an odd, little, deeply expressive +whine, like a puppy afraid to take its first bath, plunged in with a +rush, and struck out. Soon he was out upon a piece of drift ice, +shaking himself, and began leaping from one lump of floating ice to +another. It was tricky, slippery, slidy work, and a fall might mean a +broken leg or a crushed skull; but anything was better than dissolving +like mincemeat in the jaws of the slavering pack. +</P> + +<P> +Once, when a long way out, he looked back, and beheld the she-wolf, +whining piteously as if she were being thrashed—and wolves are dumb +beasts when "up against it"—following him. +</P> + +<P> +She, too, had heard that wild, terrifying, implacable music of the +wolf-pack following them; and although I, personally, doubt if they +would have touched her—unless it was the other she-wolves that did +it—she seemed to have been smitten by panic, and to prefer the deep +sea, or the river, rather, to that pack of maddened devils. +</P> + +<P> +And so, slipping, sliding, splashing, swimming, scrambling, the white +wolf, after the most appalling struggle of his life, managed somehow, +blindly in the end, with sobbing breath and pounding sides, to make +that terrible passage, and collapse as he landed in a stiff white heap, +the water frozen in icicles upon his body as he landed. +</P> + +<P> +For a long time he did not move, and it began to seem as if he had +burst his heart. But at last he dragged himself to his feet and turned +drunkenly—to find the she-wolf lying at his side. +</P> + +<P> +Thoughts came back slowly; but at length he shook himself, and stood +erect at his full, immense height. He had given the wolf-pack +something tricky in the way of trails to unravel, but he knew what he +had taught them too well to build too much on that. And he was right, +for presently, from far, far across the water, came the unutterably +terrible baying clamor of the pack, moving swiftly along—then it +stopped. +</P> + +<P> +For a long while he waited after that, straining ears and eyes out over +the moving ice, and the water, and the night that was there; but +nothing could he see, and nothing more he heard except at last, far +away, one last, long, lonely, ghastlily lonesome howl—the howl of +defeat. +</P> + +<P> +Then it seemed—but truly it may only have been a trick of the +moonlight as he snarled, revealing his white fangs under his +wickedly-curled-back lip—it seemed, I say, that the White Wolf of the +Frozen Waste grinned. And good reason had he to grin, for the life of +the white wolf had been nothing more nor less than one long, bad, bold, +blustering, bullying <I>bluff</I>! What's that? Yes, sirs—bluff! And in +this wise. +</P> + +<P> +Firstly, his extraordinarily long legs gave him a height out of all +proportion to his real hulk; secondly, his abnormally long and woolly +coat gave him an apparent bulk which was out of all proportion to fact; +thirdly, his actual bulk was really scarcely larger than that of any +very large wolf; and, fourthly—but this concerned him only now—he was +really quite an old wolf; one long past his prime, one quite unable to +face any really full-grown fine young wolf, one retaining only his +matchless speed by reason of his abnormally long legs, and his +leadership by terrific and cleverly acted ferocity on the strength of +his apparent giant dimensions. That was all, but it was enough; wasn't +it, boys? Would you care to have changed places with the old rascal, +and played that bluff out against <I>those</I> odds, in <I>that</I> company, for +years as he had done? I <I>don't</I> think. No, nor I, either. It was +some gamble, that. What? +</P> + +<P> +At last the White Wolf of the Frozen Waste turned, with an insolent +flourish of his brush, and trotted up the bank on the heels of the +she-wolf, who had come to life again and preceded him into the dense +tangle of the woods, which swallowed him up, him and his darned bluff, +utterly. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +FATE AND THE FEARFUL +</H3> + + +<P CLASS="poem"> +We are the little folks—we!<BR> +Too little to love or to hate.—RUDYABD KIPLING. +</P> + +<P> +No one ever accused him of not being all there. The job was to see +what was there. +</P> + +<P> +A tiny alderman of the red bank-vole people, whose tunnels marched with +the road through the wood, taking the afternoon sun—a slanting copper +net, it was—at his own front-door under the root of the Scots fir, was +aware of a flicker at a hole's mouth. He looked again, and saw the +mouth of that hole was empty. He blinked his star-bright eyes in his +fat, furry, little square head, after the manner of one who thought he +had been dreaming. But catch a bank-vole dreaming! Besides, how about +the squirrel overhead? He was hanging over a branch where the flicker +had been, swearing fit to slit his lungs, and old squirrel wasn't much +given to make mistakes, as a rule. +</P> + +<P> +The bank vole turned back into his hole, knowing the law against taking +chances in the wild, and the first stride fetched him up short in +violent collision with another bank-vole—otherwise red-backed +field-mouse, if you like—coming the other way. +</P> + +<P> +The blow, full on the forehead, did not break his neck; but it ought to +have done. It cast him clean over backwards out of his own front-door, +where he fell down the bank, and was received, all his little short +paws scrambling for a hold, by a thistle, and would have told all the +world, with a thin, high squeak, what he had sat on, if the squeak had +not frozen between his chisel teeth. +</P> + +<P> +There had shot out of the hole, and back, a Thing. It might have been +the thick end of a whip-lash or a spring, and, like a spring, as it +recoiled it coiled, and was still. +</P> + +<P> +The bank-vole saw. Most entirely did he see, and felt no joy in the +seeing, either. Indeed, there was no room for mistake in the zigzag +black chain down the back, in the unspeakably cruel, fixed stare of the +glassy, lidless eyes, in the short head and flat cranium of the true +viper—viper, adder, or whatever you like to call the calamity without +legs, whose other name is death. +</P> + +<P> +Now, bank-voles know all about vipers. They have to; they die, else. +They die anyway; but no matter, for they are small and very many. +Also, vipers know all about voles, field and bank; they specialize in +'em! +</P> + +<P> +But our bank-vole knew all about the "freezing" game, too, and he +"froze." My word, how that little beggar was still, so utterly bereft +of movement that a fly settled upon him—about the first and the last +that would, I should judge! And if a learned native had come along the +road at that moment—on tiptoe, of course—he would have said the viper +had hypnotized friend vole with fear. Hypnotize your grandmother! But +you may take it from me that serpent thing was playing his game, too. +He was "freezing" to induce the quarry to move and give himself away, +because, since the vole was motionless, he had no idea where the little +fellow was, although he seemed to be looking straight at him—in that +execrable way snakes have of seeming to look straight at everything. +</P> + +<P> +You think it was a battle of patience? W-e-ll, maybe. Maybe, too, it +was a battle of nerves. I like to think so, anyway, for that +snake-servant of the Devil had none, and the bank-vole had; and the +bank-voices broke under the awful tension—or seemed to—and the +bank-vole broke the terrifying spell. Also, he broke the silence. +</P> + +<P> +Away down the ditch he went, bouncing like a tiny ball of dark +thistle-down, all in and out among the vegetation, which, worse luck +for him, the ditch being under the accursed shadow of the firs, was +scanty. And as he galloped he squeaked three times—like a little +needle stabbing the late afternoon silence, it was. +</P> + +<P> +His removal was one kind of quick dodge in the art of quitting; that of +the viper another, and a very beastly one. The crawling thing was not +much more than one-tenth of a second after the poor bank-vole in +getting under way, and the rest was a—was a—oh, anything you please! +I call it a sliding flicker that you rather "felt" than saw. Also, the +thing rustled horribly, and Fact can say what she likes. I swear it +shot along quite flat, crawling, not undulating; but, ough! what a +lightning, footless, legless crawl! No wonder the poor little devil of +a bank-vole squeaked! The wonder was he didn't faint on the spot, for +he knew what was coming. +</P> + +<P> +Up the bank he pattered, and into that, to him, great subterranean +highway which seems to be conjointly kept up and used by all the +mysterious little four-footed tribes of the field, and which runs the +length of practically every bank and hedgerow. The place was dark and +cool and echoing, and bare as the palm of your hand, and far cleaner +than many palms. It might have been cleaned out that very day by a +fairy vacuum-cleaner; but it hadn't. It was always like that, clean as +the proverbial new pin. Heaven alone knows who did the "charing" +there, but those little furry tribes might have given lessons on health +in trench warfare, I reckon, at a guinea a time—and cheap at that. +They had found out that dirt meant disease, you bet. +</P> + +<P> +Down that tunnel drummed the bank-vole, seeking to foul his trail with +just any other creature; and, the highway being, as I have said, a sort +of public affair, he met first a mouse gone astray, then a mole asleep, +then a long-tailed wood-mouse, then a short-tailed field-vole, then a +shrew about as big as your little finger. But they must have heard the +scrape of the snake's scales down that echoing tunnel following hard +behind, for they avoided our bank-vole like the plague, and dived up +one or other of the thousand and one side-tunnels, which opened on to +the main one, too quickly for the viper to catch them. +</P> + +<P> +Then the poor, little, panting bank-vole found himself once more in the +open. His beady eyes shone like microscopic stars as lie paused in a +copper bar of setting sunlight and looked about for a refuge. It +seemed, by the piston-like throb of the whole body, that his heart +would burst and slay him out of hand before the hated snake could, if +he did not jolly soon find one. +</P> + +<P> +Then a hedge caught his eye, and he climbed it, being a good acrobat in +his spare time. Beyond, however, bringing down upon himself the pecks +of several birds, he did no good, for it seemed that, whithersoever he +could go, the snake could follow, and—help!—the flat, terrible head +was not a yard from him now. +</P> + +<P> +Worse was to follow, though. He dropped to earth again, already a +beaten beast; and, to complete the catastrophe, by a miracle he had +landed where there was not a mouse or mole or vole hole, or any other +cover, within reach. Only one big clod of earth there was, and round +that he flung himself, with that stub, scaly snout weaving at his very +tail, and rolled over and over and over—done, too utterly spent even +to squeak. +</P> + +<P> +Then Fate lifted her finger, and things happened. All that had gone +before didn't count, it seemed. +</P> + +<P> +The little bank-vole was dimly aware of rolling under a big, warm, live +shape. He was also aware of a funny little fussy grunt in his ear, and +that a set of very white and business-like teeth flashed for an instant +in the sun, as they chopped surprisedly at him going under them, and +missed. Thereafter the shape sat down, nearly stifling him; and in the +same instant the whole air seemed to fill with the sudden, long-drawn, +venomous, terrifying hiss of the viper close at hand. Evidently the +limbless death had come round the corner too quickly, and had all but +rammed the shape that grunted. +</P> + +<P> +I can give you my word, though, that the vole was not happy one bit. +He appeared to be between the Devil and the deep sea. He had no +confidence in the deep sea, or any other thing that he could think of +in his world. Moreover, the deep sea, besides keeping all the air off, +was most horribly bristly, even on the belly. Wherefore that vole made +haste to quit station, so to speak. But in a second, it seemed, before +he could clear himself, that unspeakable serpent's hiss appeared to +sound in his very ear, and the deep sea, folding upon itself, made the +poor vole yell as if he had touched off a live-wire. He had not, of +course; but it was like being struck with a dozen pins at once. He +would have got out if he could, but to move was to discover more pins, +and he just had to keep where he was, squealing fit to burst. +</P> + +<P> +And that saved the vole, probably. +</P> + +<P> +Not that there was any magic or rubbish of that kind, of course. It +was simply that the viper, shooting his every inch round the corner in +the effort to grab the vole's hindlegs then or never, had hit, full +pelt and nose first, the nice little array of pointed arguments carried +on the back of the neck of a hedgehog, snuffing under the clod, +pig-fashion, for spiders. The hedgehog, whose phlegmatic disposition +and special armament allowed him the luxury of never being surprised at +anything, promptly and literally shut up, so that long before the viper +thing had unhooked his nose and was waving his forward part about over +the hedgehog, with murder in his eye and death behind his flickering +tongue, looking for a place to strike home, old hedgehog was rolled up, +and snuffling and snoring away inside there, like an old man chuckling +when he has just cried "Mate!" at chess. +</P> + +<P> +This trying position continued for perhaps five minutes. It seemed +like five days to the wretched bank-vole. +</P> + +<P> +Then the slow temper of the funny old hedgepig smoldered gradually +alight. His eyes grew red in the foxy head of him, his snout "worked," +and he snuffled and grunted faster and faster. He made up his mind to +fight. And the extraordinary combat began. Lit by the blood rays of a +setting sun, from a sky all raw and red, backed by the blue-gray haze +of the watching woods, the silence broken only by the ghostly whisper +of the snake's scales and the tiny pig-like grunting of the +hundred-spiked hedgehog, that duel started. +</P> + +<P> +Peering out of a peep-hole in himself, the hedgehog waited for an +opening. It was no blunderer's game, this. Death was the price of a +slip. He knew, however, and accepted the risks deliberately—a plucky +enough act, when you come to think of it, for a beast no more than a +foot long and one and a half pounds heavy. +</P> + +<P> +The opening came. Quicker than you could realize, the hedgehog half +unrolled, and side-chopped with his glistening teeth. Quick, too, and +quicker, the venomous, flat serpent head writhed aloft and back-lashed, +swift as a released spring; but the hedgehog had ducked, or tucked if +you like, more than instantly back into himself. Followed an infernal, +ghastly writhing and squirming of the long, unprotected mottled serpent +body as it struck—too late to stop itself—simply spines, spines only, +that tore and lacerated maddeningly. Whip, whip, whip! flashed the +deadly reptilian head, pecking, quicker than light flickers, at the +impassive round <I>cheval-de-frise</I> that was the hedgehog, in a blind +access of fury terrible to see; and each time the soft throat of the +horror only tore and tore worse, in a ghastly manner, on those spines +that showed no life and said no word, and defied all. It was a siege +of the wild, and a terrible one. +</P> + +<P> +Probably this was the first time in his life that anything had dared to +stand up to that viper. He acted as if it was, anyway. Usually his +malignant hiss, so full of hateful cruelty, was enough of a warning. +And those who ignored that did not generally live to repeat the +omission. He seemed utterly unable to understand that anything could +face his fangs of concentrated death and not go out in contortions. +And there were no contortions about this prickly foe, only an +impassable front, or, if you love exactness, back. +</P> + +<P> +Wild things, unlike man, are rarely given to lose their tempers. It +isn't healthy—in the wild. But if ever a creature appeared to human +eyes to do so, it was that snake. He struck and he struck and he +struck, impaling himself ghastlily each time, and using up his small +immediate magazineful of venom uselessly on—uncompromising spikes! +</P> + +<P> +At last he drew back, a horrible affront to the fairy scene, and, in +the snap of a finger, the hedgehog had unpacked himself, run forward—a +funny little patter it was, much faster than you would expect—slashed +with his dagger fangs, and repacked himself again in an instant. +</P> + +<P> +The snake, writhing afresh under the punishment, threw himself once +more upon the impassive "monkey-puzzle" on four legs, but beyond +tearing himself into an even more ghastly apparition than before, he +accomplished nothing. Finally he broke away, and slid off, a rustling, +half-guessed, fleeting vision, and there was fear at last in those +awful eyes, that could never close, as he went. +</P> + +<P> +Then it was that the quiet, unobstrusive, retiring, self-effacing +hedgehog threw off the mask, and hoisted his true colors. And yet, if +one came to think of it, there was no cause for surprise, for was he +not a member of the strange, the mysterious, the great Order of +Insectivora, which includes among its members probably the most +pugnacious, the most implacable, the most furiously passionate fighters +in all the wild? He fairly flung himself, unrolled, and running with +an absurdly clock work-toy-like gait, whose speed checked the laugh +that it caused, was after that viper in considerably less than +half-a-second, his eyes red as the sun they glinted in, his fangs bared +for action, his swinish snout uplifted at the tip in a wicked grin. No +beast to bandy words with, this. It was a fight to a finish, with no +surrender save to death. +</P> + +<P> +The bank-vole had already fled; but it was in the direction that the +fight finally veered that he had gone, and so, peeping from between the +weed-stems at the mouth of a hole, he saw all. He saw the viper, his +head swaying to and fro, come sliding along, making for that very hole; +he heard the sudden quick rustle in the grass behind that followed, +beheld the dusky, squat form that it heralded pounce. He watched the +snake's head whip round, and drive with all its power in one last +desperate stroke; watched it straighten out suddenly, and recoil in an +awful quivering spasm, like a severed telegraph-wire, as the hedgehog's +razor-sharp teeth cut through skin and flesh and backbone; and, +trembling from head to foot, he witnessed, half-fascinated, I think, +the awful last threshing flurry of the viper that followed. +</P> + +<P> +Later, when the moon peeped out of a hole in the clouds, and the +bank-vole peeped out of one in the bank, together—and his beady eyes +were not much behind the moon for brightness—when the tiny, long-eared +bats were imitating black lightning overhead, and a single owl was +hooting like a lost soul seeking a home, away in the black heart of the +woods, the bank-vole witnessed the burial of that hated viper. It was +not a big affair. Only one person—the hedgehog—took part in it, and +he was singularly unhurried, for he ate that poisonous fiend all up, +beginning at the tail, and thoughtfully chewing on from side to side to +the head—twenty inches of snake—as if he, the hedgehog, had been +inoculated in infancy, and was poison-proof. +</P> + +<P> +Then, still grunting, he went away, slowly, nosing here and there, +rustling loudly in that stillness, an odd, squat figure in the +moonlight; and the bank-vole thought he had seen the last of him, and +came out to pass about his "lawful occasions," as per custom. +</P> + +<P> +Now, if you or I had taken our meals after the fashion of that "wee, +timorous beastie," we should probably have departed this life from +indigestion or nervous prostration inside a month. +</P> + +<P> +He came very cautiously from his hole, and the first thing his fine +long whiskers telegraphed him the presence of was an oak-gall—one of +those round knobs that grow upon twigs like nuts, you know, but have a +fat grub inside instead of a kernel. At the same instant a leaf +rustled, and—flp!—there was no bank-vole. +</P> + +<P> +Allowing one minute for the passing of whoever rustled that leaf, and a +cloud-shadow, and there he was again, back at the gall, his shining +eyes, that mirrored the moon, being the only visible part of him. He +rolled the gall over and sniffed, and—that was quite enough, thank +you. No nut there, and he knew it—by scent, I fancy. In that moment +something trod softly, ever so softly, somewhere, and a spray of laced +bracken swayed one quarter of an inch, and—the bank-vole was not. +</P> + +<P> +Again about a minute's pause, and three bank-voles came out together. +Our friend was the last, and another was the first, to discover a +little hoard of seeds that some other tiny beastie—not a +bank-vole—must have collected and forgotten all about, or been killed +in the interval. +</P> + +<P> +In the wild, it is the law that "they should take who have the power, +and they should keep who can." It isn't a bad law, because it has much +to do with that other law called the "survival of the fittest," but it +is apt to come expensive if persisted in. +</P> + +<P> +Our vole hopped promptly towards the other vole, and made out that the +seeds were his; but before any kind of ultimatum could be delivered, a +twig fell, as twigs will sometimes, for no special reason that one can +see. The noise it made in that stilly wood was astonishing, and ere +the twig had reached the earth there wasn't a bank-vole above ground. +And yet so astonishingly quick and evasive are these little creatures +that in less than thirty seconds there were the two disputants, each +erect upon his haunches, with little hand-like forepaws held up and +joined under the chin—as if they were actresses having their +photographs taken—fighting, like little blunt-headed furies, for +possession of those seeds—so it seemed. I say "so it seemed" +advisedly, since close by, and almost invisible because sitting quite +still, was another bank-vole, who looked as if she were waiting for +something; which she probably was—a lover. +</P> + +<P> +It was, however, death that came, and he is a too attentive lover. The +battle had been going on some seconds without apparent result, possibly +because the voles had to bite upwards, shark-fashion, owing to the fact +that their fighting-teeth are wedge-shaped incisors, instead of +stabbing fangs, when there was a hrrr! That is all, just like +that—hrrr! +</P> + +<P> +Then there were no voles; but there seemed to have been no going of the +voles, either. They just were, fighting and watching the fight—then +they just were not. Instead of them, on the very spot where they had +been, a sheeted ghost, with wings that flapped and flapped, and never +made any noise, with the face of a cat, and big round eyes that +gleamed, and a snore most horrible, had simply been evolved from +nowhere, and under its claws was the little red-backed lady who waited +for a lover. +</P> + +<P> +Now, the coming of that apparition, whose wings did not say +"Hough-hough!" or "Whew-whew!" like other birds' wings do when they +fly, thus proving itself, or rather herself, to be an owl, and the +fight of Mr. Hedgehog and the poisoned death, had a direct connection +with, and a bearing upon, the little bank-vole's life, although they +may not have seemed to have at first. If the snake had not run amok +against the hedgehog, the latter slow personage would have been well +out in the meadow by that time, reducing the worm population, instead +of hanging about and coming up the ditch at that moment, with the hot +and worried air of one who is late. +</P> + +<P> +What he saw was the owl on the ground, flapping her great, soft wings +about, within a foot of the nicely, neatly, nattily roofed-in nest +where he and his lifelong wedded wife thought they had hidden cunningly +their four soft-bristled, helpless babies. What he thought he saw was +the owl engaged in turning one of those same babies into nourishing +infant owls' food, or "words to that effect." And the hedgehog, like +most of the order Insectivora, is cursed with the temper of Eblis, too. +Naturally, therefore, things happened, and happened the more +hectically, perhaps, because Mrs. Hedgehog chanced at that moment to be +away—attending to the last rites—shall we say?—over the form of an +expiring young rat. +</P> + +<P> +The little pig's eyes of him went red in his funny, bristle-crowned +head, and just as a clockwork toy charges, so he charged, with a quick, +grunting rustle and far greater speed than any one who knew only his +usual deliberate movements would have given him credit for. +</P> + +<P> +The owl had only time to turn her cat-like face and—hiss. But though +that hiss would have been good enough as a bluff to frighten creatures +who wouldn't upset a snake for anything, she was out of her reckoning +upon this occasion. The hedgehog, who dealt in snakes as a game-warden +deals in tigers, had no nerves that way. He just sailed in under the +baffling, great, flapping wing, and, ere ever the bird of the night +could spring aloft, had struck. It was a ghastly form of warfare, this +low running in and wrenching snap. It landed right under the armpit, +so to speak, and left a nasty round hole. And it is worth noting, by +the way, that precisely the same sort of hole, and in the same spot +almost, but lower and farther back, was to be seen upon the body of the +deceased young rat that Mrs. Hedgehog was even then attending to—the +trademark of the hedgehogs, that hole. +</P> + +<P> +All the immediate world of the night wild, watching from grass-tuft and +root and burrow, heard the rasping tap of the owl's beak hammering +helplessly at the spines on the back of the hedgehog, now beside +himself with rage. Not one of them, too, that did not jump with +terror—engrained by the bitter experience of hundreds of +generations—at her fiendish scream. Then, in a flash, that owl was +upon her back, wielding hooked beak and stiletto talons, as only she +knew how to use them; and the hedgehog, who had, in the blindness of +his rage, run in to finish the job, shot up clean on his hind-legs, +taking the clinging, flapping owl with him, while, for the first time +that night, he uttered a cry other than a grunt—an odd, piercing +little cry, vibrant with rage, or fear, or both. This was rather odd, +because ordinarily the hedgehog is a dumb beast, who suffers +"frightfulness" in grim silence. +</P> + +<P> +The tables were turned now. The shoe was on the other foot, or, to be +precise, the foot was on the underside. That is, the owl had got the +foe where he lived, below water-line, if I may so put it, where, like a +battleship, his armor did not run, and he was soft and vulnerable as +any other beast. Moreover, he had not trained himself in the art of +throwing himself upon his back, as the owl, who was like a cat in this +particular also, had apparently done, and since he could not prance on +his hindlegs, unicorn-fashion, forever, he had to come down again, +belly and throat first, on that infernal battery of talons and beak. +</P> + +<P> +And he got it all right enough. I give you my word that spiny one got +it; but, save for that one first little cry, he took his punishment in +grim and terrible silence, fighting with a blind fury that was awful to +behold. What happened to him underneath there in those few brief, +terrible seconds no one will ever know—and that, we may guess, is as +well perhaps, for there is no sense in dwelling upon horrors. What he +<I>did</I>, in the short time he was given by Fate, is a little more clear. +Butting madly down, oblivious of all things, even that unspeakable +fish-hook beak, grappling like a thing demented—and I think he was +nearly that—he bit deep, deep down, through feathers and skin and +flesh, <I>home</I>—once, twice, and again. +</P> + +<P> +Then, blindly, brokenly, smothered in blood, red-visaged and horrible, +he half-rolled, half blundered free of that frightful clinch, and +instantly rolled up! 'Twas his habit, the one refuge of his life, so +long as he breathed; his last, and usually, but not always, his first, +hope. +</P> + +<P> +The owl struggled somehow, in a cloud of her own feathers, to her feet. +The beautiful, fan-like, exquisitely soft wings flapped and beat +frantically. There came a peculiar musky sort of smell into the air. +She rose, all lopsidedly, perhaps two yards, flapping, flapping, +flapping with frenzied desperation, before toppling suddenly, +helplessly, pathetically, as the big pinions stopped, and she collapsed +sideways back to earth again, where, blood-smeared and glaring, lit by +the merciless, cynical moon, she crouched and coughed—as I live, +coughed and coughed and coughed, a ghastly cough like a baby's, till it +seemed as if she would cough her heart up. +</P> + +<P> +Then silence—that wonderful, mysterious, waiting, echoing, listening +silence of the woods at night—shut down, and darkness swept over all. +</P> + +<P> +When dawn came stealing westward silently over the still canopy of +leaves, both combatants were still there; and they were still here, +too, when the sun, silting in through a rift in the foliage, found and +bathed them. The owl was crouched as she had been when the moon left +her—crouched, and with her wings just a little open, like a bird about +to take flight; but she had already taken wing on the longest flight of +all. The hedgehog was, too, just as the moon had left him, rolled up +in a spiky ball, apparently asleep; but his sleep, also, was the +longest sleep of all. And over them both, in the heavy silence, could +be distinctly heard that horrible "brr-brr-brr" of flies that told its +own story. +</P> + +<P> +Now, that was in the morning, soon after sunrise; but long before that, +indeed the moment the hedgehog had first attacked the owl and forced +her to turn her attention to him, the little female bank-vole, who by +some mischance or miscalculation, had evaded the first terrible +handshake of the owl which spells death, had rolled clear of the fight, +and dashed for her life to the nearest tussock of grass that offered +shelter; and the first thing she fell over there was our bank-vole, +"frozen" motionless. He was there because the scene of the fight was +between him and the holes in the bank, and for the life of him he could +not muster up courage to run the gauntlet past those dread, struggling +forms. +</P> + +<P> +In the end, there being scarcely sufficient room in the tussock for +both to hide effectually, and there seeming to be some danger of the +combatants trampling them flat where they lay, he led the way up a +tree, whose gnarled bole took the ground barely six inches away. It +was one of those great-great-great-grandfather oaks, which, if it had +been in a more public spot, would certainly have been raised to the +dignity of one of the few hundred trees that hid Prince Charlie. It +was not, however; but it had another peculiarity, as the voles found +out later on. +</P> + +<P> +Scared out of their little wits by the fury of their enemies below, and +afraid to go down and bolt across the open, even after the cessation of +hostilities, past those appallingly still, crouched bodies, who, for +all they had guarantee to the contrary, might be in fiendish, alliance +crouched there, waiting for them to descend, the two voles explored +gradually, in their own dainty, little, deprecating, creeping way, +branch after branch of the great spreading patriarch, till suddenly, at +the very tip of the longest and biggest limb of all, they +vanished—into ivy. What had happened was quite simple, however. +There was no trick in it. It was all above-board. It was simply that +the mighty tree at this spot grew close to one of those outcrops of +cliff that formed, as it were, broken-off pieces from the main cliffs +which bordered the river and the valley on one side farther up, and one +of the oak boughs had gradually been annexed by the ivy—itself of +great age—that clothed the face of the cliff. +</P> + +<P> +Climbing steadily upwards through the network of ivy-stems—he had no +wish to go down now, for he could hear the river talking to itself +directly underneath him, and a false step meant a clean drop into the +swirling black depths thirty feet or so below—the bank-vole, with his +companion in close and trusting attendance, presently came out on top +of the cliff. He found himself upon a space all clothed with +vegetation, bushes, and stunted trees, some hundred yards long. +Beneath him, as he peered over, he could see the roof of the wood, all +laid out like a green tablecloth, and here and there, through gaps, the +river, now shrunk to no more than a stream, by reason of the fact that +men, for their own purposes, had dammed its waters about a mile farther +up the valley, and constructed a reservoir there. +</P> + +<P> +The voles knew nothing about any dam—then. They were satisfied to +explore the cliff-top and the crevices, to discover the tiny eggs of a +coal-tit, and remark on their flavor; to nose into every crook and +corner that came in their way; to learn the excellent facilities the +place offered for setting up housekeeping; and to discover that no +other bank-voles appeared to have found their way up there. +</P> + +<P> +This took time, for they naturally had to flirt in between, and so it +happened that the sun had been up some while before they finally set to +improvising a home, in a partially earth-filled rocky cleft, with their +own sturdy forepaws. They had got so far as to dig in out of sight, +turning every few seconds to push out the loose earth, when the dam up +above broke, and a few hundred, or thousand, for all I know, tons of +water dropped into the valley—crash! +</P> + +<P> +And thus it happened that, when the sun set, those two little, +big-headed, blunt-nosed bank-voles, looking out upon an endless sea of +water, above which the top halves of the trees in the wood rose like +mangroves, were, save for a few that had climbed into trees and would +starve, the only bank-voles left alive, to repopulate that valley with +bank-voles, out of all the teeming thousands whose burrows had +honeycombed every bank in the vicinity. Verily, how strange is Fate, +"who makes, who mars, who ends!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XVI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE EAGLES OF LOCH ROYAL +</H3> + + +<P CLASS="poem"> +He makes a solitude, and calls it—peace.—BYRON. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +He comes, the false disturber of my quiet.<BR> +Now, vengeance, do thy worst.—SHERIDAN. +</P> + +<P> +The rising sun came striding over the edge of the world, and presented +the mountain with a golden crown; later it turned the rolling, heaving +mystery of the mists below into a sea of pure amber. A tiny falcon—a +merlin—shot up out of the mist, hung for a moment, whilst the sun +transformed his wings to purple bronze, and fell again, vanishing +instantly. Next, a cock-grouse, somewhere below the amber sea, crowed +aloud to proclaim the day, and a raven mocked at him hoarsely. +</P> + +<P> +Then, and not till then, the Chieftain awoke. The Chieftain showed as a +chocolate, golden-brown, wedge-shaped mass of feathers, perched on a +lonely pinnacle of rock, and, his appalling, razor-edged claws being +hidden under the overhanging feathers of his legs, he was scarcely +striking. Next moment he opened his eyes, and was no longer mean, for he +was a golden eagle, and the eyes of a golden eagle are terrible. In them +are written hauteur, pride, and arrogant fierceness beyond anything on +this earth; there is also contempt that has no expression in speech. He +shot out his neck, clapped his talon-like beak, and gazed out, over the +mist that hid Loch Royal, to the south shore of the loch, where lived his +son. The loch was, as it were, their frontier, the boundary-line that +divided the hunting-grounds of father and son, and it was seldom crossed +by either bird. +</P> + +<P> +A little wind rose somewhere in a mountain gorge, and went shrieking +down, rending the mist asunder, as a man rends carded wool. And behind +the wind slid Chieftain, who know the value of a hidden descent. He shot +through the rent, racing down with the sun's rays to earth, and surprised +a cock-grouse at his breakfast, nipping off the tender heather-shoots +daintily one by one. So swiftly did Chieftain fall that the grouse never +knew what had killed him; he was dead—in a flash. The great eagle swept +on with the grouse in his claws, and, without stopping, beat upwards +again. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly, without any warning, a bullet came singing over the rolling +heather, and passed, with a whine, close to Chieftain's head. Later came +the blasting report of a rifle. As for Chieftain, he gave one amazed +scream of outraged and startled dignity, dropped his grouse, and went; +and when an eagle goes in that way, it is like the passing of a rocket. +</P> + +<P> +A few minutes later Chieftain was whirling round high up among the crags, +calling imperiously for his wife, as a king might call. And she came, +she came, that huge, fierce bird, with a trickle of blood dripping down +her neck, and a fire in her eye that was unpleasant to behold. She, too, +had been fired upon and grazed by a bullet, and she said so in no +measured tones. Now, the laird of Loch Royal deer forests had never +allowed his eagles to be fired at or killed. They were part of the +family possessions, as it were—always had been for generation upon +generation; and, moreover, they kept down the grouse on the deer +forests—which was useful, since the grouse is the red deer's unpaid +sentinel, and give him warning of the crawling, creeping stalker. +</P> + +<P> +Wonderfully the two eagles circled round one another in mighty, +still-winged glidings, effortless, majestic, masterly, sometimes +together, sometimes apart, drawing ever away northward with scarcely a +wing-flap, without, it seemed, any visible force to drive them, till they +swam, like specks on the eye-ball, miles away and upwards round the +white-mantled peaks. +</P> + +<P> +Here, so easily can birds pass from scene to scene, they were in another +world, an Arctic land, silent as the Arctic, bare as the Arctic, cold as +the Arctic, and, at first sight, desolate and uninhabited as the Arctic +appears to be. But this was only an example of Nature's wonderful magic. +Desolate it was. Uninhabited—no. +</P> + +<P> +So far as the eagles could see, there was only a raven, cursed with a +far-advertising blackness, who sat upon a splintered fang of rock and +mocked them hollowly. But he was not the only creature there. +</P> + +<P> +Sweeping down with a hissing rush over a giddy slope of shale that looked +perpetually upon the brink of a general slide down <I>en masse</I>, with their +immense shadows underrunning them, the eagles startled suddenly by their +unexpectedness a great red beast into motion. There was a clatter of +antlers, a click of hoofs, a little shower of stones, and away went a +superb stag, a "royal," a "twelve-pointer," lordly and supercilious, +picking his way without a slip on that awful incline. But until he +moved, even he had been quite invisible, bang in the open though he was. +</P> + +<P> +The eagles, following him and swooping at him with imperious savagery, +because they were still angry and upset, though never really coming near +him, bustled him into taking that awful path at a loose hand canter, not +so much, I think, because he, the king of the forest—and this, this +lost, lone scene, was part of the local conception of the word +"forest"—cared the sweep of a "brow-tine" for the eagles, as because he +was startled and uncertain as to what was supposed to be happening. And +the stones spurned by his neat hoofs—he seemed to kick most of them down +behind him as he finished with them, each making for itself its own +miniature avalanche—helped to add to the sudden confusion. +</P> + +<P> +Then it was as if a shell burst in front of him—right under his haughty +nose—and he moved exactly eight feet one inch without touching the +ground; also, in doing it, he cleared a five-foot-seven-inch bowlder, so +absolutely without the slightest sign of an effort that he seemed to have +been blown upwards. It is worth noting, because twenty seconds before he +had been too lazy to clear a four-foot heather-bush, and had gone +<I>through</I> it. +</P> + +<P> +The "shell" had been a party of ptarmigan very much flustered and upset +by being all but galloped over; not the white and frozen ptarmigan of the +cheap poultry warehouse, but the "live" proposition of that name in their +gray, or usual, disguise, posing as stones among many thousand that lay +around the summits. +</P> + +<P> +Wild horses would not have put the ptarmigan on wing in face of those +terrible, sliding, underrunning shadows of death—indeed, one had been +lying within two yards of the Chieftain, as he slid back low to ground +after stooping at the lordly stag—but this crashing avalanche of shale +with the king of the forest atop was too much for them, and they went +down the "hill" into the nothing and the far distance that lay, so to +speak, almost at one's feet, like a spatter of shrapnel. +</P> + +<P> +At the same instant two gray shadows evolved themselves out of the very +ground, and slid away, swift as scudding clouds, up the slope; and a +third gray form, also apparently sprung from nowhere, rose from before +them, and dropped like a spent projectile into the low-lands. They were +two mountain hares and an old sinner of a gray crow; but the thing that +caught the Chieftain's stabbing eye most was none of these. +</P> + +<P> +Both eagles had, with half-shut wings, dropped like mighty barbs towards +the dim, blue distance of the vale, after the hurtling ptarmigan; but in +an instant their great vans respread, their big, wedged tails swiftly +fanned, and with every available brake on, as it were, they fetched up +almost short. Then they both described a single, gliding, calm, +lazy-looking half-circle, and settled upon a turret rock that shot +fifteen feet up from the mountain's shoulder. +</P> + +<P> +Above them, the snow shimmered and glistened blindingly. Below, the warm +mists of the dales steamed off under the beating sun. Loch Royal lay +like a mighty, burnished shield to the southward; and northward, peak +rose behind peak in everlasting grand perspective. +</P> + +<P> +Near them was only the lonely slope, bare now, it seemed, of all life. +But they thought otherwise. Their unspeakably fierce gaze was focused +upon what looked like a grained slab, like any other grained slab, if it +had not all at once begun to twitch, and so—even then one could only +make out the faint outline of a body—turn gradually into a wild cat +asleep on his side. The twitching was not the result of a fit, but of +dreams. Probably he had not meant to go to sleep at all—in a land of +golden eagles! He had merely meant to bask in the sun, within instant +spring of a handy hole between the stones if anything in the enemy line +turned up. That very sun, however, had conspired with drowsiness to +betray him, and—something in the enemy line <I>had</I> turned up. +</P> + +<P> +Even so, I doubt if the golden eagles, with all their wonderful prismatic +binocular vision, made out the cat, as man could. Birds have not that +power, as man has. The twitching they were instant to see. The cause of +it they must have, equally instantly, suspected. Certainly, however, was +a long time coming to them. Precisely when it did, no man knoweth. They +remained like carvings or very fine figures cast in bronze, and as +immovable as the same, for the best part of an hour, if you please; and +during that time all the sign of life that either of them gave was to +wink a yellow eyelid, as quickly as an instantaneous shutter winks, +several times. +</P> + +<P> +At the end of that period a rain-squall came racing and howling round the +summit. It passed in a few seconds, and left mist—cloud, if you +like—damp, dank, and chilly, and a dead calm, in its wake, and—the +Chieftain had vanished (I told you he knew the value of a hidden +descent). But goodness and his own arrogant self alone knew when or +where; in the squall, most likely. But he had certainly vanished. +</P> + +<P> +The Chieftain's mate sat on, as stolid, and as solid, and as statuesque +as ever. She had not moved when he evaporated, or given any sign +whatever. +</P> + +<P> +With the coming of the mist, the cat woke up. The cold probably awoke +him. He was not pleased. He had come to get warm, not cold. He arose +and stretched himself, baring all his claws and fangs with lazy +insolence, for any whom it might concern to see. +</P> + +<P> +Then—he collapsed, falling as if the slab on which he stood had slidden +from under him, and remained—flattened tense, wide-eyed, and dangerous. +</P> + +<P> +The Chieftain's wife had jerked her head and sneezed. At least, she had +yanked her cranium quick as quick, and made a noise. It seemed like a +sneeze. For the rest, she remained as motionless and expressionless as +bronze Buddha, her wonderful orbs scowling at the wild cat. +</P> + +<P> +Then that cat got off that slab of rock. I say got off, but it would be +more correct to say that he slid off sideways on his tummy—flat. One +had difficulty in seeing that he moved. His inscrutable, wide, sinister, +yellow-green eyes were fixed upon the Chieftain's wife. The whole of his +attention was fastened, focused, concentrated upon the Chieftain's wife. +And there he made his mistake. He forgot about the Chieftain himself, +but the Chieftain had not forgotten about him. In fact, the Chieftain +was there, on the spot, or over it, rather, exactly above the wild cat's +head, five hundred feet above, and very slowly revolving upon wide, +outstretched pinions, as if hung by invisible, slowly swung wire from +heaven. +</P> + +<P> +If the cat had looked up! But, then, the cat would not have been a wild +four-footed animal if he had. In all the aeons four-footed wild-folk +never seem to have learnt to look up, and, for the omission, die some +painful deaths that might otherwise be avoided. I do not say that none +of them <I>ever</I> look up—they do, but it is seldom. +</P> + +<P> +Indeed, finally this wild cat did look up; he could not well help it. +There was a sound like the swift descent of a smiting sword above him. +But he was seconds too late. +</P> + +<P> +Seconds before, the Chieftain had vanished again. Nay, he had changed. +His wings had shut, and—he had turned into a line, a dark streak drawn, +almost as lightning draws itself, from heaven to earth, +thus—wh-r-r-r-ssss-sh! +</P> + +<P> +It was then that the cat looked up—just in time to receive the +Chieftain's black tiger-talons, upon brilliant yellow claws, clashing +against his own ivory fangs, and—well, in his eyes. +</P> + +<P> +The Chieftain's wife flung from her strange self her immobility, flung +out a scream, flung open her pinions, and—shifted. She could not have +arrived upon the scene more than three seconds after her lord—but not by +any means master. She was certainly not half that time getting to work. +</P> + +<P> +I am not going to describe the struggle that followed, in deference to +certain good, kind, and well-meaning people who are unable to face the +stern realities of life, or—to save their country. Such things, +however, must be; and they would not happen if it were not for a hard, +though very sound, purpose, among beasts as among men. Nature is +far-seeing and very wise. Moreover, she hates hypocrisy, and—well, we +may not all be butchers, but most of us eat meat. +</P> + +<P> +It was certainly a very great confloption, for, of course, that wild cat +fought like a—like a wild cat, which is like a Welshman, and I cannot +say more than that. And in the end the whole inferno, being upon a very +sharp slope, began to slide, and slid, dragging a welter of dust and raw +earth and feathers and fur after it, in an avalanche of its own, till it +fetched up in a tangle of mountain-ash roots and furze two hundred feet +below, where it furiously and fearfully, in one wild, awful, whirling +flurry, ended. +</P> + +<P> +After that the Chieftain dragged what was left of that wild cat out of +the bushes, where he had tried to jamb and crawl and burrow himself, out +into the open—well into the open—so that the eagles could look all +round, which they like to do, being birds of high degree—also vermin, or +counted as such by gamekeepers of low degree. +</P> + +<P> +The pair—Heaven and the laird alone know how long they had been good and +faithful partners in life—thereupon set to hooking at one another with +their horny, dragon-like beaks, gripping with black-taloned yellow claws +that even a Hercules would shake hands with just once, beating with +monster wings that would knock you or me silly, snapping horny, +resounding snaps, and generally "not 'arf a-carryin' on" in the approved +and correct modern matrimonial manner. So it appeared, at least; but +among eagles—within the royal circle, that is to say—such things might +be their way of paying compliments, for you cannot expect feathered +couples of the royal blood to behave like a pair of mere love-birds. +</P> + +<P> +Then came the bullet. +</P> + +<P> +It was a neat, long, nickel-jacketed, lead-nosed bullet of some +.300-caliber, and its own report was chasing it. It sang a high-pitched, +plaintive little song all alone to itself as it traveled along through +the fine, champagne-like mountain air, at about thirteen hundred feet per +second, and it was aimed to hit the Chieftain exactly in the full of the +chest. That was why, I suppose, it hit the wild cat smack in the +backbone, and killed that poor beast all over again. But you can never +tell with bullets. +</P> + +<P> +It might be mentioned here that just as turtle-soup is to their worships, +so is wild cat to golden eagles—a <I>bonne bouche par excellence</I>, so to +say. They do not get it every day, or every month, for the matter of +that—at least, not in these islands of enlightenment, for the wild cat +shares with them the honor of being a martyr of Fate, and it is on the +<I>index expurgatorius</I> of the gamekeeper also. +</P> + +<P> +But, I give you my word, those two mighty birds left that wild cat +uneaten. I say "left" him advisedly, for it was rather a matter that +they had left him than that they did leave him. Anyway, they were not +near him, not anywhere near him, and I suppose they went. There had +arisen a noise as if all Regent Street had at that moment rustled its +combined "silk foundations," and—there were our eagles far, far away, +and in opposite directions, melting quicker than real sugar-knobs in hot +grog into the haze of the distant sky. +</P> + +<P> +And after that the Chieftain and his wife glided up into the setting sun +till it swallowed them in a red glory, and when the sun had burnt itself +out, swam—swam stupendously and wonderfully—through ether down to bed. +Bed with them that night consisted in sitting, regally enthroned among +clouds, upon a black, rock bastion exactly above a clean drop of not much +more than six hundred feet, and rocked by "the wracked wind-eddies" of +the mountain-tops. The good God who made all things—even the animal +that had fired at them—alone knows what they dreamt about, that superb, +intolerant, fierce, haughty, implacable couple. +</P> + +<BR> +<HR WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center"> +<BR> + +<P> +Now, the man, the—er—lord of creation, who had fired that shot—in +fact, all those shots that day—was Pig Head, the back-to-the-lander from +the South. Pig Head argued that deer forests are farms lying idle. And +the laird had offered to rent him a farm at one-and-nothing-three the +acre to disprove it. Pig Head had taken the offer. He disapproved of +lairds as unrevolutionaries. He hated red deer because they were too +smart for him to kill wholesale, and he loathed golden eagles because +they were the pride of the "hills." But he kept his opinions to himself, +because he valued his neck. The People of the Hills would have stretched +it very much longer than his own long tongue if he hadn't. In his heart +he also hated the "oppressed" People of the Hills for that they loved +their laird, regarded deer-stalking as a religious rite, and—wore kilts! +</P> + +<P> +As a matter of fact, Pig Head's farm never grew anything more than some +clinging heather, a little cross-leaved heath, patches of furze, a clump +of storm-bent Scotch firs or so, and rock—mostly rock. +</P> + +<P> +Pig Head had only been able to get what he thought was his own back upon +that day by firing at the eagles, because the laird and the stalkers, the +gillies, the keepers, and the People of the Hills, were away, all away, +at a sheep-dog trial, or a clan meeting, or something. After that he had +to work in silence, and he did. +</P> + +<P> +There are always people who will buy a golden eagle "British caught," and +those who don't want live ones will take 'em dead, and have them stuffed. +They like to be able to set 'em up in the hall among other stuffed birds, +and boast that they shot 'em. Other people of it like decayed mind come +and look at them, and offer money for them at sales out of jealousy. +That's collecting. +</P> + +<P> +Now, somewhere, somehow, sometime during his checkered career, Pig Head +had heard, or read, of a way of catching golden eagles. He proceeded. +</P> + +<P> +Upon an unholy and cold shaly slope well up among the clouds, the mist, +and the ptarmigan, Pig Head had hollowed him out a hollow, roomy enough +for himself to crouch in. He was the sort of man that crouched—and +"grouched." Over the top he put a nice big slab; the walls were of piled +stones, and at one end was an aperture eight inches or so long by about +one foot. Being made of its surroundings, the hiding-place did not look +at all suspicious—from a bird's point of view. +</P> + +<P> +Finally, upon the morning after the unsuccessful shooting, and before it +was light—this was necessary, for there is no knowing how far the eyes +of eagles can see—Pig Head ensconced himself in this hiding-place. It +was perishing cold, and Pig Head, who did not smoke, and never drank +whisky—only gin—was blue of nose and numb of hand. A good plaid would +have helped him, but he abhorred plaids. +</P> + +<BR> +<HR WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center"> +<BR> + +<P> +The dawn came up over the mountains, the mists sank down to the vales, +and the dawn wind, lean and searching, went whispering over the hills. +</P> + +<P> +Then a speck grew out of the heights, out of the west and the dark, and +growing and growing momentarily, became a rustling, sinister, untidy, +heavy shape, which anon settled upon a rock, and croaked, "Glock! glock!" +twice, almost like a bark, in a deep and sepulchral voice. To it was +added another sable form, coming down from the lonely stony heights, and +the two sat together, remarking, as they looked—but their wonderful eyes +must have seen it very far away—at the bait. It was the wild cat turned +inside-out, and other things, on a slab outside the aperture before +mentioned, that was at one end of Pig Head's hiding-place. And the black +specters were ravens. +</P> + +<P> +"Ou!" they said; then "Aw!" then again "Ou!" One remarked "Augh!" and +the other agreed—or, it may have been, disagreed—with an "Au!" +</P> + +<P> +Evidently the wild cat, in a disguise in which he would not have known +even his own self, looked very enticing, and he and the situation +generally were being discussed from all points of view. +</P> + +<P> +I say from all points of view advisedly, because, although the ravens +discoursed much over their council of war, they would not come within a +hundred yards, and it was a voice from the semi-dark, or western, side +which finally stayed them in the very act of unfolding their big, rounded +wings to fly away. +</P> + +<P> +"Krar-krar-krar!" rasped the voice; and the ravens folded their wings +again to wait and see! +</P> + +<P> +It was a gray crow, and the ravens knew that never was gray crow an +innocent lost in the wilderness. +</P> + +<P> +If the gray, or hoodie, crow—always remembering that crows, gray or +black, are servants of the Devil, just as ravens are, and very +cunning—if the crow, I say, thought that here was food without some +horrible form of hidden death lurking behind it, then the chances were +the gray crow was right. They knew "hoodie," you see. Anyway, if they +let him go first, and he was wrong, then it would be <I>his</I> funeral, not +theirs. +</P> + +<P> +Wherefore the gray crow went first to the bait, and Pig Head, half-dead +with cold and peering out of a tiny peep-hole, called down blessings of a +weak and watery nature upon his black head. And well he might, for if +the gray crow had shied at the bait, then everybody else would have taken +his tip. +</P> + +<P> +They took his tip now, for in a few minutes there was a "hurrr-hrrr-hrrr" +of wings, and, one after the other, down came the ravens. +</P> + +<P> +Anon the ravens were joined by a third, volplaning from some +cloud-covered peak, where he must have been watching all the time; and +the crow was joined by four accomplices, who just drifted up from nowhere +special, as gray crows have a habit of doing when there is carrion afoot. +</P> + +<P> +But Pig Head had not come there to entertain ravens, nor was he at that +moment laying up a store of lumbago for the purpose of gratuitously +feeding disreputable gray crows. He had other quarry in view. The gray +crows, however, were his best asset. They quarreled, and were +loquacious, and, in fact, they made a most infernal noise; and he had +stated that the noise was necessary to his success. This would seem as +if eagles hunt by sound as well as by sight. Pig Head was the first +person I ever heard that suggested so. But, be that as it may, the +racket increased as the sun, robed in purple, gold, and crimson splendor, +rose over the mountain-tops; and with the sun came the only bird, so the +ancients tell us, who can look the sun full in the face without +blinking—<I>Aquila</I>, the eagle. +</P> + +<P> +But—make no mistake about this point—he who came then, grandly, proudly +sweeping over the blue, dim ridges, was not the Chieftain himself, for +this was not the Chieftain's territory, but the Chieftain's son; he who +lived, as you will remember, upon the other, or south, side of Loch Royal. +</P> + +<P> +Haughtily, statelily, as a king might go to his throne, so did the +Chieftain's son let himself down, in stupendous hundred-foot spirals, to +a pinnacle of rock, jagged, saw-edged, and perpendicular, about two +hundred yards away; and the ravens and the gray crows, who saw him +coming, made great and sudden hostile outcry at first, and then, as he +folded, foot by foot, his immense pinions about him, and sat there erect, +with his piercing, scowling gaze bent upon <I>them</I>, they were dumb. +</P> + +<P> +And Pig Head, aching with cramp and cold in his hiding-place, knew that +<I>the</I> quarry was at hand. But if you think, because the eagle was at +hand, that the time was at hand too, you don't know eagles. They may be, +upon occasion, as quick as the spring of death, but they can also be as +slow as the wrath of Heaven. And that bird there, the great, grand, +haughty, unbending <I>Aquila chrysoetus</I>, that golden eagle, sat. I say, +he sat. And there, so far as he was concerned, appeared to be an end of +it. He might have been a carven copestone of the very granite fang he +sat upon, for all the appearance of life he gave, except that +occasionally—say at fifteen-minute intervals—he winked a yellow-lidded +wink. And the wink was almost as unlifelike and uncanny as the bird. +</P> + +<P> +And the gray crows and the ravens gulped and quarreled, with one eye upon +the eagle and one upon their job; and Pig Head—Pig Head sat and cursed +that eagle, from his horny beak to his barred tail, through +chattering—and aching—teeth. But the eagle never moved a feather. +</P> + +<BR> +<HR WIDTH="60%" ALIGN="center"> +<BR> + +<P> +We are told that Alexander sighed for other worlds to conquer. So it was +with the Chieftain, who was not Alexander. +</P> + +<P> +After his wife had gone a-hunting eastward—a wonderful and gigantic +silhouette floating and dwindling into the furnace of the rising sun—the +Chieftain sat upon his ledge of rock, staring across the gleaming, +painted, glassy expanse of Loch Royal, southward, to the dominions of his +son. +</P> + +<P> +He had seen his son, a speck in the dawnlight, invisible to our eyes, +sailing from peak to upflung peak. He had seen him suddenly check and +circle downwards. And then—he had not seen him. +</P> + +<P> +He had waited two hours, with that patience which birds and reptiles +have, and still he had not seen him. Yet, if during that time he had +risen, the Chieftain must have seen him. And the Chieftain knew that. +He knew also that a golden eagle very rarely makes a "kill" so big that +he has to remain with it two hours. The alternative, therefore, would +seem to be death or carrion; and the way in which he had circled down +would seem to suggest carrion. And it is written among the laws of the +king of birds that when carrion is about, the strict rules and +regulations as to the inviolability of the frontiers may be, in some +degree, broken. +</P> + +<P> +Therefore the king unfurled his overshadowing vans, and launched himself +down the lake with mighty, slow, powerful strokes, like the steady thrust +of marine engines. He would go and see. +</P> + +<P> +Five minutes later the Chieftain was as motionless as his son, perched, +like him, too, upon a rock, watching the highwaymen and footpads of the +moors squabbling over the bait—they had no eyes to see what they were +doing, for they had to keep one eye upon each eagle—and about two +hundred yards away on the other side. +</P> + +<P> +This may have hurried matters somewhat, for within only about another +half-hour the Chieftain's son rose, and, with heavy wing-flaps, flew down +to the bait, sending the ravens and the crows up in a cloud, like blown +bits of burnt paper, as he came to anchor. And it was curious that, in +stooping to meanness, the royal bird's aspect was no longer grand. He +flew heavily and clumsily to the spot. He settled without grace, and +almost overbalanced on to his Grecian nose. He clutched, and tore, and +gulped, and gorged like a vulture. Thus Nature always dresses her actors +for their parts. You may have noticed it. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-274"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-274.jpg" ALT=""He clutched, and tore, and gulped, and gorged"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="450" HEIGHT="667"> +<H4> +[Illustration: "He clutched, and tore, and gulped, and gorged"] +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +But Pig Head—Pig Head was chuckling. He had silently and softly removed +the clod of peat that blocked the aperture before mentioned. Running +through this aperture he had a cord whose other end was fastened to the +bait, and every time the great eagle wrenched and tore at the flesh, he +very, very gently pulled the bait towards him. He did not move when the +mighty bird had his head up, gulping, you will note; for even Pig Head +knew that an eagle nearly standing on his head and tugging, and not +feeling the difference between his own tugs and the tugs on a cord, is +not the same as an eagle with his head up and eyes stabbing everywhere at +once. +</P> + +<P> +At last the victim had been drawn, upon the bait, within reach, and Pig +Head, slipping his hand through the opening, grabbed the thick, powerful +legs of the bird, and pulled. There was one mighty upheaval of vast +vans, and—no eagle! What happened down inside the hiding-place was more +or less private. There were sounds as if a young earthquake were getting +ready to be born in that place; but in the end the Chieftain's son had +his legs tied, and suffered the indignity of being ignominiously thrust +into a filthy sack. He said nothing during that argument, but his looks +were enough to kill anything with a thinner hide than Pig Head. +</P> + +<P> +Immediately Pig Head got ready for the Chieftain. What's that? Yes, the +Chieftain is right. That great, haughty bird had not moved. You see, +eagles are not educated up to seeing their full-grown sons disappear into +the bowels of the earth without explanation or warning given. There is +nothing in their experience to meet the phenomenon. Consequently they +don't tumble, as a rule, and—well, listen for yourself. +</P> + +<P> +In a short time—a short time for an eagle; not less than half-an-hour, +really—the Chieftain flapped heavily to the bait, and fed—beastily, if +the truth must be told. +</P> + +<P> +He was bigger than his son, and heavier, and knew more about the world, +and Pig Head was longer in seeing a fair chance to make a grab at the +royal legs. At last, however, the chance came, and Pig Head grabbed. +The Chieftain naturally lost his balance, and before he knew what had +happened he was inside Pig Head's "booby-hutch." +</P> + +<P> +The Chieftain, however, was not an ordinary bird, not even an ordinary +eagle. Moreover, he must have been a great age, older even than Pig +Head. Be that as it may, the Chieftain believed mightily in the wild +maxim which says, "They should take who have the power, and they should +keep who can." +</P> + +<P> +And upon that he acted. +</P> + +<P> +It all happened in a flash. Like lightning his right wing came round +with a terrific flail-stroke, and hit Pig Head in the face at the precise +instant that the surgical instrument he carried as his beak sank deep +into one of Pig Head's calves. The Chieftain was upside-down at the +moment, and his legs were tied together, but that made no difference to +the savagery of the blow. +</P> + +<P> +Pig Head uttered one howl of agony, and tumbled backwards, and his devil +saw to it that he should tumble backwards upon the very sack wherein lay +the Chieftain's son, squirming with rage. The Chieftain's son was a son +of his father, and hearing the young hurricane of his father's wings, and +feeling the intolerable weight of Pig Head sitting involuntarily down +upon him, struck for the cause like a good un—struck, with his cruel, +hooked bill, through sack, through trousers, through pants, and home +through flesh, and Pig Head rebounded into the air considerably quicker +than he had gone down, hitting his head against the roof, a resounding +whack, and yelling fit to awake all the devils in cinders. And he did +not go alone. Upon one calf, and upon—another portion of him, the +Chieftain and the Chieftain's son went with him. +</P> + +<P> +Very few men have ever left a powder-magazine on fire in quicker time +than did Pig Head leave his hiding-place, and none could have made more +noise in the process. The Chieftain stuck to him lovingly, and the +Chieftain's son, sack and all, seemed determined never to leave him; and +Pig Head was nearly demented with pain as he leapt out, caracoling +wildly, into the light of day, and into the arms of—only the laird, the +head stalker, four gillies, and two collies. +</P> + +<P> +They had come to find him, these stern-faced, long, lean men, on account +of "information received." And they had found him. But they did not +speak. They were Scotch. Nor did they screw out a smile among them. +They were Jocks! They acted—being Highlanders. +</P> + +<P> +Four hands like iron claws seized Pig Head, and tipped him on end, even +as he had tipped the eagles. Two knives went "snick" as they opened, +then "wheep-wheep" as they cut. Several pieces of cord and bits of +sacking flew into the air. There was one colossal upheaval of wings, a +feathered whirlwind hurling everybody every way—and the Chieftain and +his son, released and scandalized, offended and enraged beyond the rage +of kings, rose swiftly into the air with mighty, threshing strokes that +simply hurled them aloft like powerful projectiles—into the heavens, as +it were terrible avenging spirits of the tempest. A chaos, a rush, a +mighty blast of air, and—they were gone! +</P> + +<P> +Then the laird turned to Pig Head, and, "Mon, ye dinna ken th' laird. If +ye did—w-e-e-l, Ah'm thinkin' ye'd understand." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap17"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XVII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +RATEL, V.C. +</H3> + + +<P> +Between the clumps of the stunted acacias the sun beat down with the +pitilessness of a battleship's furnace, and it was not much better in the +acacias themselves. Save for a lizard here and there, motionless as a +bronze fibula, or a snake asleep with eyes wide open, or the flash of a +"pinging" fly, all Nature seemed to have fled from that intolerable +white-hot glare and gone to sleep. +</P> + +<P> +But the hour of emancipation was at hand, and the dim caverns of +shade—what there was of it—stirred strangely. A hundred yards away a +blotch of shadow beneath a group of stunted trees swayed and broke up +into several zebra moving off to water. Fifty yards distant the inky +shade that carpeted the earth under a bare outcrop of rock gave up a +single gnu antelope bull and a Grant's gazelle whose lyrate horns were as +wonderful as his consummate grace. +</P> + +<P> +Thereafter came sound. Till then there had been only heat, the first +hints at movement, and the terrifying silence of the wilderness. Even +the birds had been dumb. Now came "a feathered denizen of the grove" +with a peculiarly arresting, grating chatter, a noise no one could +overlook, and few could help investigating. And finally, brazenly, +impudently, excitedly flitting from branch to branch, the chatterer +evolved slowly out of the ragged bush-choked landscape, a dusky little +bird, seemingly a bird of no importance, scarce larger than a lark. +</P> + +<P> +Putting personal appearance aside, however, this feathered one, who dared +to shatter the slumber of the everlasting wilderness, seemed to be under +the impression that he was of vast importance. Moreover, his business +appeared to be pressing and urgent, so that he could neither brook delay +nor take "No" for an answer. It was as though he was under a desperate +need to take you somewhere or show you something, and YOU must follow +him—<I>must</I>; there was nothing else for it. +</P> + +<P> +But nobody cared. The zebra trooped off without turning their striped +heads; the gazelle, weighted under his horns, and the gnu bull stalked +away unattending; the lizards remained fixed in a permanent attitude of +attention; and the snakes continued to stare at nothing. No one took the +slightest notice. +</P> + +<P> +Then came the reply. +</P> + +<P> +It was as if a person or a thing, deep down in the bowels of the earth, +hearing the bird, stirred in its sleep, and shouted up, "I come." And it +came. +</P> + +<P> +Heralded by a peculiar, quaint, little, chatty, sibilant, hissing, +whistling chuckle, there emerged from a regular cave that he, or an +ant-bear, or some other burrower had constructed under an ancient bush, a +beast—a most remarkable beast. +</P> + +<P> +It was long—about three feet. It was low; it was stumpy, clumpy, +sturdy, bear-like, and altogether odd. It had no ears that any one could +find, and it rattled the most murderous armament of claws that you ever +guessed at. But that was not all; not by any means. It, or, rather, he, +had really been colored grayish white in the first place; but Nature had +thoughtlessly dropped him into a vat of black paint on his "tummy," flat, +and left him there to swim about, so that by the time he got out he was +one half, including chin, black, and the other and upper half, including +top of head and back and top of tail, grayish white. And then, for a +joke, it seemed, Nature had painted a white band round where black and +grayish white met, a sort of water-line, so to speak, and let the poor +little beggar go—go, mark you, into a wild where self-advertisement is +something more than unhealthful for the smaller folks. Afterwards, +however, Nature—who is all a woman—had repented, seemingly, and being +unable to undo her own jest, had given to the little, slow, conspicuous +beast, as compensation, a courage surpassing the courage of any other +beast on earth. The result was rather curious—it was also the ratel, or +honey-badger, who had nothing at all to do with rats, but everything to +do with honey, and was self-evidently more than three-parts badger. +</P> + +<P> +"Kru-tshee! Kru-tshee-chlk! Krue-tshee-chlk-chlk, whee-tshee-tse-tse, +tse-i-who-o-o!" he whistled, and chuckled, and muttered, and fairly sang +to himself as he came trotting along towards the cheeky little bird, like +a dog that answers a whistle. His gait was all his own, as he, too, was +all his own original self, being unlike anything else, although he bore +the stamp of the badger people upon him. +</P> + +<P> +With a calm, rolling trot, head down, tail up, back a fraction arched, +with something like the slouch of his distant relation, the wolverine, he +proceeded, preceded always by that dusky phantom bird that flitted and +perched ahead of him, like a yellow-hammer down a country lane—calling, +calling, calling. And he, lifting his odd, flat, "earless," sleek head +to it, would whistle and chuckle in reply. They had, it seemed, arrived +at a perfect understanding, these two, during the centuries. "Lead on, +Macduff!" he seemed to say. +</P> + +<P> +They passed antelopes anchored in the shade; hartebeest, impala, and roan +after their kind. They heard the click of horn and the stamp of hoof, +but troubled not. They passed the place where a leopard lay asleep up a +tree, and saw a devil's whip of a ten-foot mamba snake—and the bite of +that same is a sixty-second short cut to the grave—flee before them as +if they, and not it, were death incarnate. Once a serval cat, all legs +and ears and agility, stood in their path to listen to the funny +chuckling, whistling noises, but fled when it saw the little, low ratel +as if it had seen a ghost. +</P> + +<P> +But always undeterred by anything in the way, engrossed utterly on the +task in view, the dusky bird flew ahead, calling the ratel on with its +harsh cry; and always the ratel, unhurried and cool, jogged along in its +wake, answering, and whistling, and chuckling away to it, as if convulsed +with inward merriment. Perhaps he was. It was a strange procession, +anyway, and one you don't look for every day in the week, even in Africa, +the land of mysteries and surprises. +</P> + +<P> +Finally, the bird stopped; and the ratel looked, and saw that it was +flitting round the base of a big mimosa. Enough! He hurried a little at +last. Next moment he was nearly hidden under a continuous stream of +earth and dust flying back from his amazing foreclaws, and a whirling, +whirring vortex of perfectly demented bees, whose nest, that had been +weeks in the building, was dissolving in seconds under the trowel-like +scoopings of those fearful claws. +</P> + +<P> +Honey! Honey! Honey! +</P> + +<P> +That was it. That was the magic word the bird, who was a honey-guide by +name, had shouted to the ratel, who was a honey-badger, you remember; and +honey-bees they were that made the air delirious. +</P> + +<P> +The bird, with the quick eye of a detective, had located the hole of the +nest, but having no trowel, forthwith fetched the ratel, who had, and +together they fed, the beast on honey, and the bird on the grubs in the +combs. +</P> + +<P> +And the bees? Oh, they don't count! At least, they might have been +house-flies for all the notice the ratel took of them, save now and then +to bunch a dozen or so off his cowled head carelessly. Yet they would +probably have nearly killed <I>us</I>. +</P> + +<P> +It was about this time that the bull-gnu appeared, tramping steadily +towards them; a rugged, rough renegade of the wilderness; a ruffian +kicked—or, rather, horned—out of some herd forever, and, for his sins, +doomed always to face the risks of life alone, or in the companionship of +other male outlaws of soured temper like himself—almost always male; the +female wild seems guiltless of law-breaking, or is under a banner of +protection if it is not. Such "rogues," as men call them, are not +gentlemanly, as a rule. And, by the way, you know the gnu, of course, +<I>alias</I> wildebeest? The head of a very shaggy buffalo, the horsy mane, +the delicate, strong, sloping antelope body, the long, mustang-like tail, +and the strange, twisted, unconventional character, half-fierce, +half-inquisitive. +</P> + +<P> +He—that lonely one—was going to drink, and he may have been doing it +early because he had only his two eyes and ears, and his one nose, to +warn him of the dozen or two forms of death that awaited him at the +drinking-place, instead of the eyes and ears and noses of all the herd. +</P> + +<P> +The gnu saw neither honey-bird nor badger till he was within a yard of +them. Then he stopped as instantly still as if he had been electrocuted. +</P> + +<P> +The ratel, who had himself to feed, and a wounded wife and two young whom +he would lead to that honey-feast anon, looked calmly over his shoulder +at the form of the antelope towering above him. There was no sign of +fear in his straight stare at the shaggy, ferocious-looking horned head. +He had no business with it, and would thank it to mind its own affairs. +And the honey-bird didn't care much, either, she having no young to feed, +because, cuckoo-like, she left other birds—woodpeckers, for choice—to +see to that. +</P> + +<P> +Wherefore, for as long as a man would take to select a cigarette with +care and light it, there was dead silence and stillness, broken only by +the distant, deep "Hoo-hoo, hoo! hoo-hoo, hoo!" of a party of ground +hornbills. +</P> + +<P> +Then that devil of meddlesome curiosity which is the curse of the +wildebeests fell upon that gnu, and sanity left him. +</P> + +<P> +"Kwank!" neighed he. And again, "Kwank!" +</P> + +<P> +Next instant he had spun, top-fashion, on all four feet at once, and +jumped in the same manner, and was gone, whirling round them, with great +shaggy head down, and in a halo of his own swishing tail, at the rate of +knots. +</P> + +<P> +It was nothing to be wondered at in that strange antelope that he should +then sink from wild motion to absolute, fixed rigidity, broken only by +the restless, horse-like swishing of the long tail, staring hard at the +ratel. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps it was the bees that did it, or perhaps the ratel stood in the +gnu's very own path, or in the way of his private dusting-hole. I know +not; neither did the ratel—nor care much, for the matter of that. But +when the gnu went off again, circling with hoarse snorts, and shying and +swerving furiously and wonderfully at top speed, he sat up on his +hindlegs, the better to get a view of the strange sight. Perhaps he +thought a lion was lying somewhere near that he could not see from his +lowly, natural position. +</P> + +<P> +Again the gnu stopped as utterly instantly as if he had run into a brick +wall, pawed, stamped, snorted, and went off once more into furiously +insane caperings—a new set—all the time circling, with the little, +black-and-gray, erect figure of the surprised ratel as a pivot. +</P> + +<P> +And then, in a flash, before any one had a second's warning to grasp the +truth or prepare, with head down, eyes burning in the down-dropped, +shaggy head, and upcurved horn-points gleaming in the afternoon sun, he +charged, hurling himself, a living, reckless, furious battering-ram, +straight at the little ratel. +</P> + +<P> +Did that ratel quit quick? Do ratels ever quit an unbeaten foe? I don't +know. They may, once in the proverbial blue moon; but I haven't seen +'em. This one didn't. He seemed to know that it is held to be a sound +military maxim to meet an attack by counter-attack, and he did, though he +had only the fifth of a second to do it in. Ah, but it was good to see +that odd little beast trotting out coolly, head low, tail high, singing +his war-song as he rolled along to meet the charging foe so many, many +times his own size. +</P> + +<P> +Next moment there was a thud—somewhat as if some one had punched a +pillow—and the ratel was flying through the air, high and fine, in a +graceful and generous curve. A thorn-bush—what matter the precise name? +there are so many in those parts, all execrable—acknowledged receipt of +his carcass with a crash, and for a few seconds he hung, like a sack on a +nail, spitted cleanly by at least one thorn, far thornier than anything +we know here, before the thing gave way, and he fell, still limply, this +way and that, hesitatingly, as it were, as each point lovingly sought to +retain him, to a fork near the bottom, where he stayed. +</P> + +<P> +At last he picked himself out of the fork, and—oh my!—with a whistling +grunt of rage, coolly, calmly, clumsily if you like, but grandly all the +same, trotted forth into the open to look for that bull-gnu again. And +that, sirs, was the sort, of animal <I>he</I> was. +</P> + +<P> +The bull-gnu, however, who was not previously acquainted with small +beasts that would face his charge—and an aerial journey, <I>and</I> the +thorns—and come back for more, had fetched a curve at full gallop, and +loped off into the landscape. For the first time since the herds +outlawed him, I fancy, he seemed to be quite pleased with himself, and +soon, antelope-like, put the ratel from him placidly, and forgot. But he +was reckoning without his host. If he had done with the ratel, the ratel +had not done with him. No, by thunder—not by a good bit! +</P> + +<P> +Finding no bull-gnu, the slow little black and grayish-white fighter from +Fightersville returned at a walk, still whistling with rage, to the +unearthed bees'-nest, which looked like a town after a bad air-raid. And +the first thing he did was to patter almost on top of a cobra, a +five-footer, who, having narrowly escaped death by the gnu's flying +hoofs, was what one might call considerably "het" up, or "off the +handle," so to say. +</P> + +<P> +The servant of the Devil sat up, blew out its beastly hood, and shot +forth a hiss that seemed to run all up and down one's spine, like +lightning on an elm-tree. +</P> + +<P> +The robber of honey sat up, said "Tchik!" and turned a somersault. +What's that? Yes, somersault is right. +</P> + +<P> +Followed instantly two thin jets of liquid, as much as anything I can +think of like those lines called "trajectory curves" which ballisticians +do so love to draw in books on rifle-shooting; only, these curved lines +began at the hollow point of Mr. Cobra's poison-fangs, and were meant to +end in Mr. Ratel's eyes. They didn't. Old man ratel, he was standing on +his hind-legs, with his sturdy paws in front of his eyes—like a man who +looks across a sunny land—and seemed just about to turn a somersault +again. He changed his mind, though, when the poison, that would have +blinded him for life—and that life wouldn't have been long in that wild +<I>then</I>, I want to tell you—stopped, and he went in at that black-necked, +legless, soulless servant of Satan, utterly and amazingly unafraid. It +was fine. +</P> + +<P> +Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you that when Nature repented, and gave +the ratel a courage surpassing the courage of any other beast on earth, +she also gave him a skin tough as a pachyderm's, and loose, as if it were +two sizes too large; and that is why that black-necked cobra died quite +quickly, and the ratel didn't, even slowly. Even if the snake's fangs +had got through, which was not in the least likely, that did not mean to +say they would touch Mr. Ratel's person inside. This, by the way, may +explain why being spitted on thorns, like a beetle on a pin, when the +bull-gnu charged, did not seem to worry him much, either. +</P> + +<P> +The moon was up when the wounded mother ratel, on guard at the mouth of +her burrow, looked up sharply. A side-striped jackal, who kidded himself +she had not seen him lying in wait to find out, when she went hunting, +what she hid in that den, suddenly bolted with a yap; and a hyena, +represented by two burning eyes, who appeared, by some magic of his own, +to guess she was wounded, jumped up and made way for something that +approached. It was her husband and the cobra, the latter trailing along +limply behind, who came that way; and even the hyena had retired, with an +audible sigh—at least, it wasn't a moan quite—when he claimed the path. +After all, there is no sense, if you are the most cowardly beast for your +power on earth, in getting up against the pluckiest thing in creation in +full possession of life and liberty. +</P> + +<P> +Later our ratel sallied forth to "face the world" again. His wife had +recovered from her wounds—the result, these, of refusing to believe she +was not so good as a twelve-foot python, and a bit better—sufficiently +to walk slowly; but that was not enough to face that wild where +die-quicks, from lions, down through leopards, hyenas, wild-dogs, +jackals, and the rest, are forever hiding, on the lookout for unfortunate +ones flying an S.O.S. signal. No, he must go and do the provisioning +alone, and alone he went. +</P> + +<P> +For a peaceful beast, one only too pleased to mind his own business and +thank other folks to mind theirs, his subsequent doings were rather +astonishing. This was because he cared for neither man nor beast nor +devil, in the first place, and because the night produced all three, in +the second. +</P> + +<P> +He got man in the form of the smell of meat—well-seasoned meat, even for +Africa!—what time he was testing a native village, by scent and on the +downwind side of him—and that showed his pluck, my word!—for honey or +fowl. He detected neither out of the few dozen unspeakable stenches, but +struck meat, and following it up-wind, arrived at a piece—a good big +piece—on the ground among grass. +</P> + +<P> +A civet cat—who is more civet than cat, by the way—a small spotted +genet—who looked like an exaggerated ferret in the uncertain gloom—and +the inevitable black-backed jackal—who must not be confused with him of +the side-stripes—faded out at his approach like steam in a dry +atmosphere. He might have felt proud of this silent respect, if it were +not a fact that these gentry, these village frontier haunters, scenting +danger, thought it a fine "kink" to let the brave one test it first. +</P> + +<P> +And he did. +</P> + +<P> +To be exact, that ratel touched off the tooth-jawed trap that was the +reason for that free meal of high and valuable meat in that place, and +when he jumped he didn't get anywhere. Also, it hurt his leg abominably. +</P> + +<P> +Then the others reincarnated themselves out of the shadows—especially +the jackal, who shouted "Yaaaa-ya-ya-ya!" and called a friend—and waited +for things to happen. They were confident things would happen, for +Africa is not a good place wherein to get caught in a trap—<I>there is too +much likelihood of being mistaken for the bait</I>! +</P> + +<P> +But they might as well have seen a thunder "portent" captured by the tail +as this ratel by the leg; for, instead of instantly and foolishly +abandoning himself to the frenzy of unthinkable fear—the fear of being +trapped is the greatest of all to a free, wild thing—as practically all +others would have done, he said nothing at all; he failed to lose his +head; and, to crown all, he instantly, coolly, slowly, viciously, and +doggedly set himself to struggle, with a grim persistence that was +amazing. And, moreover, from that instant he never left off. +</P> + +<P> +A striped hyena, seemingly in lifelong terror of his own shadow, turned +up by magic—or perhaps he heard the snap of the trap. Seven times he +bolted, for no earthly reason that one could see, before finally gaining +courage to snap at the ratel at the very end of his reach. It was the +kind of snap that would take half a man's face away, and not nice to meet +when you are trapped. The ratel, however, came calmly at the hyena, trap +and all, and so nearly got his own trap-jaws locked home on the unclean +one that the hyena was glad to go away. +</P> + +<P> +In the end, thanks to the amazing toughness of his skin, and its +looseness, the ratel managed to, as it were, slide the bone of his leg +between the jaws of the trap, leaving the skin and fur in, and the rest +was mainly determined tugging and strong fang-work. +</P> + +<P> +Then he coolly ate the real bait, and—the onlookers remembered +appointments elsewhere. None of them, it seemed, was tickled to meet the +ratel when he had finished. He was sure to be crusty; and, anyway, he +had bitterly disappointed them all—he had achieved the apparently +impossible, and, worst part of the lot, was not dead. +</P> + +<P> +Now, a ratel will do almost as much for honey as a bear for pork, a +leopard for little "bow-wows," or a man for diamonds. This will explain +why he was foolish enough to follow, some hours later, the trail of some +natives who had been out collecting honey from a camp the day before; or +perhaps he knew nothing about the honey till, not too scientifically, he +got into the camp. Anyway, the honey was very good. +</P> + +<P> +There are, however, from a wilding's point of view, camps and camps. +Most of the inhabitants of the wild, including the lion, who are not born +with a pluck considerably above proof, can discriminate the difference. +The ratel either could not or would not. +</P> + +<P> +Then the knowledge was driven home. Driven home in the shape of a big, +loose-limbed, deep-jowled brute of a dog, as unlike the ordinary native +curs as it well could be. It did not come silently, or suddenly, for it +growled full warning in a terrible bass; but the ratel showed contempt, +and teeth that glistened beautifully in the red light of the dying fire +the sleeping sentry ought to have seen to, but had not. Moreover, it did +not come alone, for the camp was a white hunter's camp. The dog gave a +thunderous baying rally-call, and almost before that sentry had leapt to +his feet, the ratel vanished tumultuously and suddenly from the public +gaze, under a perfect cloud of dogs. He was, ere any one knew what the +riot might be, literally smothered under dogs—dogs, too, most of 'em who +held up the deadly leopard, and hounded the tyrannical lion, habitually +and for a pastime, mark you. +</P> + +<P> +Then his devil prompted one of the black sentries to rush up and fire his +rifle. Probably he did not know what was under those dogs; certainly he +thought it would keep there. In any case, he nearly killed a dog, and +the cause of the trouble did not keep there. He came out, miraculously +alive, still more miraculously cool and unhurried. He broke away from +the dogs as if they were little puppies, and, still quite coolly and +slowly, he charged that man. +</P> + +<P> +The yell that followed could have been heard quite a long distance +through the cloaked night. And, in truth, one cannot wonder, for you may +take it from me that the jaws of a ratel fast home on the calf of your +leg, as our ratel's jaws were on that native's leg, form something to +remember in dreams. +</P> + +<P> +But it was that very native who saved our ratel's life, all the same; for +his gymnastic display during the few seconds that followed was so +energetic that the pink pyjamas and a revolver, that represented the +white hunter fresh from sleep, had no chance at all of doing any damage +except to the dancing native—which they nearly did; and the dogs, once +more piling themselves on to the ratel, broke his hold, and the whole +fight rolled and raged away into the darkness and the thorn-scrub, out of +sight. +</P> + +<P> +Later, one by one, those dogs came back, dead-beat most of them, with +tongues lolling and sides pumping. Some limped, and some turned away +every few yards feverishly to lick a wound. All were blood-stained, but +not a drop of it—not one drop—belonged to friend ratel. He, that +superb warrior, was at that moment trotting along, quite unconcernedly, +through the bush about a quarter of a mile away. There was blood upon +him, too—not his, the dogs'—and no other mark; and though he was pretty +sore and sick from internal bruising, his skin, his wonderful loose skin, +was whole, and unpierced by a single fang. He had, however, the decency +to go home and fling himself into a stupor-like sleep, just to prove that +he was a real, live beast of this earth, and not merely a phantom from +other worlds. +</P> + +<P> +The next afternoon was closing in dull and cloudy, and there were signs +of a dark and bad night to come—just the sort of day wild hunters come +out early in. This was why the grunt sounded then that heralded the +appearance of our ratel above-ground, and he himself appeared, emerging +at his very own slow trot from his hole. For a moment he paused, looking +round, with his funny, "earless," flat head in the air, as if he +expected, or listened for, the honey-guide; but the honeyguide was half a +mile away, leading some natives—who, by the way, were endeavoring to +copy the crooning, whistling replies of a ratel—to honey. +</P> + +<P> +No honey-guide? Then he must go and search for himself. And he did, +returning, in fifty minutes, for his wife, who, now much recovered—as +only a ratel can recover from the very jaws of death—followed him with +her young to the hole he had torn in a rotten tree-trunk where the bees +were nesting. +</P> + +<P> +They had proceeded perhaps three hundred yards, when, turning a bush +carelessly, as no other creature would dare to do, the ratel fell almost +on to the back of the bull-gnu. +</P> + +<P> +There is no need to be surprised that they should meet. The wild is not +an aimless mix-up in that way. Each creature has its beat, temporarily +or permanently, nor seeks to deviate. You may look for the same herd of +antelope, feeding near the same place, about the same hour each day; the +same lion stumping the same beat, as regular as a policeman, most nights; +the same hyena uttering horrible nothings within hearing of the same +hills, any time after the setting of each sun, just as surely as the same +cock-robin asks you for crumbs, the same blackbird awakens you with +inimitable fluting, and the same black cat seeks for both in the same +vicinity each dusk. +</P> + +<P> +The surprise was in what followed. Perhaps the bull-gnu kicked our ratel +badly as he lurched to his feet, jerked from half-sleep into violent +collision with he knew not what. Perhaps the ratel had a memory. +Perhaps the presence of his family weighed with him. Whatever the cause, +the result was decided enough. He reared and hit deep, and fixed home a +very living vise, where he bit. +</P> + +<P> +Then things happened, but that which immediately followed was not a +fight; it was not even a spar. The ratel never moved, although he was +moved—astoundingly. The gnu bull did the moving, and produced the most +amazing bit of violent activity one could dream of. It was quite +indescribable. A buck-jumping mustang of the most hustling kind would +have been as a gentle lamb to it. The ground all about looked as if +herds had jumped upon it—bushes, grass, flowers, and all were trampled +down flat. But it did not do what it was designed to do—it did not +break the ratel's hold. Bruised, assuredly, shaken so that he ought to +have fallen to hits, dizzy and blind, he did not let go, and in the +position he held he could not be hammered off. He just glued where he +was, saying nothing at all, till the end—till that grand old bull sank +and was still, exhausted, by loss of blood, and with one great hopeless +sigh his life departed from him, and he died. +</P> + +<P> +The ratel did not leave go for some little time. He seemed to suspect +that the gnu bull was bluffing, or perhaps he was himself half-stunned. +</P> + +<P> +It was the sudden and peculiar growling hiss from his wife—sounding all +a-magnified in that wilderness silence after the battle—that made him +look up, at her first, and then almost instantly at <I>something else</I>. +His wife was backing slowly towards the "bush," every hair on her body +sticking straight out at right angles, her eyes fixed strangely upon that +something else. His young had taken to cover, not, it seemed, too +readily, but by their parent's order. +</P> + +<P> +A lion was standing, still as a carved beast, at the far end of that +little clearing—<I>he</I> was the something else. Goodness and his kingly +self alone knew how long he had been there, that great, heavy-jowled, +deep-bellied, haughty-eyed brute. He may have been present from the +first, or the middle, or only at that moment. Being a lion, he was just +there, suddenly, without any visible effect of having got there, a +presence of dread, created apparently out of thin air at the moment, in +that spot, and with less sound than a blown leaf. +</P> + +<P> +This power of being, without seeming to come, of evolving from nowhere, +is one of the lion's most highly perfected tricks; for King Leo believes +in all the ritual of his craft, and is great on effects, even down to the +minor details. Power, grim and terrible, he has, without shadow of +doubt; but he never forgets to impress that fact—and more—upon the +world, and every action is carefully studied to advertise, not himself, +but his "frightfulness." A very fine play-actor is the king of all the +beasts. +</P> + +<P> +But the ratel did not move. He had met his Napoleon, and was not—so far +as the watcher could see—afraid. +</P> + +<P> +Motionless, scowling, with head down, and shrewd, proud eyes smoldering, +the lion stood there like an apparition of doom. He was, I fully +suspect, letting the effect sink in deliberately. He knew his game. +Also, he had a reason. Surely a great poker-player was lost in the lion. +</P> + +<P> +But the little ratel met that regal stare squarely and unmoved. He whose +proud boast it was that he feared nothing that walked or crawled, or swam +or flew, could not be frightened now. And he who came to terrify was +perhaps all but ten feet long, and he whom he sought to terrify was +barely three feet. It was a comparison to make you gasp. +</P> + +<P> +Now, that lion did not want the ratel at all, or his wife, or his family, +or anything that was his. He wanted the gnu, and would be very pleased +if the ratel would go away and leave it to him. +</P> + +<P> +The ratel, moreover, did not want the gnu, being an eater of honey, +locusts, and generally badger-like fare for the most part; and if the +lion had only had the sense to wait a few minutes longer behind the +scenes, the ratel would have gone away and left the gnu. But he would +not be driven; <I>that</I> was the rub. Attacking nobody unprovoked, he was a +grim beast to attack, and gave way before none. Hence the trouble. +</P> + +<P> +Finding that the bluff of the impressive tableau did not work, the lion +tried a fresh one. Still staring at the ratel, he sank his head to the +ground, so that his great mane hung to the earth all about him. His +forelegs and his shoulders crouched, but his hindlegs and his back were +held at their highest, and his tail began to lash behind. Then he began +to growl tremendously and nerve-shatteringly, and as he did so he curled +his upper lips up and back, till the whole ghastly array of his teeth was +laid bare to view. In this position he looked like a gigantic grinning +mask, with blind eye-sockets where the wrinkles were on the sloping +forehead, his eyes nearly invisible below, and a tail lashing far up +atop. It was a horrible sight, and one calculated to stampede the +pluckiest animal. +</P> + +<P> +It was, of course, also a deliberate piece of mesmeric bluff, the reason +for which was not made clear till one noticed, what the ratel probably +could not, that the great leonine tusks, the terrible fangs, were yellow +and worn, as were the rest of the teeth. This was an old lion, a king on +a throne already tottering, a monarch of yesterday. +</P> + +<P> +That lion, however, might have turned into Satan himself, for all the +ratel cared. He was threatened, attacked, bullied, forced. His blood +was up, and had not all who ever fought him allowed that he was the +pluckiest beast on earth? Enough! Come lion! come devil! he would give +ground to none. +</P> + +<A NAME="img-296"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-296.jpg" ALT=""All allowed that he was the pluckiest beast on earth"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="440" HEIGHT="657"> +<H4> +[Illustration: "All allowed that he was the pluckiest beast on earth"] +</H4> +</CENTER> + +<P> +Lions are not too patient. Also, they have fine spirit of their own. +They are among the very few beasts who will hunt and attack animals as +strong as, or stronger than, themselves. And this lion's patience +snapped suddenly. All at once he seemed to remember that he was still a +king, though a king already within the shadow of abdication. The +terrible bass rumble of his growl grew, and changed tone; his tail lashed +faster and faster; and then, all suddenly heralded by a couple of wicked, +rasping, coughing grunts, he—charged. +</P> + +<P> +The ratel moved to meet him—to meet him—and at a cool jog-trot! +</P> + +<P> +What happened then was hard to follow. It looked as if the worn fangs of +the lion failed to make his hold on the wonderful, leathern, loose armor +of the little honey-badger, and that he bungled the stroke of his +terrible paw. Be that as it may, the honey-badger certainly went +straight in, right under the lion's guard, right under the lion, and +rearing, he bit home, and hung like a living spanner. +</P> + +<P> +And here, perhaps, it is best to draw a curtain. For one reason, I +cannot describe it, and frankly confess the fact. For several other +reasons, it is best not to try. The ratel died in about ten minutes, +crushed, battered, smashed to death; but the chaos lasted longer than +that, because, even after death, he was not done with—the passing of +life had locked his amazing jaws shut forever, and <I>they were shut on the +lion</I>. +</P> + +<P> +The end found the little ratel lying crumpled up and crimson on the +trampled grass, and the lion running about like some great injured dog, +squatting down every few seconds to lick furiously at his wound. Fear +was in the eyes of the king of beasts, for the first, probably, and +certainly for the last, time in his life, and his blood reddened the +grass wherever he made his way; but the internal hemorrhage was the worst. +</P> + +<P> +Then the vultures came, and that, my friends, is a signal for us humans +to go. The vultures get the last word always, even in a story, and the +name of that word is—FINIS. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap18"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XVIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE DAY +</H3> + + +<P> +Now, if you wore a helmet and neck armor of purple, green, and blue in +metallic reflections, with scarlet cheek and eye pieces, if your +uniform were of purple, brown, yellow, orange-red, green, and black, +"either positive or reflected," with a long, rakish, dashing +rapier-scabbard cocked jauntily out behind, wouldn't <I>you</I> feel proud? +So did he; pride and the "grand air" were written all over him. True, +though, the rapier-scabbard was not a rapier-scabbard exactly—only a +tail; but it looked like one, in a way. His full title was <I>Phasianus +colchicus</I>, but ordinary people called him just plain pheasant for +short. +</P> + +<P> +You would have thought, after all this, that even in the first pale +light of a cold dawn he would have been easy to see. As a matter of +fact, Gaiters, the head gamekeeper, one of his underlings, three dogs, +and a gun passed right under his bed without seeing him. Rather, they +may have unconsciously seen him, and put him down as a bundle of dead +twigs and leaves caught up in a branch. This is not very +complimentary, perhaps, to a gentleman attired in a gorgeous uniform as +heretofore set out, but true; and lucky for him, too, to have at once a +uniform of unquestioned splendor and one which would melt into its +surroundings. +</P> + +<P> +They, the men, did not see him; but he, the old cock-pheasant, saw them +right enough. He opened one eye, and stared at them through that. +Then he opened the other eye, and stared at them through that. Neither +stare seemed to please him. +</P> + +<P> +It was not Gaiters's way to march through the wood at that hour in the +morning. What meant this unseemly disturbance of <I>Phasianus's</I> domain? +His suspicions, never long at rest, woke up. Moreover, somewhere at +the back of his brain rose a memory, a little, tiny speck of a memory, +which grew. +</P> + +<P> +Then he stood right up. +</P> + +<P> +Everywhere, here and there, in the gray cloak of the dawn-mist, he +could hear the sharp "Chawk-chawk!" and the quick, flustered whir as +pheasant after pheasant came down from its roosting-perch to clean and +breakfast. But his suspicions held him for a few minutes longer, +stretching his neck and peering about at the still-shrouded mystery of +the ground below; and it was as well, perhaps. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly his head was still; a spray of a brier-bush was swaying +gently. There was nothing in that, of course, if there had been any +breath of wind to move it; but there wasn't. Wherefore our gallant +friend did not come down to preen and breakfast like the rest, but sat +motionless as a statue, while the sun rose and touched him to a winking +golden and bronze wonder, and the mists began to be torn asunder. He +wanted to know what moved that brier-branch, and he wasn't taking +chances till he did. +</P> + +<P> +Day came on apace, and all the night hunters who had remained so late +had already hurried off to bed save one. <I>He</I> appeared, evidently +empty, certainly very angry indeed at having waited for a cock-pheasant +who refused to do what he was supposed to do and come down to +breakfast. Out of the brier-bush he came, a lean dog-fox, snarling +horribly up at the pheasant, who calmly returned the gaze, conscious of +his safety, of course, and said "Chuck it!" in a loud, harsh voice, and +quite distinctly, twice. +</P> + +<P> +The fox, knowing it was no good to wait any longer in the daylight, +went, like a floating red shadow. The pheasant watched him go, but did +not move for some time. Foxes had been known to come back again more +suddenly than they went. +</P> + +<P> +At last he flew to the earth, but even then he did so as silently as +his noisy wings would let him; and he did not announce the fact with a +half-crow, as the others had done. Very circumspectly he slipped off +through the undergrowth, by a series of little crouching runs, stopping +every now and then to freeze and listen. +</P> + +<P> +Soon he came to one of those open, beautiful, grass-covered "rides" +with which keepers intersect pheasant-coverts. He stopped dead on the +edge of it, himself invisible among the drooping, leaning, old-gold +bracken. The "ride" was full of wood-people, for here had been +scattered that corn which Gaiters intended the pheasants to feed upon. +Indeed, there were about ten pheasants, hens and young cocks of the +year, doing exactly what they were intended to do. Also, there were +some half-dozen softly-tinged, blue-gray wood-pigeons, and one cheeky +jay—whose wing-patches rivaled the perfection of the blue sky +above—doing their best in a quiet sort of way to help the pheasants, +which they were not intended to do, by any manner of means. +</P> + +<P> +The old cock-pheasant slid across the "ride" after a bit, low as a +crouching rat. He had no business there this day. His mind was still +alert with suspicion. Moreover, his father had been a cunning old cock +who had managed, by ways that were dark, to keep out of the game-bag +for years, too. The taint, as Gaiters would have called it, had been +passed on to him. +</P> + +<P> +He made for the open edge of the covert, and he was mighty careful +about doing that even. He felt that air and plenty of horizon were +necessary to his well-being, after the disturbing vision of Gaiters and +Co., so unnaturally busy, hurrying through the dawn. +</P> + +<P> +Now, it is quite remarkable how much you can see from the edge of a +pheasant-covert without being seen yourself. Keepers know that, but do +not give the fact away. The ground sloped away in two open grass +fields, a hedge dividing them, and it was within about the longitude +and the latitude of where that hedge met the covert that our old friend +maneuvered. +</P> + +<P> +The climate about there seemed to suit him admirably. True, good food +was not strewn in plenty just where he could most easily see it. He +had to look for his acorns or his beechmast by the good old +domestic-fowl plan of scratching among the leaves; roots also he was +forced to scratch for; and the noisy mistle-thrushes with the tempers +of Eblis had to be driven off the berries he would look after in the +ditch. +</P> + +<P> +Also, there was a stoat. That stoat, however, tackled him just once. +In the process it discovered (<I>a</I>) that he wore spurs not meant to be +ornaments, and (<I>b</I>) that no one could teach him much about using those +same spurs. The stoat, plus a new carmine decoration for gallantry, +remembered an urgent appointment down a rat-hole, and kept it. Perhaps +it was a young stoat, and had not learnt that there are at least four +degrees of cock-pheasant, namely, young and brainless, adult and brave, +old and brave and cunning, and old and decrepit; but the last stage is +a rare bird. There is nothing of any use to the stoat in the second +and third degrees of cock-pheasant—no health to the stoat, you +understand. +</P> + +<P> +The dawning of the morning had passed by now in gold and crimson and +purple splendor; the mist-curtain had been drawn back by the fingers of +the wind, the utter darkness upon everything at ground-level had begun +to give way before the sun, and to leeward of most trees and bushes +there was a balmy luxuriance of golden light that held one lingering. +</P> + +<P> +Gnats were dancing under the low-hung boughs in still corners, as they +will dance on the coldest day; song-thrushes were beginning to take +life for one more day, and tack hither and yon, as if they were busy +pegging the field down with an invisible "cats' cradle"; and the black +rooks, shining like burnished steel shields, flashed and flashed again +as they began to gather beneath the trees, where the ground thawed most +and first. Though they alone seemed to have discovered it, the pigeons +very quickly found that the rooks had hit something good, and you can +bet one jay, at any rate, must be there, to make profit out of somebody. +</P> + +<P> +It was the jester of a jay, whom, in spite of his painted plumage, no +one seemed to have noticed, that first gave the alarm that carried the +cock-pheasant's suspicious temperament a step farther upon the path of +independent action. Up till then you will note that, though he had +left the vicinity of his own people, he had not yet left the realm that +was peculiarly their own—the woods. +</P> + +<P> +"W-a—r-k, w-a-a-r-k!" gasped out the jay suddenly, and fled, a +half-seen vision of pinkish, of black and white, upon uncertain, almost +fluttering, wings. +</P> + +<P> +It was like striking a gong. Instantly all motion was suspended, and +dotted thrushes, clustered rooks, and deprecating pigeons remained at +rigid attention. The old cock-pheasant, too, erect as an armored +warrior, unseen just within the covert, stood promptly at gaze. +</P> + +<P> +Then, in no more time than one would take to inhale one puff from a +cigarette, the fields were empty—stark, cold, and deserted in the eye +of the morning sun. The birds had not so much gone, exactly, as simply +faded out—dissolved, as a picture may at a cinema-show. The +cock-pheasant did not go. He was in cover, and had a good view, a +strategic position of some moment. +</P> + +<P> +Followed a pause. Then a man in tweeds entered one of the fields by +the gate. Followed him two more, then a fourth, then two not in +tweeds, then dogs, black and big, to the number of three, not to +mention the bar-like gleam given off by the barrels of the guns that +the first four carried. The whole procession passed silently, as they +thought—but to the waiting, watching, wild-folk unpardonably +noisily—diagonally across the field, and out of sight round a bend of +the wood. They had an air about them. I don't know what it was +exactly, but you could feel they were going to do something serious +that had not been done there for a long time. Perhaps the old +cock-pheasant felt it too, but—well, there now! Where had the old +"varmint" gone? +</P> + +<P> +Half-way down the hedge, very low and long, the cock-pheasant was +sneaking. He seemed suddenly anxious to mind his own business, and +that everybody else should mind theirs. He was going away from the +wood, which the books tell us is the realm, the sanctuary, the all, to +a pheasant, and he had no desire to answer questions by the way. For +this reason, then, and a few others, he felt no special delight in +sighting, about two hundred yards farther on—at a place where two +stacks surrounded by rails stood and sheltered a fowlhouse—a baker's +dozen of fowls sunning themselves on the hedge-bank. He held for fowls +all the wild creatures' contempt for the tame or domestic. All the +same, he saw no health in risking the open just then, and would not +turn back, so there was nothing for it but the fowls. +</P> + +<P> +Low as low he crouched, and ran very quickly, and hoped for the best; +and there is no bird that can wish itself out of sight in this fashion +better than friend pheasant. But he forgot the odd cockerel out. He +shot right on to the wretched thing—a gawky red youth—messing about +all alone in a nettle-clump, and it dashed into the field, racing on +long yellow legs, and squawking fit to wake the dead. +</P> + +<P> +Down clapped the pheasant as if the noise had pierced his heart, and +remained stiller than the crawling roots around him, and not half so +easy to see. But it was no good. Up shot the dozen heads above the +herbage, and two dozen vacuous eyes regarded his vicinity with +empty-headed inquisitiveness. +</P> + +<P> +He almost melted into the ground, but it was useless. An old, old +hen—who perhaps was ignored by the lord of the harem, and hoped for an +adventure—waddled up, stood within a yard of his crouched, rounded +shape without seeing him, saw him, shot straight up in the air at least +one foot, screaming for help, and promptly charged blindly into the +hedge, where she as promptly got held up among roots and twigs. +</P> + +<P> +The old pheasant got to his feet just as the rooster who owned the +outfit came racing up, panting and red. He had heard a wife scream for +help. Perhaps it was the odd bird out; or, anyway, some one who had to +be abolished. And he never waited to think. He saw what might have +been a small cockerel (if it had been large he might have thought +twice) crouching, and—he just sailed right in. +</P> + +<P> +Then something happened. The two met, going up breast to breast. For +a moment or two the cock-pheasant showed on or about that big rooster. +Some feathers hung in the air. The rooster sat on his heels, met by a +blow in the chest that seemed to take all the wind from his sails, so +to speak, and would have drawn off to reconsider things if he had not +promptly become more busy than ever before in his life. +</P> + +<P> +It was over ere any one knew quite what was happening. The old +cock-pheasant had passed through the crowd and vanished at the double +down the hedge, and the big rooster was slowly subsiding into a pool of +his own blood, from which he was destined never to rise again. +</P> + +<P> +But those who make, instead of following, their own destiny do not get +let off thus lightly in the wild. The pheasant had not gone a hundred +yards, when a most intolerable blast, an almost unbearable blast, of +shrill, nerve-racking noise throbbed through his head. The bird fell +in his tracks where he ran, as if some one had jerked his legs from +under him, and he peered out. +</P> + +<P> +What he beheld was an under-keeper standing close by and blowing upon a +two-note pea-whistle till there seemed some danger that he would burst +his cheeks, or a blood-vessel, on the spot, and far up the field three +wandering pheasants racing back to the covert, as they thought, for +very life; but, as a matter of fact—and you shall see—it was to very +death. The blower of whistles was stationed there to drive back into +the covert any pheasants who were so misguided as to wish to roam +thence into the fields and away. +</P> + +<P> +Now, that old reprobate of a pheasant of ours was a pretty confirmed +runner, anyway. He had trained himself to it. Yet never in all his +checkered life was he conscious of a more awful desire to flee by means +of the wings that God had given him. The weakness was over in a few +seconds, and he crept on; but it was a near thing while it lasted. He +passed, however, away from the danger zone, resisting temptation, and +it was as well. +</P> + +<P> +As he went there burst forth, at the opposite end of the big covert to +that at which he had come out, a sudden, quick shot. It echoed away +and away back among the woods, clattering and banging like great doors +shutting. The old cock-pheasant stopped to listen; he cocked his green +head on one side; he stood with one foot daintily uplifted: and in the +same instant there burst upon the air a rending, crashing succession of +shots, worse than ragged volley-firing, which almost made him jump. It +had begun—the big shoot over <I>his</I> covert, the largest, the best, the +richest in pheasants, which had been saved for this—"the day" had +begun. When it ended very few pheasants would be left alive, for word +had gone forth that it was to be thinned down, almost shot out, and +that not a cock must escape. +</P> + +<P> +He, our own cock-pheasant, might have chuckled—as a cock-pheasant can, +and will, very low and softly to himself, if you are close enough to +hear him—if something had not very suddenly and very mysteriously said +"phtt!" just like that, close beside him. The old bird's head snicked +round, right round, almost hindpart before; but he made no other +movement. The sound was new to him, and of a strangely sinister +import. Also, there was a little splayed hole in the ground, as if a +walking-stick had been poked in there, close beside him, which had not +been there before. +</P> + +<P> +He was still staring when something, singing a little, high-pitched +song in a minor key to itself, came romping through the silent air, +and, with an oddly emphasized and emphatic "phtt!" landed between his +feet. It bored a hole just like the first thing, and it spat dirt up +into his face. +</P> + +<P> +The third mystery thing clipped three feathers from his back as he ran, +bolted for dear life, crouching low—even then he would not rise—for +the hedge. He got there alive, if not quite whole; while a fourth +nameless object cut twigs off above him. Then he kept on running, +always hugging the hedges, till he was two fields away. He was upset +and overstrained, for Fate had given him plenty of deaths to circumvent +as it was, in the ordinary course of business, and this addition was a +bit too much. +</P> + +<P> +There are other forms of shooting pheasants than the orthodox one, +which begins with smoking a cigarette on a comfortable shooting-seat, +and ends with a wild and furious fusillade, using three guns as fast as +you can. So thought the farmer's son, who took the chance to test his +new American .22-bore repeating-rifle, now that all the keepers were +well out of the way. And he had come mighty close to bagging the old +cock-bird, too. "As near as made no odds," he said, which was true, +but only the old bird himself knew quite the closeness of the call. +</P> + +<P> +In the far field the bronze king of the woods found peace for a bit. +The stunning reports in the covert not far away, and the thought that +his companions of yesterday, his lady-loves of last spring, were even +then being butchered by the hundred, made no difference to his +digestion. He fed on with that imperturbability that must have come to +him straight through his ancestors from the East—Kismet! It was +sufficient. +</P> + +<P> +He ought, of course, to have been in the covert. He was, however, +here—knowingly here, cunningly here, safely—No, by Jove! Not that, +by any means. +</P> + +<P> +A head, clean and neat and sharp, had poked out of the long, pale grass +at the edge of the hedge-ditch, and stared at him. He couldn't very +well miss seeing it because of the unforgettable brightness of its +beady eyes, and the absolutely spotless purity of its white +shirt-front. Besides, he knew the owner—and its reputation. +</P> + +<P> +He was helping the farmer to clear an oat-stubble of charlock-seeds at +the moment, and bending down. That is to say, he was doing inestimable +good, for which he got no credit. The next moment, and the next, and +for many more, he was still bending down. In fact, from the instant he +got sight of that head, it was as if a Hand had come down and turned +him by magic into a big model of a bird cast in bronze. All life in +him appeared to have dried up and fled. He looked as if you could have +picked him up and put him upon a bracket in your drawing-room without +his ever moving again. But that was only because of the head he had +seen—and its reputation. Moreover, the head was not alone. At least, +it had multiplied itself half-a-dozen times in less than half-a-dozen +seconds, and even a stoat, which the head belonged to, cannot be in two +places at once—though for sheer quickness of movement it, and far more +its cousin the weasel, comes very near to it. +</P> + +<P> +Just at this moment it seemed that about the roost unhealthful thing he +could do would be to be seen in the air. Wherefore did this innocent +and guileless old bird affect not to see the stoats, but made out that +he was feeding his way along, quite and absolutely intent upon that +yellow devil of a weed whose other name is charlock. He did not even +hurry, and each deliberate step was taken with almost a proud +daintiness. The only thing was, he never lifted his head; he was +almost too obviously unwary—for him. And he gave the impression that +every step would be his last out into the field; that he was always +going to turn back next instant or the next, as he had done before when +the stoats were not there. +</P> + +<P> +On and on he kept till he had crossed the field, going faster and +faster, till he ended at the far hedge with a run. And there, so far +as he was concerned, was an end of the stoats. He put them aside. He +forgot all about them. +</P> + +<P> +They, however, had not forgotten about him. +</P> + +<P> +It was half-an-hour later, and he was patiently gleaning such food as +the rooks and the sparrows and the larks had left behind them, when +something, he could not tell what, caused him to straighten up, with +that beautiful, proud bearing that seems part of the pheasant's +heritage from the gorgeous East. +</P> + +<P> +And he was only just in time. +</P> + +<P> +The stoat that had come up behind him, unseen, turned on its heels as +it charged, changing its mind at the last moment, as if it saw he saw, +and was gone again before you could click a finger, diving superbly +back into long grass. +</P> + +<P> +They were following him, then, those little hounds of death; tracking +him; running him down. And why? He did not know, perhaps, yet—maybe +he did. Blood is a dangerous thing to have on you in the wild—a +flaming signal of distress for eye and nose to detect—and they are not +often rescuers who hurry to the scene. He had blood on his back, that +cock-pheasant, and just every now and then a single bright drop fell by +the way. The .22-bore bullet had only grazed him. 'Twas nothing—but +it bled more than you would expect. And that explained it. The +tracking stoats thought he was wounded. +</P> + +<P> +But even then the old cock-pheasant would not rise. +</P> + +<P> +The firing in the covert had risen suddenly to a fierce crescendo, +breaking out afresh from another quarter. Here, however, was +silence—the absolute, deadly silence in which all the weasel tribe +hunt. But they were there, though he could not see them. He knew +that, invisible even in the sunlight—they were closing in, tracking +him fast, those stoats. +</P> + +<P> +Then he ran. He ran not so much for his life, but for the right to +keep on the ground. If the worst came to the worst, he could always +fly; but he would do anything rather than that. +</P> + +<P> +He turned and ran away from the woods—raced like a fowl, but quicker, +lower, much harder to see. A sudden gleam of bright-chestnut fur dead +ahead, however, stopped him, and he turned back, keeping always to the +hedge—towards the covert. He could hear no sound around him, only the +burst and the bang of the guns in the woods, and he might have been +alone; but directly he came to another hedge, and swung down to it at +right angles, a furry tail with a paint-brush tip, vanishing round a +holly-stem, fetching him up all standing. They were there, too, those +stoats. He seemed to be surrounded on all sides save one, and that the +one towards the woods. So he swung back into his original path. +</P> + +<P> +Then, very soon, as he ran up the hedge-ditch, it seemed to him as if +the dead leaves collected there were beginning to whisper behind him. +But there was no wind to move them. Moreover, it grew closer, till it +seemed at his very tail, that whisper of dead leaves. +</P> + +<P> +Then, in a flash, he had stopped, spun about like a top, and struck +with his spurs twice—whack, whack—more than instantly, and a long, +low, brown body—close behind him, that had risen as he turned, so that +its spotlessly clean shirt-front offered him a fine mark, went over +sideways—with a grunt and all the wind knocked out of it, as well as +an inch-and-a-half gash to remember friend pheasant by. That was one +stoat; but it was not alone. He had a vision of chestnut forms sliding +and rippling in and out of the shadows and the long copper gleams of +the westering sun. +</P> + +<P> +As he turned again, and the whispering began once more behind, the +firing in front broke out afresh, and much nearer. Still he would not +rise, however. It was this fact, probably, which kept the stoat-pack +at his heels. They seemed convinced that he was badly wounded and +unable to fly. +</P> + +<P> +Then came the road. He was on it before he knew. There was the +wedge-shaped, low-browed head of a stoat racing up along one side of +him, with murder plainly written in the gleam of its beady eyes; there +was the hot breath of another beating on his opposite flank; there was +one with feet out and all brakes on, trying its best to pull out one of +the feathers of his long and beautiful tail; and—there was the road +dead ahead. +</P> + +<P> +It was one of three—the road, the air, or death where he was. He +chose the road, and crossed, like a hunted cat crossing a back-yard. +His feet seemed scarcely to touch the dust as he negotiated the open, +yet he had time to take in a fact or two. One was that the stoats had +stopped—a little bunch of peering heads on a group of craning necks on +the edge of the ditch behind him. Another was that several people and +a motor-car were standing still in the road quite close, watching the +shooting. I don't think any of them saw him, but he felt as if all of +them did. +</P> + +<P> +Arrived in the hedge on the far side of the road, he clapped down, +panting. The hedge ran along the road. On the other side of it was +the grass of the park-land, stretching away two hundred yards or so to +the edge of the covert, which came down to a point here. He could hear +the tapping of sticks in the covert—beaters' sticks. He could hear an +occasional shout. Men in tweeds stood motionless on the edge of the +covert, and suddenly moved. +</P> + +<P> +Then came the infernal crash of the guns again, and he saw a +hen-pheasant pitch sickeningly on her head from a height, and a +cock-pheasant, flaming like a rocket in the sinking sun, run the +gauntlet of four shots, only to turn over and slide down at a fifth. +</P> + +<P> +Then—and then, he jumped. +</P> + +<P> +Something had pushed past him. In the din he had not heard it. He +turned as he crouched, and saw that it was a hen-pheasant, with blood +on her breast and one wing trailing alongside. And in the same instant +he was aware of a man—an under-keeper—crackling about in the hedge +only ten yards away, looking for that hen-pheasant. +</P> + +<P> +And the unwounded old cock, crouching almost till he looked like a +tortoise, followed the blundering, staggering, wounded hen. It was the +only thing he dared do. +</P> + +<P> +It was a strange creep, and an erratic one, with many stops, those two +hunted ones took together, meeting, so strangely, too—not for the +first time, since she had been one of his wives in the dim peaceful +past—with the guns thundering away so close, and their sons and their +daughters being slain almost all around them. They had, however, +little time to think about it, for they came, after about twenty yards, +to a gap spanned by barbed wire, and they stopped, the cock about a +foot behind the hen's tail, in cover scarcely enough to hide them. +</P> + +<P> +But that was not all. Two men in fawn overcoats stood in the road by +the gap, looking through it at the shooting; and a boy with a bicycle +stood close to them, interested in the same thing. +</P> + +<P> +It was the boy with the bicycle that did it; or, rather, it was the +unhappy hen-pheasant that made him. She, being <I>in extremis</I>, had made +some noise among the stiff dead leaves. It was not much of a noise, +but it caught the boy's young ear, and he bent forward to peer at the +hedge. +</P> + +<P> +One of the men saw him, said something, to which the boy nodded, jumped +down into the ditch, and thrusting in a long arm, began to feel with a +purposeful hand. The hen-pheasant, whose nerves were already shattered +to little pieces, struggled to get out of reach, and in a second had +given the whole show away. +</P> + +<P> +But I like to think of what our cunning old cock-pheasant did then. He +did nothing—absolutely nothing at all. Crouching as flat as an +overturned saucer, just, behind the hen-pheasant's tail, he remained +stiller than a bunch of dead leaves, and far more silent. And this, +mark you, when the hen-pheasant was pulled out, frantically fluttering +and helpless, and there and then had her neck wrung in front of his +very eyes. That, my masters, needed a nerve, after all that he had +gone through. What? +</P> + +<P> +The two men, seeming to think that they had got enough for one quiet +walk, departed, not quickly, but without unnecessary delay. The man +who had been looking for the hen-pheasant, and had seen nothing of what +took place at the gap, gave it up, and went away over the grass to the +shooters. The shooting ended with one last double shot, at one last +old cock-pheasant driven reluctantly from the last hush of the covert; +the dogs were out, galloping all over the ground for the wounded and +the slain; the watchers in the road departed; the shooters gradually +merged into groups, and drew farther and farther away up the park; and +the boy, who was shy, mounted his bicycle and rode off into the sad +blue-gray of the gathering dusk. +</P> + +<P> +The big day was over, and the old cock-pheasant was alone with the +melancholy song of a single robin, and a chaffinch calling "Chink!" +And the cold breath of the sunset wind, shuddering and sighing all to +itself across the face of the empty scene, touched the feathers that +were left by the hen-pheasant attached to thorns and twigs in her last +struggle, so that they danced and wavered and flickered before the old +cock's eyes, as a reminder of all that had been for them in the +past—the past, which for him, but never for her, might be again. +</P> + +<P> +That night he roosted in the covert, as usual. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +THE END +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Way of the Wild, by F. 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St. Mars + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Way of the Wild + +Author: F. St. Mars + +Illustrator: Harry Rountree + +Release Date: January 21, 2006 [EBook #17567] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAY OF THE WILD *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: "Jaws, monstrous and wet, grabbing at him in enraged +confusion"] + + + + + + +THE WAY OF THE WILD + + +BY + +F. ST. MARS + + + +WITH TWELVE ILLUSTRATIONS BY HARRY ROUNTREE + + + + + + +NEW YORK + +FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY + +PUBLISHERS + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY + +PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND UNDER THE TITLE "PINION AND PAW" + + +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + + + +CONTENTS + + I GULO THE INDOMITABLE + II BLACKIE AND CO. + III UNDER THE YELLOW FLAG + IV NINE POINTS OF THE LAW + V PHARAOH + VI THE CRIPPLE + VII "SET A THIEF"---- + VIII THE WHERE IS IT? + IX LAWLESS LITTLE LOVE + X THE KING'S SON + XI THE HIGHWAYMAN OF THE MARSH + XII THE FURTIVE FEUD + XIII THE STORM PIRATE + XIV WHEN NIGHTS WERE COLD + XV FATE AND THE FEARFUL + XVI THE EAGLES OF LOCH ROYAL + XVII RATEL, V.C. + XVIII THE DAY + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"Jaws, monstrous and wet, grabbing at him in enraged confusion" . . . +_Frontispiece_ + +"The owl had lost a foot on the turn + +"A shrew-mouse, thirsting for blood, but who got poison instead" + +"This one had simply streaked out of the night from nowhere" + +"Landed full upon the dumbfounded water-vole--splash!" + +"A 'silver tabby' floated among the twigs, looking for him" + +"An angry eagle-owl" + +"Turning over and over, in one long, sickening dive back to earth" + +"That little black-headed fellow doing the stalking act upon that +python was great" + +"Shooting straight upwards on the top of what appeared to have been a +submarine mine in a mild form" + +"He clutched, and tore, and gulped, and gorged" + +"All allowed that he was the pluckiest beast on earth" + + + + + + + +THE WAY OF THE WILD + + +I + +GULO THE INDOMITABLE + +If his father had been a brown bear and his mother a badger, the result +in outward appearance would have been Gulo, or something very much like +him. But not all the crossing in the world could have accounted for +his character; that came straight from the Devil, his master. Gulo, +however, was not a cross. He was himself, Gulo, the wolverine, _alias_ +glutton, _alias_ carcajou, _alias_ quick-hatch, _alias_ fjeldfras in +the vernacular, or, officially, _Gulo luscus_. But, by whatever name +you called him, he did not smell sweet; and his character, too, was of +a bad odor. A great man once said that he was like a bear cub with a +superadded tail; but that great man cannot have seen his face. If he +had, he would have looked for his double among the fiends on the top of +Notre Dame. There was, in fact, nothing like him on this earth, only +in a very hot place not on the earth. + +He was, in short, a beast with brains that only man, and no beast, +ought to be trusted with; and he had no soul. God alone knows if love, +which softens most creatures, had ever come to Gulo; his behavior +seemed to show that it had not. Perhaps love was afraid of him. And, +upon my soul, I don't wonder. + +It was not, however, a hot, but a very cold, place in the pine-forest +where Gulo stood, and the unpitying moon cast a dainty tracery through +the tasseled roof upon the new and glistening snow around him--the snow +that comes early to those parts--and the north-east wind cut like +several razors. But Gulo did not seem to care. Wrapped up in his +ragged, long, untidy, uncleanly-looking, brown-black cloak--just his +gray-sided, black fiend's face poking out--he seemed warm enough. When +he lifted one paw to scratch, one saw that the murderous, scraping, +long claws of him were nearly white; and as he set his lips in a +devilish grin, his fangs glistened white in the moonlight, too. + +Verily, this was no beast--he would have taped four feet and a quarter +from tip to tip, if you had worn chain-mail and dared to measure +him--no beast, I say, to handle with white-kid ball gloves. Things +were possible from him, one felt, that were not possible of any other +living creature--awful things. + +Suddenly he looked up. The branches above him had stirred uneasily, as +if an army were asleep there. And an army was--of wood-pigeons. +Thousands upon thousands of wood-pigeons were asleep above his head, +come from Heaven knows where, going to--who could tell in the end? + +All at once one fell. Without apparent reason or cause, it fell. And +the wolverine, with his quick, intelligent eyes, watched it fall, from +branch to branch, turning over and over--oh! so softly--to the ground. +When he had poked his way to it--walking flat-footed, like a bear or a +railway porter--it was dead. Slain in a breath! Without a flutter, +killed! By what? By disease--diphtheria. But not here would the +terrible drama be worked out. This was but an isolated victim, first +of the thousands that would presently succumb to the fell disease far, +far over there, to the westward, hundreds of miles away, in England and +Wales, perhaps, whither they were probably bound. + +But the poor starved corpse, choked to death in the end maybe, was of +no use to the wolverine. As he sniffed it he found that out. The +thing was wasted to the bones even. And turning away from it--he +suddenly "froze" in his tracks where he stood. + +One of those little wandering eddies which seem to meander about a +forest in an aimless sort of way, coming from and going now hither, as +if the breeze itself were lost among the still aisles, had touched his +wet muzzle; and its touch spelt--"Man!" + +If it had been the taint of ten thousand deaths it could not have +affected him more. He became a beast cast in old, old bronze, and as +hard as bronze; and when he moved, it was stiffly, and all bristly, and +on end. + +Animals have no counting of time. In the wild, things happen as +swiftly as a flash of light; or, perhaps, nothing happens at all for a +night, or a day, or half a week. Therefore I do not know exactly how +long that wolverine was encircling that scent, and pinning it down to a +certain spot--himself unseen. All animals, almost, can do that, but +none, not even the lynx or the wild cat, so well as the wolverine. He +is the one mammal that, in the wild, is a name only--a name to conjure +with. + +He found, in the end, that there was no man; but there _had_ been. He +found--showing himself again now--that a man--a hunter, a trapper, one +after fur--had made himself here a _cache_, a store under the earth; +and--well, the wolverine's great, bear-like claws seemed made for +digging. + +He dug--and, be sure, if there had been any danger there he would have +known it. He dug like a North-Country miner, with swiftness and +precision, stopping every now and again to sit back on his haunches, +and, with humped shoulders, stare--scowl, I mean--round in his +lowering, low-browed fashion. + +Once a bull-elk, nearly a six-footer, but he loomed large as an +elephant, came clacking past between the ranked tree-boles, stopping a +moment to straddle a sapling and browse; while the wolverine, sitting +motionless and wide-legged, watched him. Once a lynx, with its +eternal, set grin, floated by, half-seen, half-guessed, as if a wisp of +wood mist had broken loose and was floating about. Once a fox, +somewhere in the utter silence of the forest depths, barked a hoarse, +sharp, malicious sound; and once, hoarser still and very hollowly, a +great horned owl hooted with disconcerting suddenness. (The scream of +a rabbit followed these two, but whether fox or owl had been in at that +killing the wolverine never knew.) Twice a wood-hare turning now to +match the whiteness of its surroundings, finicked up one of the still, +silent forest lanes towards him, stopped, faced half-round, sat +"frozen" for a fraction, and vanished as if it were a puff of +wind-caught snow. (And, really, one had no idea till now that the +always apparently lifeless forest could have been so full of life in +the dark hours.) + +But all these things made no difference to the wolverine, to Gulo, +though he "froze" with habitual care to watch them--for your wild +creature rarely takes chances. Details must never be overlooked in the +wild. He dug on, and in digging came right to the _cache_, roofed and +anchored all down, safe beyond any invasion, with tree-trunks. +And--and, mark you, not being able to pull tree-trunks out of the +ground, and being too large to squeeze between them, he gnawed through +one! Gnawed through it, he did, and came down to the bazaar below. + +So far, he had been only beast. Now we see why I said he had more +brains than were good for any animal except man. + +He bit through the canvas, or whatever it was that protected the +_cached_ articles. He got his head inside. He felt about +purposefully, and backed out, dragging a trap with him. With it he +removed into the inky shadows, and it was never found again. + +He returned. He thrust his head in a second time, got hold of +something, and backed out. It was another trap, and with it he +vanished also; and it, too, was never found. He returned, and went, +and a third trap went with him. + +The fourth investigation revealed an ax. It he partly buried. The +fifth yielded a bag of flour, which he tore up and scattered all over +the place. The sixth inroad produced a haunch of venison, off which he +dined. The seventh showed another haunch, and this he buried somewhere +unseen in the shades. The eighth overhaul gave up some rope, in which +he nearly got himself entangled, and which he finally carried away, +bitten and frayed past use. The ninth search rewarded him with tea, +which he scattered, and bacon, which he buried. + +What he could not drag out, he scattered. What he failed to remove, he +defiled. And, at last, when he had made of the place, not an orderly +_cache_, but a third-rate _debacle_, he sauntered, always slouching, +always grossly untidy, hump-backed, stooping, low-headed, and +droop-tailed, shabbily unrespectable, out into the night, and the +darkness of the night, under the trees. + +By the time day dawned he was as if he never had been--a memory, no +more. Heaven knows where he was! + +Gulo appeared quite suddenly and very early, for him, next afternoon, +beside some tangled brush on the edge of a clearing. He was sitting +up, almost bolt-upright, and he was shading his eyes with his forepaws. +A man could not have done more. And, in fact, he did not look like an +animal at all, but like some diabolically uncouth dwarf of the woods. + +A squirrel was telling him, from a branch near by, just what everybody +thought of his disgraceful appearance; and two willow-grouse were +clucking at him from some hazel-tops; whilst a raven, black as coal +against the white of the woods, jabbed in gruff and very rude remarks +from time to time. + +But Gulo was taking no notice of them. He was used to attentions of +that kind; it was a little compliment--of hate--they all paid him. He +was looking persistently down the ranked, narrowing perspective of the +buttressed forest glade to where it faded in the blue-gray mist, +southward, as if he expected something to come from there. Something +was coming from there now; and there had been a faint, uneasy sort of +whisper in that direction for some time. Now it was unmistakable. + +A cow-elk, first of the wary ones to move on alarm, came trotting by, +her Roman nose held well out; a red-deer hind, galloping lightly like +some gigantic hare, her big ears turned astern; a wolf, head up, +hackles alift, alternately loping and pivoting, to listen and look +back, a wild reindeer, trotting heavily, but far more quickly than he +seemed to be--all these passed, now on one side, now on the other, +often only glimpses between the tree-boles, while the wolverine sat up +and shaded his eyes with his paws. Something was moving those beasts, +those haunters of the forest, and no little thing either. Something? +What? + + Very softly down the glade runs a waiting, watching shade, + And the whisper spreads and widens far and near; + And the sweat is on thy brow, for he passes even now-- + He is Fear, O Little Hunter, he is Fear. + + +Down came Gulo in that grim silence which was, except for his domestic +arguments, characteristic of the beast, and trotted to a pool hard by. +The pool was spring-fed, and covered, as to every dead leaf and stone, +with fine green moss of incomparable softness. He drank swiftly and +long, then flung about with a half-insolent, half-aggressive wave of +his tail, and set off at a rolling, clumsy, shuffling shamble. + +At ordinary times that deceiving gait would have left nearly everything +behind, but this afternoon it was different. Gulo had barely shed the +shelter of the dotted thickets before he realized, and one saw, the +fact. He broke his trot. He began to plunge. Nevertheless, he got +along. There was pace, of a sort. Certainly there was much effort. +He would have outdistanced you or me easily in no time, but it was not +you or I that came, and who could tell how fast that something might +travel? + +The trouble was the snow--that was the rub, and a very big and serious +rub, too, for him. Now, if the snow had been a little less it would +not have mattered--a little more, and he could have run easily along +the hard crust of it; but it was as it was, only about two feet, just +enough to retard him, and no more. And it is then, when the snow is +like that, just above a couple of feet deep, that man can overtake +friend wolverine--if he knows the way. Most men don't. On that he +trusted. At any other time--but this was not any other time. + +Sound carries a long way in those still parts, and as he hurried Gulo +heard, far, far behind in the forest, the faint, distant whir of a +cock-capercailzie--the feathered giant of the woods--rising. It was +only a whisper, almost indistinguishable to our ears, but enough, quite +enough, for him. Taken in conjunction with the mysterious shifting of +the elk and the red deer and the reindeer and the wolf, it was more +than enough. He increased his pace, and for the first time fear shone +in his eyes--it was for the first time, too, in his life, I think. + +A lynx passed him, bounding along on enormous, furry legs. It looked +all legs, and as it turned its grinning countenance to look at him he +cursed it fluently, with a sudden savage growl, envious, perhaps, of +its long, springing hindlegs. Something, too--the same something--must +have moved the lynx, and Gulo shifted the faster for the knowledge. + +Half-an-hour passed, an hour slid by, and all the time Gulo kicked the +miles behind him, with that dogged persistency that was part of his +character. Nothing had passed him for quite a while, and he was all +alone in the utterly still, silent forest and the snow, pad-pad-padding +along like a moving, squat machine rather than a beast. + +At last he stopped, and, spinning round, sat up. A gray-blue haze, +like the color on a wood-pigeon, was creeping over everything, except +in the west, where the sky held a faint, luminous, pinky tinge that +foretold frost. It was very cold, and the snow, which had never quite +left off, was falling now only in single, big, wandering flakes. The +silence was almost terrifying. + +Then, as Gulo sat up, from far away, but not quite so far away, his +rounded ears, almost buried in fur, caught faintly--very, very +faintly--a sound that brought him down on all fours, and sent him away +again at a gallop with a strange new light burning in his little, +wide-set eyes. It was the unmistakable sound of a horse +sneezing--once. Gulo did not wait to hear if it sneezed twice. He was +gone in an instant. Man, it seemed, had not been long in answering +that challenge of the _cache_ escapade. + +After that there was no such thing as time at all, only an everlasting +succession of iron-hard tree-trunks sliding by, and shadows--they ran +when they saw him, some of them, or gathered to stare with eyes that +glinted--dancing past. The moon came and hung itself up in the +heavens, mocking him with a pitiless, stark glare. (He would have +given his right forepaw for a black night and a blinding snowstorm.) +It almost seemed as if they were all laughing at him, Gulo the dreaded, +the hated hater, because it was his turn at last, who had so freely +dealt in it, to know fear. + +Hours passed certainly, hours upon hours, and still, his breath coming +quickly and less easily now with every mile, Gulo stuck to the job of +putting the landscape behind him with that grim pertinacity of his that +was almost fine. + +At last the trees stopped abruptly, and he was heading, straighter than +crows fly, across a plain. The plain undulated a little, like a sea, a +dead sea, of spotless white, with nothing alive upon it--only his +hunched, slouching, untidy, squat form and his shadow, "pacing" him. +At the top of the highest undulation he stopped, and glowered back +along the trail. + +Ahead, the forest, starting again, showed as a black band a quarter of +an inch high. Behind, the forest he had already left lay dwarfed in a +ruled, serried line. But that was not all. Something was moving out +upon the spotless plain of snow, something which appeared to be no more +than crawling, ant-like, but was really traveling very fast. It looked +like a smudged dot, nothing more; but it was a horse, really, galloping +hard, with a light sleigh, and a man in it, behind. The horse had no +bells, and it was not a reindeer as usual. Pace was wanted here, and +the snow was not deep enough to impede the horse, who possessed the +required speed under such conditions. + +The horse had been trotting along the trail, till it came to the place +where Gulo had looked back and heard the sneeze, and knew he was being +followed. Then it had started to gallop, and, with ears back and teeth +showing, had never ceased to gallop. This, apparently, was not the +first wolverine that horse had trailed. It seemed to have a personal +grudge against the whole fell clan of wolverine, and to be bent upon +trampling Gulo to death. + +Gulo watched it for about one quarter of a second. Then he quitted, +and the speed he had put up previously was nothing to that which he +showed now--uselessly. And, far behind him, the man in the sleigh drew +out his rifle from under the fur rugs. He judged that the time had +about come. The end was very near. + +But he judged wrong. Gulo made the wood at length. With eyes of dull +red, and breath coming in short, rending sobs, he got in among the +trees. He did it, though the feat seemed impossible, for the trees had +been so very far away. Got in among the trees--yes, but dead-beat, +and--to what end? To be "treed" ignominiously and calmly shot down, +picked off like a squirrel on a larch-pole. That was all. And that +was the orthodox end, the end the man took for granted. + +In a few minutes the horse was in the forest too, was close behind +Gulo. In spite of the muffling effect of snow, his expectant ears +could hear the quadruple thud of the galloping hoofs, and-- + +Hup! Whuff! Biff-biff! Grrrrrr! Grr-ur-ururrh! Grrrr-urr! + +It had all happened quick as a flash of light. A huge, furry, reeking +mass rising right in the wolverine's path from behind a tree, towering +over him, almost mountainous to his eyes, like the very shape of doom! +Himself hurling sideways, and rolling over and over, snarling, to +prevent the crowning disaster of collision with this terrible portent! +A blow, two blows, with enormous paws whose claws gleamed like skewers, +whistling half-an-inch above his ducked head! Jaws, monstrous and wet, +grabbing at him in enraged confusion, and rumblings deep down in the +inside of the thing that ran cold lightning-sparks all up his spine. +That was what Gulo saw and heard. + +The wolverine rolled, clawing and biting, three times, and without a +pause sprang to his feet again, and leapt madly clear, stumbled on a +hidden tree-root, rolled over again twice, and up, and hurled, +literally with his last gasp and effort, headlong through the air +behind a tree-bole, where he remained all asprawl and motionless, +except for his heaving sides, too utterly done at last for _any_ terror +to move him. + +There followed instantly a horse's wild snort; another; a shout; the +crack of a rifle cutting the silence as a knife cuts a taut string; +another crack; an awful, hoarse growl; the furious thudding of horse's +hoofs stampeding and growing fainter and fainter; and an appalling +series of receding, short, coughing, terrifying, grunting roars. Then +silence and utter stillness only, and the cold, calm moon staring down +over all. + +Gulo picked himself up after a bit, and slouched round the tree to +investigate. He found tracks there, and blood; and the tracks were the +biggest footprints of a bear--a brown bear--that he had ever come +across, and I suppose that he must have sniffed at a few in his time. + +Presumably the man had fired at the bear when the startled horse shied. +Presumably, too, the bear was hit. He had gone straight away in the +track of horse and man, anyway, and--he had saved the wolverine's life, +after, with paw and teeth, doing his best to end it. Possibly he had +been disturbed in the process of making his winter home. + +Gulo lay low, or hunted very furtively, after that for some time, until +it was little less dark in the east than it had been, and the gaunt +tree-trunks were standing out a fraction from the general gloom. The +moon had apparently nearly burnt itself out. Still, it yet appeared to +be night. + +Gulo was a long way out of his own hunting-district, and guessed that +it was about time for him to get himself out of sight. He had a +passionate hatred of the day, by the way, even beyond most night +hunters. + +On the way he smelt out and dug up a grouse beneath the snow. + +Dawn found him, or, rather, failed to find him, hidden under a tangled +mass that was part windfall, part brush-wood, and part snow. The place +had belonged to a fox the night before, and that red worthy returned +soon after dawn. He thrust an inquiring sharp muzzle inside, took one +sniff, and, with every hair alift, retired in haste, without waiting to +hear the villainous growl that followed him. The smell was enough for +him--a most calamitous stink. + +It snowed all that day, and things grew quieter and quieter, except in +the tree-tops, where the wind spoke viciously between its teeth. When +Gulo came out that evening, he had to dig part of the way, and he +viewed a still and silent, white world, under a sky like the lid of a +lead box, very low down. He stood higher against the tree-trunks than +he had done the night before, and, though he did not know it, was safe +from any horse, for the snow was quite deep. The cold was awful, but +it did not seem to trouble him, as he slouched slowly southward. + +There appeared to be nothing alive at all throughout this white land, +but you must never trust to that in the wild. Things there are very +rarely what they seem. For instance, Gulo came into a clearing, dim +under the night sky, though it would never be dark that night. To the +ear and the eye that clearing was as empty as a swept room. To Gulo's +nose it was not, and he was just about to crouch and execute a stalk, +when half the snow seemed to get up and run away. The runners were +wood-hares. They had "frozen" stiff on the alarm from their sentries. +But it was not Gulo who had caused them to depart. Him, behind a tree, +they had not spotted. Something remained--something that moved. And +Gulo saw it when it moved--not before. It was an ermine, a stoat in +winter dress, white as driven snow. Then it caught sight of Gulo, or, +more likely, the gleam of his eyes, and departed also. + +Gulo slouched on, head down, back humped, tail low, a most +dejected-looking, out-at-heels tramp of the wilderness. + +Once he came upon a wild cat laying scientific siege to a party of +grouse. The grouse were nowhere to be seen; nor was the wild cat, +after Gulo announced his intention to break his neutrality. Gulo knew +where the grouse were. He dug down into the snow, and came upon a +tunnel. He dug farther, and came upon other tunnels, round and clean, +in the snow. All the tunnels smelt of grouse, but devil a grouse could +he find. He had come a bit early. It was as yet barely night, and he +should have waited till later, when they would be more asleep. +However, he dug on along the tunnels, driving the grouse before him. +And then a strange thing happened. About three yards ahead of him the +snow burst--burst, I say, like a six-inch shell, upwards. There was a +terrific commotion, a wild, whirring, whirling smother, a cloud of +white, and away went five birds, upon heavily beating wings, into the +gathering gloom. Gulo went away, too, growling deep down inside of, +and to, himself. + +He was hungry, was Gulo. Indeed, there did not seem to be many times +when he was not hungry. Also, being angry--not even a wild animal +likes failure--he was seeking a sacrifice; but he had crossed the +plain, which the night before had been as a nightmare desert to him, +and the moon was up before his chance came. + +He crossed the trail of the reindeer. He did not know anything about +those reindeer, mark you, whether they were wild or semi-tame; and _I_ +do not know, though _he_ may have done, how old the trail was. It was +sufficient for him that they _were_ reindeer, and that they had +traveled in the general direction that he wanted to go. For the +rest--he had the patience, perhaps more than the patience, of a cat, +the determination of a bulldog, and the nose of a bloodhound. He +trailed those reindeer the better part of that night, and most of the +time it snowed, and part of the time it snowed hard. + +By the time a pale, frozen dawn crept weakly over the forest tree-tops +Gulo must have been well up on the trail of that herd, and he had +certainly traveled an astonishing way. He had dug up one lemming--a +sort of square-ended relation of the rat, with an abbreviated tail--and +pounced upon one pigmy owl, scarce as large as a thrush, which he did +not seem to relish much--perhaps owl is an acquired taste--before he +turned a wild cat out of its lair--to the accompaniment of a whole +young riot of spitting and swearing--and curled up for the day. + +He was hungry when he went to sleep. Also, it was snowing then. When +he woke up it was almost dark, and snowing worse than ever. If it +could have been colder, it was. + +While he cleaned himself Gulo took stock of the outside prospect, so +far as the white curtain allowed to sight, and by scent a good deal +that it did not. This without appearing outside the den, you +understand. And if there had been any enemy in hiding, waiting for him +outside, he would have discovered the fact then. He had many enemies, +and no friends, had Gulo. All that he received from all whom he met +was hate, but he gave back more than he got. In the lucid terms of the +vernacular, he "was a hard un, if you like." + +Nothing and nobody saw the wolverine leave that lair that was not his. +He must have chosen one blinding squall of snow for the purpose, and +was half a mile away, still on the track of the reindeer, before he +showed himself--shuffling along as usual, a ragged, hard-bitten +ruffian. And three hours later he came up with his prey. + +Gulo knew it, but nobody else could have done. There were just the +straight trees ahead, and all around the eternal white, frozen silence, +and the snow falling softly over everything; but Gulo was as certain +that there was the herd close ahead as he was that he was ravenous. +And thereafter Gulo got to work, the peculiar work, a special devilish +genius for which appears to be given to the wolverine. + +He ceased to exist. At least, nothing of him was seen, not a tail, not +an eye-gleam. Yet during the next two hours he learnt everything, +private and public, there was to be learnt. Also, he had been over the +surroundings almost to a yard. Nothing could have escaped him. No +detail of risk and danger, of the chance of being seen even, had been +overlooked; for he was a master at his craft, the greatest master in +the wild, perhaps. The wolf? My dear sirs, the wolf was an innocent +suckling cub beside Gulo, look you, and his brain and his cunning were +not the brain and the cunning of a beast at all, but of a devil. + +When, after a very long time, he reappeared upon his original track, it +was as a dark blotch, indistinguishable from a dozen other dark blots +of moon-shadow, creeping forward belly-flat in the snow. This +belly-creep, hugging always every available inch of cover, he kept up +till he came to a big clearing, and--there were the reindeer. At +least, there was one reindeer, a doe, standing with her back towards +him--a quite young doe. The rest were half-hidden in the snow, which +they had trampled into a maze of paths in and out about the clearing, +which was, in fact, what is called their "yard." + +A minute of tense silence followed after Gulo had got as close as he +could without being seen. Then he rushed. + +The reindeer swung half-round, gave one snort, and a great bound. But +Gulo had covered half the intervening space before she knew, and when +she bounded it was with him hanging on to her. + +Followed instantly a wild upspringing of snorting beasts, and a mad, +senseless stampede of floundering deer all round and about the +clearing--a fearful mix-up, somewhere in the midst of which, +half-hidden by flying, finely powdered snow, Gulo did his prey horribly +to death. + +There was something ghastly about this murder, for the deer was so big, +and Gulo comparatively small. The fearful work of his jaws and his +immense strength seemed wrong somehow, and out of all proportion to his +size. This remarkable power of his jaws had that sinister +disproportion only paralleled by the power of the jaws of a hyena; +indeed, his teeth very much resembled a hyena's teeth. + +With the deer rushing all around him, Gulo fed, ravenously and +horribly, but not for long. A new light smoldered in his eyes now as +he lifted his carmine snout, and one saw that, for the moment, the +beast was mad, crazed with the lust of killing, seeing red, and blinded +by blood. + +Then the massacre began. It was not a hunt, because each deer, +thinking only of itself, feared to break from the trodden mazy path of +the "yard," and risk the slow, helpless, plunging progress necessary in +the deep snow. Wherefore panic took them all over again, and they +dashed, often colliding, generally hindering each other, hither and +thither, up and down the paths of the "yard" with the hopeless, +helpless, senseless, blind abandon of sheep. The result was a shambles. + +This part we skip. Probably--nay, certainly--Nature knows best, and is +quite well aware what she is up to, and it is perhaps not meant that we +should put her in the limelight in her grisly moods. Suffice it to say +that Gulo seemed to stop at length, simply because even he could not +"see red" forever, and with exhaustion returned sense, and with +sense--in his case--in-born caution. He removed, leaving a certain +number of reindeer bleeding upon the ground. Some of them were dead. + +In an hour dawn would be conspiring to show him up before the world, +and he was not a beast sweet to look upon at that moment--indeed, at +any moment, but less so now. + +Now, it is surprising how far a wolverine can shift his clumsy-looking +body over snow in an hour, especially if he has reasons. This one had +good reasons, and he was no fool. He knew quite well the kind of +little hell he had made for himself behind there, and he did not stay +to let the snow cover him. He traveled as if he were a machine and +knew no fatigue; and the end of that journey was a hole in a hollow +among rocks. + +Dawn was throwing a wan light upon all things when he thrust his short, +sharp muzzle inside that hole, to be met by a positively hair-raising +volley of rasping, vicious growls. + +He promptly ripped out a string of ferocious, dry, harsh growls in +return, and for half-a-minute the air became full of growls, horrible +and blood-curdling, each answering each. + +Then he lurched in over the threshold, and coolly dodged a thick paw, +with tearing white claws, that whipped at him with a round-arm stroke +out of the pitch-darkness. The stroke was repeated, scraping, but in +nowise hurting his matted coat, as he rose on his hindlegs and threw +himself upon the striker. + +Followed a hectic thirty seconds of simply diabolical noises, while the +two rolled upon the ground, grappling fiendishly in the darkness. Then +they parted, got up, growled one final roll of fury at each other, fang +to fang, and, curling up, went to sleep. But it was nothing, only the +quite usual greeting between Gulo and his wife. They were a sweet +couple. + +There appeared to be no movement, or any least sign of awakening, on +the part of either of the couple between that moment and sometime in +the afternoon, when, so far as one could see, Gulo suddenly rolled +straight from deep sleep out on to the snow, and away without a sound, +at his indescribable shamble and at top speed. + +Mrs. Gulo executed precisely the same amazing maneuver, and at exactly +the same moment, as far as could be seen, on the other side, and +shuffled off into the forest. They gave no explanation for so doing. +They said never a word--nothing. One moment they were curled up, +asleep; the next they had gone, scampered, apparently into the land of +the spirits, and were no more. Nor did there seem to be any reason for +this extraordinary conduct except--except---- Well, it is true that a +willow-grouse, white as the snowy branch he sat upon, _did_ start +clucking somewhere in the dim tree regiments, a snipe did come +whistling sadly over the tree-tops, and a raven, jet against the white, +did flap up, barking sharply, above the pointed pine-tops; but that was +nothing--to us. To the wolverines it was everything, a whole wireless +message in the universal code of the wild, and they had read it _in +their sleep_. Through their slumbers it had spelt into their brains, +and instantly snapped into action that wonderful, faultless machinery +that moved them to speed as if automatically. + +Then the chase began, grim, steady, relentless, dogged--the chase of +death, the battle of endurance. + +A pause followed after the vanishing of the hated wolverines. A crow +lifted on rounded vans, marking their departure, and it was seen. A +blackcock launched from a high tree with a whir and a bluster like an +aeroplane, showing their course, and it was noted. An eagle climbed +heavily and ponderously over the low curtain of the snow mist, pointing +their way, and it was followed. All the wild, all the world, seemed to +be against the wolverines. The brigands were afoot by day. The scouts +were marking their trail. + +Then a lynx, moving with great bounds on his huge swathed paws, shot +past between the iron-hard tree-boles; a fox followed, scudding like +the wind on the frozen crest; a hare, white as a waste wraith, flashed +by, swift as a racing white cloud-shadow; a goshawk screamed, and drew +a straight streaking line across a glade. And then came the men, side +by side, deadly dumb, with set faces, the pale sun glinting coldly +cruel upon the snaky, lean barrels of their slung rifles, moving with +steady, fleet, giant strides on their immense spidery ski that were +eleven feet long, which whispered ghostily among the silent aisles of +Nature's cathedral of a thousand columns. The Brothers were on the +death-trail of Gulo at last; the terrible, dreaded Brothers, who could +overtake a full-grown wolf in under thirty minutes on ski, and whose +single bullet spelt certain death. Now for it; now for the fight. Now +for the great test of the "star" wild outlaw against the "star" human +hunters--at last. The reindeer were to be avenged. + +Then Time took the bit of silence between his teeth and seconds became +hours, and minutes generations. + +No sound made the wolverines as they rolled along in Indian file, +except for the soft whisper of the snow underfoot. + +No noise encompassed the Brothers as they sped swiftly side by side +over the glittering white carpet, save for the slither of the snow +under their weight. + +All the wild seemed to be standing still, holding its breath, looking +on, spell-bound; and save for the occasional crash of a collapsing +snow-laden branch, sounding magnified as in a cave, all the forest +about there was as still as death. + +Half-an-hour passed, and Gulo flung his head around, glancing over his +shoulder a little uneasily, but with never a trace of fear in his +bloodshot eyes. Then he grunted, and the two fell apart silently and +instantly, gradually getting farther and farther from each other on a +diverging course, till his wife faded out among the trees. But never +for an instant did either of them check that tireless, deceptive, +clumsy, rolling slouch, that slid the trees behind, as telegraph-poles +slide behind the express carriage window. + +Half-an-hour passed, and one of the Brothers, peering up and along the +trail a little anxiously, saw the forking of the line ahead. Then he +grunted, and the two promptly separated without a word, gradually +increasing the distance between them on the widening fork till they +were lost to each other among the marshaled trunks. But never for an +instant did they relax that swift, ghostly glide on the wonderful ski, +that slid the snow underfoot as a racing motor spins over the ruts. + +An hour passed. Sweat was breaking out in beads upon the faces of the +Brothers, now miles apart, but both going in the same general direction +over the endless wastes of snow, and upon their faces was beginning to +creep the look of that pain that strong men unbeaten feel who see a +beating in sight; but never for a moment did they slacken their swift, +mysterious glide. + +An hour passed. Foam began to fleck the evilly up-lifted lips +glistening back to the glistening fangs of the wolverines, now miles +apart, but still heading in the same general line, and upon their faces +began to set a look of fiends under torture; but never for a moment did +they check their indescribable shuffling slouch. + +After that all was a nightmare, blurred and horrible, in which endless +processions of trees passed dimly, interspersed with aching blanks of +dazzling white that blinded the starting eyes, and man and beast +stumbled more than once as they sobbed along, forcing each leg forward +by sheer will alone. + +At last, on the summit of a hog-backed, bristling ridge, Gulo stopped +and looked back, scowling and peering under his low brows. Beneath +him, far away, the valley lay like a white tablecloth, all dotted with +green pawns, and the pawns were trees. But he was not looking for +them. His keen eyes were searching for movement, and he saw it after a +bit, a dot that crept, and crept, and crept, and--_stopped_! + +Gulo sat up, shading his eyes against the watery sun with his forepaws, +watching as perhaps he had never watched in his life before. + +For a long, long while, it seemed to him, that dot remained there +motionless, far, far away down in the valley, and then at length, +slowly, so slowly that at first the movement was not perceptible, it +turned about and began to creep away--creep, creep, creep away by the +trail it had come. + +Gulo watched it till it was out of sight, fading round a bend of the +hills into a dark, dotted blur that was woods. Then he dropped on all +fours, and breathed one great, big, long, deep breath. That dot was +the one of the Brothers that had been hunting him. + +And almost at the same moment, five miles away, his wife had just +succeeded in swimming a swift and ice-choked river. She was standing +on the bank, watching another dot emerge into the lone landscape, and +that dot was the other one of the Brothers. + +They had failed to avenge the reindeer, and the wolverines were safe. +Safe? Bah! Wild creatures are never safe. Nature knows better than +that, since by safety comes degeneration. + +There was a warning--an instant's rustling hissing in the air +above--less than an instant's. But that was all, and for the first +time in his life--perhaps because he was tired, fagged--Gulo failed to +take it. And you must never fail to take a warning if you are a wild +creature, you know! There are no excuses in Nature. + +Retribution was swift. Gulo yelled aloud--and he was a dumb beast, +too, as a rule, but I guess the pain was excruciating--as a hooked +stiletto, it appeared, stabbed through fur, through skin, deep down +through flesh, right into his back, clutching, gripping vise-like. +Another stiletto, hooked, too, worse than the first one, beat at his +skull, tore at his scalp, madly tried to rip out his eyes. Vast +overshadowing pinions--as if they were the wings of Azrael--hammered in +his face, smothering him, beating him down. + +Ah, but I have seen some fights, yet never such a fight as that; and +never again do I want to see such a fight as the one between Gulo and +the golden eagle that made a mistake in his pride of power. + +All the awful, cruel, diabolical, clever, devilish, and yet almost +human fury that was in that old brute of a Gulo flamed out in him at +that moment, and he fought as they fight who go down to hell. It was +frightful. It was terrifying. Heaven alone knows what the eagle +thought he had got his claws into. It was like taking hold of a flash +of forked lightning by the point. It was--great! + +Still, flight _is_ flight, and lifting-power is lifting-power. Gulo, +even Gulo, could not get over that. He could not stop those vast vans +from flapping; and as they flapped they rose, the eagle rose, +he--though it was like the skinning of his back alive--rose too, +wriggling ignominiously, raging, foaming, snapping, kicking, but--he +rose. + +Slowly, very slowly, the great bird lifted his terrible prey up and +up--ten, twenty, thirty, forty feet, but no higher. That was the limit +of his lift, the utmost of his strength; and at that height parallel +with the ridge, he began to carry the wolverine along, the wolverine +that was going mad with rage in his grasp. + +It was a mistake, of course--a mistake for the wolverine to be out on +the open ridge in stark daylight; another mistake for the eagle, +presuming on his fine, lustful pride of strength, to attack him. + +And then suddenly Gulo got his chance. It hit him bang in the face, +nearly blinding him as it passed--the tree-top. Like lightning Gulo's +jaws clashed shut upon it, his claws gripped, and--he thought his back +was going to come off whole. But he stuck it. He was not called Gulo +the Indomitable for nothing. And the eagle stopped too. He had to, +for he would not let go; nor would Gulo. + +An awful struggle followed, in the middle of which the pine-top broke, +gave way, and, before either seemed to know quite what was happening, +down they both came, crashing from branch to branch, to earth. + +The fall broke the king of the birds' hold, but not the fighting fury +of the most hated of all the beasts. He rose up, half-blind, almost +senseless, but mad with rage beyond any conception of fury, did old +Gulo, and he hurled himself upon that eagle. + +What happened then no man can say. There was just one furious mix-up +of whirling, powdered snow, that hung in the air like a mist, out of +which a great pinion, a clawing paw, a snapping beak, a flash of fangs, +a skinny leg and clutching, talons, a circling bushy tail appeared and +vanished in flashes, to the accompaniment of stupendous flappings and +abominably wicked growls. + + * * * * * * + +That night the lone wolf, scouting along the ridge-top, stopped to +sniff intelligently at the scattered, torn eagle's feathers lying about +in the trampled snow, at the blood, at the one skinny, mailed, mightily +taloned claw still clutching brown-black, rusty fur and red skin; at +the unmistakable flat-footed trail of Gulo, the wolverine, leading away +to the frowning, threatening blackness of the woods. He could +understand it all, that wolf. Indeed, it was written there quite +plainly for such as could read. He read, and he passed on. He did not +follow Gulo's bloody trail. No--oh, dear, no! Probably, quite +probably, he had met Gulo the Indomitable before, and--was not that +enough? + + + + +II + +BLACKIE AND CO. + +Blackie flung himself into the fight like a fiery fiend cut from coal. +He did not know what the riot was about--and cared less. He only knew +that the neutrality of his kingdom was broken. Some one was fighting +over his borders; and when fighting once begins, you never know where +it may end! (This is an axiom.) Therefore he set himself to stop it +at once, lest worse should befall. + +He found two thrushes apparently in the worst stage of d.t.'s. One was +on his back; the other was on the other's chest. Both were in a +laurel-bush, half-way up, and apparently they kept there, and did not +fall, through a special dispensation of Providence. Both fought like +ten devils, _and both sang_. That was the stupefying part, the song. +It was choked, one owns; it was inarticulate, half-strangled with rage, +but still it _was_ song. + +A cock-chaffinch and a hen-chaffinch were perched on two twigs higher +up, and were peering down at the grappling maniacs. Also two blue +titmice had just arrived to see what was up, and a sparrow and one +great tit were hurrying to the spot--all on Blackie's "beat," on +Blackie's very own hunting-ground. Apparently a trouble of that kind +concerned everybody, or everybody thought it did. + +Blackie arrived upon the back of the upper and, presumably, winning +thrush with a bang that removed that worthy to the ground quite +quickly, and in a heap. The second thrush fetched up on a lower +branch, and by the time the first had ceased to see stars he had +apparently regained his sanity. He beheld Blackie above him, and fled. +Perhaps he had met Blackie, professionally, before, I don't know. He +fled, anyway, and Blackie helped him to flee faster than he bargained +for. + +By the time Blackie had got back, the first thrush was sitting on a +branch in a dazed and silly condition, like a fowl that has been waked +up in the night. Blackie presented him with a dig gratis from his +orange dagger, and he nearly fell in fluttering to another branch. And +Blackie flew away, chuckling. He knew that, so far as that thrush was +concerned, there would be no desire to see any more fighting for some +time. + +But, all the same, Blackie was not pleased. He was worked off his feet +providing rations for three ugly youngsters in a magnificently designed +and exquisitely worked and interwoven edifice, interlined with rigid +cement of mud, which we, in an off-hand manner, simply dismiss as "A +nest." The young were his children; they might have been +white-feathered angels with golden wings, by the value he put on them. +The thrush episode was only a portent, and not the first. He had no +trouble with the other feathered people he tolerated on his beat. + +Blackie went straight to the lawn. (Jet and orange against deep green +was the picture.) + +Now, if you and I had searched that dry lawn with magnifying-glasses, +in the heat of the sun, there and then, we should not have found a +single worm, not the hint or the ghost of one; yet that bird took three +long, low hops, made some quick motion with his beak--I swear it never +seemed to touch the ground, even, let alone dig---executed a kind of +jump in the air--some say he used his legs in the air--and there he was +with a great, big, writhing horror of a worm as big as a snake (some +snakes). + +Thrushes bang their worms about to make them see sense and give in; +they do it many times. Blackie banged his giant only a little once or +twice, and then not savagely, like a thrush. Also, again, he may or +may not have used his feet. Moreover, he gave up two intervals to +surveying the world against any likely or unlikely stalking death. Yet +that worm shut up meekly in most unworm-like fashion, and Blackie cut +it up into pieces. The whole operation took nicely under sixty seconds. + +Blackie gave no immediate explanation why he had reduced his worm to +sections. It did not seem usual. Instead, he eyed the hedge, eyed the +sky, eyed the surroundings. Nothing seemed immediately threatening, +and he hopped straight away about three yards, where instantly, he +conjured another and a smaller worm out of nowhere. With this +unfortunate horror he hopped back to the unnice scene of the first +worm's decease, and carved that second worm up in like manner. Then he +peeked up all the sections of both worms, packing them into his beak +somehow, and flew off. And the robin who was watching him didn't even +trouble to fly down to the spot and see if he had left a joint behind. +He knew his blackbird, it seemed. + +Blackie flew away to his nest, but not to a nest in a hedge. To dwell +in a hedge was a rule of his clan, but the devil a rule did he obey. +Nests in hedges for other blackbirds, perhaps. He, or his wife, had +different notions. Wherefore flew he away out into the grass field +behind the garden. Men had been making excavations there, for what mad +man-purpose troubled him not--digging a drain or something. No matter. + +Into the excavation he slipped---very, very secretly, so that nobody +could have seen him go there--and down to the far end, where, twelve +feet below the surface, on a ledge of wood, where the sides were shored +with timber, his mate had her nest. Here he delivered over his carved +joints to the three ugly creatures which he knew as his children and +thought the world of, and appeared next flying low and quickly back to +the garden. That is to say, he had contrived to slip from the nest so +secretly that that was the first time he showed. + +A sparrow-hawk, worried with a family of her own, took occasion to +chase him as he flew, and he arrived in among the young lime-trees that +backed the garden, switchbacking--that was one of his tricks of escape, +made possible by a long tail--and yelling fit to raise the world. The +sparrow-hawk's skinny yellow claw, thrust forward, was clutching thin +air an inch behind his central tail-feathers, but that was all she got +of him--just thin air. There was no crash as he hurled into the green +maze; but she, failing to swerve exactly in time, made a mighty crash, +and retired somewhat dazed, thankful that she retained two whole wings +to fly with. There is no room for big-winged sparrow-hawks in close +cover, anyway, and Blackie, who was born to the leafy green ways, knew +that. + +Blackie's yells had called up, as if by magic, a motley crowd of +chaffinches, hedge-sparrows, wrens, robins, &c., from nowhere at all, +and they could be seen whirling in skirmishing order--not too +close--about the retreating foe. Blackie himself needed no more +sparrow-hawk for a bit, and preferred to sit and look on. If the +little fools chose to risk their lives in the excitement of mobbing, +let them. His business was too urgent. + +Twenty lightning glances around seemed to show that no death was on the +lurk near by. Also, a quick inspection of other birds' actions--he +trusted to them a good deal--appeared to confirm this. + +Then he flew down to the lawn, and almost immediately had a worm by the +tail. Worms object to being so treated, and this one protested +vigorously. Also, when pulled, they may come in halves. So Blackie +did not pull _too_ much. He jumped up, and, while he was in the air, +scraped the worm up with his left foot, or it may have been both feet. +The whole thing was done in the snap of a finger, however, almost too +quickly to be seen. + +The worm, once up, was a dead one. Blackie seemed to kill it so +quickly as almost to hide the method used. In a few seconds more it +was a carved worm in three or four pieces--an unnice sight, but far +more amenable to reason that way. + +Blackie was in rather long grass, and nerve-rackingly helpless, by the +same token. He could not see anything that was coming. Wherefore +every few seconds he had to stand erect and peer over the grass-tops. +It made no difference to the worm, however; it was carved just the same. + +Blackie now hopped farther on in search of more worms, but found a big +piece of bread instead. It was really the hen-chaffinch who found the +bread, and he who commandeered it from her. Now he disclosed one fact, +and that was that bread would do for his children as well as worms. +Anyhow, he stuffed his beak about half up with bread, returned for the +pieces of worm, collected these, and retired up into the black cover of +a fir-tree. + +No doubt he was expected to go right home with that load, then and +there. Even a cock-blackbird with young, however, must feed, and, if +one judged by the excess amount of energy--if that were possible--used +up, must feed more than usual. That seemed to be why he hid his whole +load in the crook of a big bough, and, returning to the lawn, ate +bread--he could wait to catch no worms for his own use, it appeared--as +fast as he could. Three false alarms sent him precipitantly into his +tree upon this occasion, and one real alarm--a passing boy--caused a +fourth retreat. + +These operations were not performed in a moment, and by the time he got +back to his nest--mind, he had to contrive to approach it so that he +was seen by nobody, and his was a conspicuous livery, too--his children +appeared to be in the last stages of exhaustion. That, however, is +young birds all over; they expect their parents to be mere +feeding-machines, guaranteed to produce so many meals to the hour, and +hang the difficulties and the risks. + +There was no sign of Blackie's wife. Presumably she was working just +as hard on her own "beat" as he had been on his--their hunting-grounds +were separate, though they joined--and would soon be back. + +Blackie did not wait. He managed again the miracle of getting away +from his nest without appearing to do so, and next turned up on the +summer-house roof. Fatherlike, he thought he had done enough for a +bit, and would enjoy a "sunning reaction" on the summerhouse roof. It +was rather a good place, a look-out tower from which he could slip over +the side into the hedges, which met at the corner where it was, if +trouble turned up. + +Trouble did turn up, but not quite what he had expected. He had been +sitting there, wing-stretching, leg-stretching, and "preening" his +feathers, and had finally left off just to sit and do nothing, +when--lo! his wife popped up over the side without warning, and right +upon him. + +She was very dark brown, not black, and had a paler throat than the +palish throat of most hen blackbirds--nearly white, in fact. She said +nothing. Nor did Blackie, but he looked very uncomfortable. She did +more than say nothing. She went for him, beak first, and very angrily +indeed; and he, not waiting to receive her, fled down to the lawn, and +began worm-hunting for dear life. A whole lecture could not have said +more. + +Mrs. Blackie remained on the roof for about a minute, looking round, +and then flew off to her own hunting-ground. She was wilder and less +trusting of the world than Blackie, and did not care for his lawn in +full view of the house windows. And Blackie did not even stop his work +to watch her go. Apparently they had, previously in their married +life, arrived at a perfect understanding. + +This time, too, Blackie got a big and a small worm. The small he +coiled like a rope, and held up towards the base of his beak; the big +he carved up into sections, which he held more towards the tip. The +large ones, it seemed, were too awkward and lively simply to carry off +rolled up whole. + +The journey that followed was a fearful one in Blackie's life, for he +met half-way the very last foe in the world he was expecting--namely, +an owl. Truly, it was a very small owl, scarce bigger than himself; +but it was an owl, and, like all its tribe, armed to the teeth. Men +called it a little owl. That was its name--little owl. Blackie didn't +care what men called it; he knew it only as one of the hundred or so +shapes that death assumed for his benefit. + +Just at that time it happened to be cloudy, and little owls often hunt +by day. But how was Blackie to know that, little owls being a +comparatively new introduction into those parts? + +Blackie screamed and fled. The owl did not scream, but fled, +too--after Blackie. Blackie had no means of judging how close _that_ +foe was behind by the whir of its wings. Owls' wings don't talk, as a +rule; they have a patent silencer, so to speak, in the fluffy-edged +feathers. Therefore Blackie was forced to do his best in breaking the +speed record, and trust to luck. + +It was a breathless and an awful few seconds, and it seemed to him like +a few hours. The owl came up behind, going like a cloud-shadow, and +about as fast, and Blackie, glancing over his shoulder, I suppose, +yelled afresh. The terror was so very close. + +Then Blackie remembered another excavation, just like the one his nest +was in, a little off his course to the left, and he tacked towards it, +twisting his course wonderfully, thanks to the long tail. And the owl +lost a foot on the turn. I think it was expecting Blackie to make for +the hedge at all costs. But, be that as it may, that foot was never +made up again, for Blackie vanished into the trench next instant, like +a blown-out light, and, though the hunter searched for him carefully, +he never put in an appearance again while that owl was within sight of +the place. + +[Illustration: "The owl lost a foot on the turn"] + +All signs of uproar on the passing of the little owl had died down some +time before Blackie turned up again, and then it was in the garden, so +he must have got from the tunnel unseen. + +He still hung gamely to the food for his young, and now made another +attempt to deliver that food where it belonged. He was half-way there, +indeed, before he saw the boys--three boys--with two rows of birds' +eggs threaded on strings. They were passing so close to the trench +that one nearly fell into it, and, of course, any one could see that +they were bird-nesting. + +Blackie swerved off sharply to the far hedge, his heart nearly bursting +with anxiety, little knowing that the boys had never even thought of +looking in the trench for nests. It seemed the last place in the world +to find one. It may have been, moreover, that he feared that his wife +was home, in which case she might have lost her head, and, dashing out +with a scream, "blown the whole gaff," as they say in the vernacular. + +Apparently madam was not at home, by good luck, for the boys passed, +and Blackie once more executed the magic of getting into his nest +without seeming to do so. And here he stayed. Dusk was setting in, +and his young were fourteen days old. They showed it in their +disobedience, and were not in the least inclined to keep as quiet as +they should, considering their father had but just warned them, in his +own way, to "lie doggo," because of the gray shape he had seen sliding +out into the field, a gray shape which was a cat. + +They were more like thrushes than blackbirds, those youngsters, with +their speckly fawn breasts; and they were not like the adults of either +in their frog-like attitudes and heavy ways. Frankly, they were not +beautiful, even at that stage; and a fortnight before, when they had +been larger than the eggs they had come out of, they were positively +reptilian and repulsive. + +Blackie said the blackbird equivalent to "Be quiet, you little fools!" +as quietly and as sternly as he could three or four times, and perched +on the top of a wheelbarrow to watch the gray shadow which was a cat. +That sudden death, however, was more afraid of the open than Blackie, +even, and, moreover, wasn't expecting blackbirds' nests in the middle +of fields. It turned back; and at length Mrs. Blackie, who had been on +a general survey round about to see what foes of the night were on the +move--and a fine hubbub she had made in the process--came home, +reporting all well. + +Then they slept; at least, they ceased to be any further seen or heard. +Think, however, how you would sleep if every few minutes you could hear +sounds in your house one-third of which were probably the noises of a +burglar. Think, also, how you would feel if you knew that that burglar +was a murderer, and that that murderer was, in all likelihood, looking +for you, or some one just like you. Yet those birds were happy enough, +I fancy. + +It was barely pale gray. It was cold and wan and washed, and +wonderfully clean and sweet, and wet with dews, when a lark climbed +invisibly into the sky and suddenly burst into song, next morning. +There was something strange and out of place, in a way, in this song, +breaking out of the night; and as it and another continued to break the +utter silence for ten minutes, it seemed rather as if it were still +night, and not really dawn at all. Dawn appeared to be waiting for +something else to give it authority, so to speak, and at the end of ten +minutes that something else came--the slim form of Blackie, streaking, +phantom-like, through the mist from the trench out in the field to the +summer-house in the garden. Here, mounted upon the very top, he stood +for a moment, as one clearing his throat before blowing a bugle, and +then, full, rich, deep, and flute-like, he lazily gave out the first +bars of his song. Instantly, almost as if it had been a signal, a +great tit-mouse sang out, "Tzur ping-ping! tzur ping-ping!" in +metallic, ringing notes; a thrush struck in with his brassy, clarion +challenge, thrush after thrush taking it up, till, with the clear +warble of robin and higher, squeaking notes of hedge-sparrow and wren +joining in, the wonderful first bars of the Dawn Hymn of the birds +rolled away over the fields to the faraway woods, and beyond. + +Blackie sang on for a bit, in spite of the fact that people said that +it was not considered "the thing" for a blackbird with such domestic +responsibilities to sing. And two other blackbirds helped him to break +the man-made rule. + +As a matter of fact, I fancy he was not taking chances upon the ground +while the mist hung to cover late night prowlers, for as soon as the +gay and gaudy chaffinches had stuck themselves up in the limes and the +sycamores, and started their own smashing idea of song, he was down +upon the lawn giving the early worm a bad time. + +Then it was that he heard a rumpus that shot him erect, and sent his +extraordinarily conspicuous orange dagger of a beak darting from side +to side in that jerky way of listening that many birds affect. + +"Twet-twet-et-et-et! twet! twet-twet-twet-et-et-twet!" came the +unmistakable voice of one in a temper, scolding loudly. And he knew +that scold--had heard it before, by Jove! And who should know it if +not he, since it was the voice of his wife? + +Perhaps he heaved a sigh as he rose from the deliciously cool, wet +lawn--where it was necessary to take long, high hops if you wanted to +avoid getting drenched--and winged his way towards the riot. His wife +was calling him, and it came from the other side of the garden, _her_ +side, behind the house. Perhaps it was a cat, or a rat, or something. +Anything, almost, would set her on like that if experience, plus the +experience of blackbirds for hundreds of generations working blindly in +her brain--and not the experience of books--had taught her that the +precise creature whom she saw was a danger and a menace to young +blackbirds. + +All the same, when Blackie arrived he _was_ surprised, for all that he +saw was a grayish bird with "two lovely black eyes," not by any means +as large as a blackbird. When it flew it kept low, with a weak and +peculiar flight that was deceiving; and when Mrs. Blackie, following +it, and yelling like several shrews, got too close, it turned its head, +and said, "Wark! wark!" in a harsh and warning way. + +Blackie joined in with his deeper "Twoit-twoit-twoit!" just by way of +lending official dignity to the proceedings. Whereupon his wife, +feeling that he had backed her up, redoubled her excitement and shrill +abuse. + +And they spent two solid hours at this fool's game, helped by a robin, +a blue tit, and a chaffinch or two--the chaffinch must have his finger +in every pie--following that gray bird from nowhere, while it moved +about the garden in its shuffling flight, or alternately sat and +scowled at them. But it must be admitted that Blackie himself looked +rather bored, and might have gone off for breakfast any time, if he had +dared. + +As a matter of fact, however, the bird did not stand upon the Register +of Bad Deeds as being a terror of even the mildest kind of blackbirds. +Red-backed shrike was her name, female was her sex, and from Africa had +she come. Goodness knows where she was going, but not far, probably; +and the largest thing in the bird line she appeared able to tackle was +something of the chaffinch size. But, all the same, Mrs. Blackie +seemed jolly well certain that she knew better. + +Then arrived the bombshell. + +One of the Blackie youngsters, stump-tailed, frog-mouthed, blundering, +foolish, gawky, and squawking, landed, all of a heap, right into the +very middle of the picnic-party. + +Mrs. Blackie very nearly had a fit on the spot, and the shrike judged +that the time had about arrived for her to quit that vicinity. + +Blackie himself, to do him justice, kept cool enough to do nothing. +Wives will say that he was just husband all over, but there were +reasons abroad. One of them shot past Blackie, who was low down, a +second later and a yard away, and had he not been absolutely still, and +therefore as invisible as one of the most conspicuous of birds in the +wild can be, he would have known in that instant, or the next, what +lies upon the other side of death. + +Another reason shot through the lower hedge, and, both together, they +fell upon the young bird. + +They were the cat of the house and her half-grown kitten, and they were +upon the unhappy youngster before you could shout, "Murder!" + +What followed was painful. Mrs. Blackie went clean demented. Blackie +went--not so demented. (It always appeared to me that his was a more +practical mind than his wife's, perhaps because he wore a more +conspicuous livery.) Mrs. Blackie kept passing and repassing the cats' +backs, flying from bough to bough, and sometimes touching and sometimes +not touching them. It was useless, of course, this pathetic charging; +and it was foolish. + +Blackie charged, too, but not within feet. + +Suddenly the old cat, who had had one eye upon Mrs. Blackie the whole +time, sprang up and struck quickly twice. There was a chain of shrieks +from Mrs. Blackie, and down she went in the grip of the clawed death. +She never got up again. + +What had happened was simple enough. One of the laborers working on +the trench, knowing of the nest, had, out of curiosity, approached a +little too close, when the bevy of youngsters, being ready to fly, but +not knowing it before this great fright, burst apart at his approach +like a silent cannon cracker. The fear showed them they could use +their wings. + +All three had made, flying low and weakly, for the nearest hedge, which +was the garden hedge--two to the side which comprised their father's +hunting-ground, and one to the side dominated by their ma. And the old +cat and her kitten had seen them coming, and had given chase. + + * * * * * * + +Blackie discovered his remaining progeny sitting about in bushes, +squawking, a few minutes later, when he returned, somewhat agitated to +his precious lawn, and there he promptly proceeded to feed them. The +task was such a large one, and took so long, and so many worms had to +be cut up, and so much bread, and, I may say, when all else failed, so +many daisies had to be picked, before he finally silenced their +ceaseless, craving remarks, that, by the time he had finished feeding +himself and had a clean up, something of the pain of the tragedy had +gone from him. + +And fine fat blackbirds he made of those youngsters, too, in the end, I +want to tell you, for he stuck to 'em like a brick. + + + + +III + +UNDER THE YELLOW FLAG + +A little past noon each day the sun covered a crack between two boards +on the summer-house floor, and up through that aperture, for three +days, had come a leggy, racy-looking, wolfish black spider. Each day, +as it grew hotter, she extended her sphere of jerky investigation, +vanishing down the crack again when the sun passed from it. + +To-day she prolonged her roamings right up the wall of the summer-house +and along a joist bare of all save dust, and--well, the spider walked +straight on, moving with little jerks as if by intermittent clockwork, +and she seemed to stroll right on top of the wasp lying curled up on +her side. Only when one of the latter's delicate feelers shifted round +towards her, as though in some uncanny way conscious of her approach, +did she leap back as if she had touched an electric wire. Then she +froze--flat. The wasp was lying curled up, as we have said, upon her +side, her head tucked in, her wings drawn down, her jaws tight shut +upon a splinter of wood. She had been there half-a-year, asleep, +hibernating, and in that state, without any other protection than the +summer-house roof and walls, had survived the frosts of winter. + +The wasp did not move further. + +The spider appeared to be taking things in, measuring her chances, +weighing the risk against her famished hunger--possibly her late +husband had been her last meal, months ago--marking the vital spot upon +her prey, aiming for the shot, which must be true, for one does not +miss in attacking a wasp--and live. Only, she would not have risked it +at all, perhaps, if the wasp had seemed alive, or more alive, at any +rate. + +Then came the shot--one cannot in justice call it a spring; it was too +instant to be termed that. The spider simply was upon the wasp without +seeming to go there; but the wasp was not there, or, rather, her vital +spot wasn't. She had kicked herself round on her side, like a +cart-wheel, lying flat, with her feet, and the spider's jaws struck +only hard cuirass. Before the spider, leaping back, wolf-like, could +lunge in her lightning second stroke, the wasp was on her feet, a live +thing, after all. + +The warmth had been already soaking the message of spring into her +cold-drugged brain, and now this sudden attack had finished what the +warmth had begun. She was awake, on her feet, a live and dangerous +proposition; groggy, it is true; dazed, half-working, so to speak; but +a force to be reckoned with--after half-a-year. And one saw, too, at a +glance that she was different from ordinary wasps--would make two, in +fact, of any ordinary wasp; and her great jaws looked as if they could +eat one and comfortably deal with more; whilst her dagger-sting, now +unsheathed and ready--probably for the first time--could deliver a +wound twice as deep and deadly as the ordinary wasp. She was, in +short, a queen-wasp; a queen of the future, if Fate willed; a queen as +yet without a kingdom, a sovereign uncrowned, but of regal proportions +and queenly aspect, for all that; for in the insect world royalties are +fashioned upon a super-standard that marks them off from the common +herd. + +The spider hesitated. She knew the danger of the stripes of +yellow--the yellow flag, so to speak. The fear of it is upon every +insect that lives. At the same time, the queen was undoubtedly yet +numb. + +Antagonists decide in the insect world like a flash of light, and quick +as thought they act. The spider attacked now so quickly that she +seemed to have vanished, and she met--jaws. Back she shot, circled, +shot in again, and she met--sting! + +It was never clear whether that sting went home. The spider did. She +fell--fell plump to the floor, only not breaking what spiders have in +place of a neck because of the fact that, being a spider, she never +moved anywhere, not even upon a spring, without anchoring a line of web +down first. Therefore, an inch from the ground, she fetched up with a +jerk upon the line that she had anchored up on the joist, spun round, +let herself drop the rest of the way, and ran into the crack between +the boards of the floor. Goodness knows if she lived. + +The wasp, with that extremely droll, lugubrious look on her long, +mask-like face which makes the faces of insects so funny and uncanny, +like pantomime masks, sat down as if nothing had happened, apparently +to scheme out the best way to possess herself of a kingdom and become a +queen in fact as well as in name. Really, she was cleaning +herself--combing her antennae with her forelegs, provided with bristle +hairs for the purpose, scraping and polishing her wings, as if they did +not already shine like mother-o'-pearl, and washing her quaint face. + +She was still rather groggy from the effects of her long sleep and the +cold endured--it is a wonder how she had stood the latter at all--and +when, with a subdued inward sort of hum, she finally launched herself +in flight, she nearly fell to the ground before righting herself and +flying in a zigzag heavily across the lawn. + +A cock-chaffinch up in the limes saw her, and condescending at last to +break his song, described a flashing streak of wine-red breast and +white wing-bars in the sun. He appeared to recognize her sinister +yellow shield in time, however, and returned to his perch with a +flourish, leaving the wasp to go on and begin dancing up the wall of +the house till she came to the open window. Here she vanished within. + +The sunlight sat on the floor of the room inside, and the baby sat in +the sunlight; and the wasp, apparently still half-awake, went, or, +rather, nearly tumbled, and sat beside the baby. + +They made an odd picture there--the golden sun, the sunny, +golden-headed baby, and that silent, yellow she-devil, crawling, +crawling, crawling, with her narrow wings gleaming like gems. + +Then the child put out her chubby hand to seize that bright-yellow +object--how was she to know that it was the yellow signal of danger in +the insect world that she saw? And, of course, being a baby, she was +going to stuff it into her mouth. But Fate had use for that +wasp--perhaps for that baby. Wherefore there was a little scream, a +pair of woman's arms swept down and whisked that baby into the air, and +a high-heeled shoe whisked the astonished wasp into a corner. Here she +swore savagely, vibrating her head with tremendous speed in the +process, rose heavily and menacingly, made to fly out, hit the upper +window, which was shut, and which she could not see, but felt, and fell +to the floor again, where she apparently had brain-fever, buzzing round +and round on her back like a top the while. + +And then, rising suddenly, the queen flew away, hitting nothing in the +process, but getting through the lower and open part of the window. +She seemed anxious to make sure of not getting into the house again. +She flew right away, rising high to top the garden hedge, and dropping +low on the far side, to buzz and poke about in and out, up along the +hedge-bank that bordered the hayfield. + +She flew as one looking for something, and every insect in her way took +jolly good care--in the shape of scintillating streaks and dashes--to +get out of it. The mere sight of that yellow-banded cuirass shining in +the sun was apparently quite enough for them--most of them, anyway. As +a matter of fact, she was looking for a site for a city. She had +ambition, and would found her a city, a city of her very own, with +generous streets at right angles, on the American plan; and she would +be queen of it. It was a big idea, and we should have said an +impossible one, seeing that at that moment she was the city and its +population and its queen all rolled into one, so to speak. +Queen-wasps, however, also on the American plan, ruled the word +"impossible" out of their dictionary long ago. They "attempt the end, +and never stand to doubt." + +The queen came to rest on a bare patch of ground an front of a hole, +and a black and hairy spider, with two hindlegs missing on the offside, +spun round in the entrance of that hole to face her. He had not been +noticeable until he moved. + +She left him in a hurry, and thereafter resumed her endless searching +along the hedge-bank. A dozen times she vanished into a hole, and, +after a minute or so, came out again with the air of one dissatisfied. +Half-a-dozen times she came out tail first, buzzing warnings and very +angry, at the invitation of a bumble-bee queen, a big, hook-jawed, +carnivorous beetle in shining mail, and so forth, but she never lost +her head. + +Finally, she came to a mole-hole that suited her. The other burrows +had all turned out to be field-mouse holes, leading ultimately into a +main tunnel that ran the whole length of the hedge apparently, and was +a public way for all the little whiskered ones. But this tunnel, bored +by the miner mole, ran nowhither, having caved in not far from the +entrance, and was very sound of construction, with a nice dry slope. +She selected a wide spot where the tunnel branched, each branch forming +a _cul-de-sac_. Here she slew swiftly several suspicious-looking +little tawny beetles and one field-cricket, who put up a rare good +fight for it, found loafing about the place. + +It pleased the queen that here, in this spot, she would found her a +city. But first she must, as it were, take the latitude and the +longitude of this her stronghold to be. She must know where her city +was, must make absolutely dead sure, certain, of finding it again when +she went out. Otherwise, if she lost it--well, there would be an end +to it before it had begun, so to speak. For this purpose, therefore, +she rose slowly, humming to herself some royal incantation--rose, upon +a gradually widening corkscrew spiral, into the air. + +She was, in point of fact, surveying the district round her capital to +be, marking each point--bush, stone, grass-tuft, tree-trunk, +flower-cluster, clod, branch, anything and everything, great and +small--and jotting down in indelible memory fluid, upon whatever she +kept for a brain, just precisely the position of every landmark. And +as she rose her circles ever widened, so that at last her big compound +eyes took in quite a big stretch of sunlit picture, to be photographed +upon her memory, and there remain forevermore. + +It took her some time, for it was some job; but once done, it was done +for good. + +Next, alighting with great hustle--now that the work was once +begun--the queen ran into her tunnel, and made sure that nobody had +"jumped her claim" in the interval. She found an ant, red and +ravenous, taking too professional an interest in the place, and she +abolished that ant with one nip; though, as you may be sure, the tiny +insect fought like a bulldog. + +Then she executed a shallow excavation upon the site of the future city +itself, carrying each pellet of earth outside beyond the entrance. +This also took time, though she worked at fever-pitch, almost with +fury; but she managed to finish it, and fly away into the landscape in +a remarkably short while, considering. + +Here once again she appeared to be searching for something through the +yellow sunshine and the falling blossom-petals--confetti from Spring's +wedding. And presently she found it, or seemed to--an old gate, off +its hinges. But the wood was rotting, and she was no fool. She knew +her job--the job she had never done before, by the way--and after +humming around it in a fretful, undecided sort of fashion for some +while, she flew on. Apparently she was looking for wood, but not _any_ +wood. Cut wood appeared to be her desire, and that oak; at least, she +put behind her a deal board lying half-overgrown, after one careful +professional inspection. + +Her way was through a perilous world, beset by a thousand foes, mostly +in the nature of traps and lines and barbed-wire entanglements set by +spiders. As a rule you didn't see these last at all--nor did she; but +her yellow-and-black badge usually won her a way of respect--and +hate--and she cut or struggled herself clear of such web-lines as her +feelers failed to spot in time. + +At last she found some real oak rails, and set to work upon them at +once, planing with her sharp shear-jaws. A tiger-beetle, gaudy and +hungry-eyed, sought to pounce upon her in this task. He was +long-legged, and keen, and lean, and very swift; but she shot aloft +just in time; and when she came down again, with a z-zzzzp, as quickly +as she went up, sting first, he had wisely dodged into a cranny, where +he defied her with open and jagged jaws. + +Again getting to work, she planed off a pellet of good sound wood--it +looked like a nail-scrape, the mark she made--and masticating it and +moistening it with saliva, whirred back like a homing aeroplane to her +city in the making. + +There was a whir and a buzz as she passed through the portals of her +main gate from the light of day, and she reappeared again, backing out, +"looking daggers," as we say, and brandishing her poisoned dart--her +sting, if you insist, on the end of her tail--in the air. But she +still hung on to her pellet. + +Presumably some unlucky visitor had called in her absence. More sounds +of concentrated argument followed, and finally there fell out, rather +than rushed out, a small and amazingly slender black wasp, one of those +hermits who seem to consecrate their lives to lonely working for a +family they never see. This unhappy one slid down the bank, curled up +at the bottom, uncurled, curled up again, and--remained curled. +Apparently _her_ day's work was done, which comes of falling foul of +the yellow flag. + +Arrived inside, at her hallowed chamber, our queen carefully selected a +rootlet in the roof--not just any old rootlet, mark you; never any +"old" anything, you will notice, but a good, sound, well-found rootlet +that you could hang five or six pounds' weight to; indeed, three +rootlets before she had finished. To these rootlets she +fastened--gummed would be a more correct word--her pellet of +wasp-paper, in the form of a thin layer, and hurried away, singing, for +more. This was, so to speak, the foundation-stone of the city, laid, +be it noticed, not haphazard--our queen never did any business that +way--but with mathematical regard as to what was to follow. In very +fact, too, it was the foundation-stone of her city, only upside-down, +though that is nothing. Wasps always do things that way, which is +unlike ants, those other and greater city builders. + +Back came the queen very soon with another load, and pasted +that--thin--to the first layer, hurrying, bustling, humming a happy +song continuously to herself. Then away again for more, and in the +process to a lively battle with a robber-fly, who appeared set upon +robbing her of her blood. It tried, like the beetle, to stalk her and +pounce upon her back, what time she was planing out wood for +paper-pulp; but her back wasn't there when it pounced, and her jaws +were. It "waited on," hovering like a falcon, and twice as keen, and +when she got to work again, dropped like a hurled lance-head, only to +be met with jaws, wide and ready, as before. + +It went away, watching from afar--far for an insect--from "the little +speedwell's darling blue" upon the hedge-bank, and just as she was +moistening the load, gathered ready to fly off, delivered its final +ultimatum--a marvelously persistent murderer. This time it, or, +rather, she, was received with the point--the poisoned point--and, +turning like a spent lightning-flash to avoid it, found the queen hard +on her heels, following all down the gay hedge-ditch, humming high, in +nearly a shriek of rage. Finally, she turned, to do battle for her +life, and the two, grappling, fell as shooting-stars fall, gleaming, +athwart the sun, with a brrr-r like a fused wire, and finished the job, +rolling over and over on the ground--rolling over and over among the +stalks of bluebells, like the heavens "upraising from the earth." + +It is written, however, that few in the insect world can withstand a +queen of the yellow devils, and in a few seconds the wasp got up and +flew home again, quite unperturbed. The robber-fly did not get up, and +she was not quite unperturbed, but died as they die who are poisoned +with formic acid, and very soon was still. + +By the time the shadows crept across the entrance to the derelict +mole-hole, warning the wasp back--for your true wasp is a worshiper of +the sun--the queen had formed a disc of paper, and suspended +there-from, in the middle, a stalk, also of paper, which widened out at +its base, and became, as it were, the outlines of four six-sided cells. +The cells were in the shape of a cross--that cross which you will +always find at the foundation of the cities of the waspfolk, and, in a +way, a sign or mark of their nationality--the cross in the +market-square, so to speak, outwards from which the city grew. + +The queen, satisfied apparently with her new city so far, hung up and +went to sleep. When anything or anybody came to prospect for house +lots, or edible victims, during the still, silent, silver night, she +hummed very severely, like an electric fan, to let the intruders know +who she was, and they mostly backed out again in a hurry. If they took +a step nearer the hum rose an octave, and became very wicked, and that, +so far as most of them were concerned, finished it. + +Two, however, there were who would not take even that hint. One was a +shrew-mouse, thirsting for blood, but who got poison instead, and next +morning was found running about with his mouth somewhere concealed +behind his ear, if one may be pardoned the expression, in consequence; +and the other was a carnivorous beetle, in black, purple-shot armor, +and armed with jaws toothed like lobsters' claws. The queen took some +nasty scars from those same jaws before she got home with the poisoned +point, a clean thrust 'twist breastplate and armlet, and the invader +doubled up on the spot where he was, and had to be dragged out in the +morning--not the dawning, for the sun had well stoked up before our +wasp would have anything to do with him. + +[Illustration: "A shrew-mouse, thirsting for blood, but who got poison +instead"] + +She found the day already in full swing when she rose, buzzing, from +her front-gate, late--for wasps hate early morning chill, like Red +Indians--and, circling once, swung straight away. She jumped into full +hustle right off, you see. She did not merely work; she superworked. +Forced to short hours by her constitution, she had to make up for it in +the time she got, and she did. She allowed nothing to stop her. If +anything tried to, she mostly stopped it, for there was no compromise +about this nation-builder; she reached her goal every time. + +It was on this journey that a spotted fly-catcher, sitting on a +gatepost, made a Euclid figure at her in midair as she passed. She had +not power to fight the bird's beak, and her poison-dagger was useless +here; nor do fly-catchers often miss. This, however, was an occasion +when one of them did--by an eighth of an inch--and only some +electric-spark-like dodging on the part of the insect in the air made +even that one miss possible. It was so quick, you could not see what +happened. + +That day the cross of cells in this budding city was developed further, +and a low wall built round each cell. Moreover, more cells were built, +always taking the cross as the center of all things--six-sided cells, +with a low, incomplete wall, or, rather, parapet, partitioning each +off, to the number of about twenty-four cells in all. Each cell was +closed, of course, at the top, the top being its floor, and open at the +bottom, the bottom being, if I may so put it, the top; for, as has +already been said, wasp cities are built upside-down, and everybody +walks and hangs on his head, being so fitted for the purpose. If you +don't hang, you tumble straight down into the scooped-out cavity below; +but nobody ever does that till he dies, for that cavity is at once the +cemetery and the refuse-heap and the dust-bin of the city, a haunt of +tiny ghouls--beetle, spider, and fly ghouls--and other loathsome +horrors, the scavengers, hyenas, vultures, and jackals of the wasp +world. + +Now, after making the first cell, or, rather, the part cell, with its +low parapet, the queen laid an egg--it was very minute, that +egg--inside the cell, gumming it against the top, on the angle nearest +the center of the city. It had to be cemented there; otherwise it +would have fallen out. + +In the next cell she laid an egg, too, cementing it up to the top in +the same manner--always in the angle nearest the center of the +city--and in the next another egg, and so on, up to the twenty-four or +so. It is a little doubtful precisely how long she took over the +process, because, for one thing, she made so many journeys backwards +and forwards to get wood-pulp from the rails for paper manufacture--she +used paper for everything; and, for another thing, she began to roof +over the whole affair with a hanging umbrella made of layers of the +finest paper that you ever did see--much finer than that made by the +ordinary common or garden worker-wasp of the jam-pots and the +stewed-fruit dish, for was she not a queen, and therefore not common in +anything she did?--and it became, in consequence, rather hard to see +what she really was "at." Most of the time that the sky remained +cloudy she used up at this job, and also when there was a shower of +rain, for she hated rain and all shadow and darkness. + +Her purpose, in regard to this paper roofing, was to keep out any +possible dripping that might come through the earth roof in wet +weather, and to store up and multiply the heat from her body. Terrific +heat, to be sure; nevertheless important in the scheme of things. When +all was completed, this city, this mighty kingdom, measured about one +and a half inches round. + +When all was completed, also, the wasp flew out for a drink and a feed. +But first she cleaned. The most fastidious cat was a grimy tramp in +comparison to her in habits, and in all her spare time--goodness alone +knows how she squeezed in any spare time at all during those hustling +days!--her first, and generally her last, act was to clean. She could +not afford dirt. To be dirty, with her, was to die even more quickly +than she would, anyway; for, you see, she did not breathe through her +mouth, but all over herself, so to speak--through her armor, or +hair-like tubes in that same. + +From bluebell to cowslip and lily she picked her way, sipping honey and +humming a wicked little hum through her teeth, as it were, and on to +where + + Daisies pied, and violets blue, + And cuckoo buds of yellow hue, + And lady-smocks all silver white, + Do paint the meadows with delight. + + +Now she toyed with a yellow oxlip, now paused at a purple lungwort; but +most she went into the garden, and hovered, still as a humming-bird, +among the rose-leaves and branches, especially those growing against +the sun-bathed old wooden porch, and for so long that one wondered what +she was doing there. She was licking up the "honey-dew," which, +translated, is the juice exuded by the plant-lice or "green-fly," which +swarmed all over the rose-trees. This "honey-dew" was sweet, and in +great demand among such insects as had tastes that way; in fact, the +enterprising ants--who are always a decade ahead of everybody +else--were, in one place, building mud sheds over the said herds of +plant-lice to prevent their precious "honey-dew" being exploited by +others. + +Thus a week passed, the queen fussing daily about her embryo city, +adding paper covering here, strengthening a wall there, warning off an +inquisitive insect somewhere else, and adding her heat to the natural +stuffiness of the place, though one would scarcely have thought she +could have made much difference. At times, too, in the hot sun, she +appeared here or there outside, drinking honey from some flower, or +sipping "honey-dew," much to the ants' disgust and anger. + +Then, at the end of the week, the first egg hatched out within the +city, and, frankly, what came forth was not lovely. It was a legless +grub, fat, presumably blind, and helpless; and it would have fallen +head downwards out of the cell, as it hatched, if it had not had the +sense to hook its tail into its own egg-shell, which in turn, as we +know, was already fastened to the top of the cell. But it had jaws, +and in addition, apparently, an appetite to use them. + +Whether the queen loved it, her first baby, was hard to tell. Did she, +indeed, ever love anything? She certainly did her duty by it; but what +was the use of setting up to be a queen, anyway, if she could not do +that? And, moreover, you've got to do your duty in the wild. There's +no profit in monkeying with Nature, as is possible with civilization, +for the penalty thereof is death. + +Wherefore did our queen, after making quite sure that the sack-like +atom with a mouth, hanging upside-down in the cell, and wriggling like +anything to show its hunger, was alive, sound, and quite all there, +quit home in a hurry, and with a loud buzz, in search of rations. But +there was a change in her manner from that adopted when looking for +food for herself, and for good reason. _Then_ her object had been +honey; now it was--scalps! + +From force of habit, more perhaps than from force of reasoning, she +flew to the rose-trees, and there fixed in her shear jaws not more than +two of the helpless, fool, unarmed, soft, juicy green-fly, which are +really no more, if one may so put it, than living, infinitesimal +"white" grapes. That she was challenged by a sentry ant--about as big +to her as a bulldog to us--that the sentry gave the alarm, that the +guard turned out from one of the ants' "cowsheds" over some of the +green-fly, and that she went away in a hurry, with half-a-dozen furious +ants on their hindlegs, trying to get hold of her retiring feet with +their jaws, was a matter treated by her with insolent unconcern. + +She had got her scalps, and winging home in a hurry to her baby, fed it +upon green-fly. The baby did not feed nicely, and the picture of the +glistening, corsleted devil queen-mother, with her lugubrious, +mask-like face, and the wriggling, hanging sack babe, and the luckless, +fool, helpless green-fly between them, was not a pretty one. Here +maternity was not a Sunday-sermon subject, yet it was maternity all the +same. + +By this time other eggs in other cells were splitting, and giving out +legless grub horrors, as seeds that give forth plants, each wriggling +mummy taking care to hook itself up to its shell by the tail at once, +lest it perish. And the queen's work from that moment really began. +Till then she had only tinkered at it, apparently. Now she got going +"real some," and--well, all the insect world outside knew it. The +terror of the yellow flag spread. + +Upon an hour she would appear, dropping, hawk-like and terrible, out of +the sun-glare, and neatly pick up a soft and juicy caterpillar from a +cabbage-stalk. Upon another hour she would be discovered, feet tucked +up and wary, darting, like an iridescent gleam, around the angry ants, +among the green-fly on the rose-bushes. The drowsy hum of the kettle +on the kitchen fire, and the steady, low hum of the house-fly dance in +the middle of the room, would be answered in the long, hot afternoons +by her wicked warning drone as she came sailing in at the open window, +like the insolent pirate that she was, to go out again a minute later +with a helpless fly between her jaws. The first heat of the sun, +drinking up the dew, would discover her sailing forth to war; his full, +sizzling rays would reveal her waging violent warfare with the +bluebottle flies over some carcass; into his amber light of the noon +her yellow flag would suddenly rise from out the cool shade of the +larder, where she had been carving meat, and "when the sun mended his +twisted copper nets," he would flash in bronze from her glistening +cuirass as she droned by high over some wriggling grub, caterpillar, or +palsied fly fast locked in her jaws--and all for her young, all for her +couple of dozen legless horrors, hanging by their tails, each in its +narrow cell, in darkness and in dead silence, in the embryo city under +the secret earth. + +Time was when these same grubs grew so fat and big that they no longer +hung, but became fast wedged in their dormitories; time when the queen +had to set to and extend downwards the wall of each cell lest the +growing inmates bulge over, and, obsessed with their ravening hunger, +incontinently eat each other; and time at last when, one after the +other, each grub, having grown out of more than one suit of clothes and +donned new ones, cast its skin for the last time, refused all further +food, spun a cocoon of silk with a dome-shaped silken floor to each +cell, and for a period retired from the prying eyes of the world, even +of its own mother, into the sacred sanctuary of the chrysalis state. +Then the queen's labor lightened a little for a period, so that you +could again see her at spare moments sucking nectar from the flowers +for herself, robbing the jam-dish, or lapping up the "honey-dew" of the +green-fly. + +Finally came _the_ day. It dawned all right, and there was nothing +about it to show that it was going to be different from any other fine +day; yet, as soon as the wasp woke up, she knew that, for her, it was +the day of Fate. + +A very cursory inspection of the budding city showed at once that +during the night things had been happening and changes taking place. +The domed floors of several of the cells were palpitating with life +from within, and there were sounds of the gnawing and tearing of the +silken screens. + +The queen became greatly excited, and began to hum and dance a little +step-dance to herself, all alone in the darkness among the cells, as +she saw her triumph evolving before her eyes. And, almost as if the +hum had called it, there rushed at her, out of the blackness across the +comb, a--a thing. + +She knew by instinct that it was an enemy. Indeed, it could not well +be anything else, but it fought like a black devil. + +It was, in point of fact, a mole-cricket, a creature just like its +namesake, if an insect can be said to resemble an animal, only that its +jaws were like unto the jaws of a lobster. It was a fearsome +apparition, and very much larger even than the queen. The good God +alone knoweth why it had chosen that moment and place to run apparently +amok. + +But, if the mole-cricket ran amok, the queen-wasp went berserk. It was +a thing unthinkable that in that moment of triumph she, and the +awakening city with her, should be cut off--unthinkable and impossible, +unthinkable and maddening. Therefore she fought as few wasps have +probably fought before or since, and they are pretty expert exponents, +and scarcely backward ones, of warfare. + +The battle that followed was awful. + +Almost at the start the two insects, grappling, fell headlong to the +excavation the queen had made below the city, and there, rolling over +and over, continued the struggle in the dark among the refuse, the +queen eternally feeling with her poison-dagger for a space to drive +home her death-blow between the other's smooth, shining armor-plates; +the cricket eternally endeavoring to behead the queen between its awful +jaws. + +It was a fight to the death, as most insect duels are, and it could not +last long. It was too tense, too fiendish, too shockingly wicked for +that. + +Suddenly the queen's body shot out like a spring. The opening she had +been feeling for had appeared, and she had driven her death-blow home. +At the same instant, with a supreme effort, she bent double and shot +herself free, the last convulsive, shearing crush of her foe's laws +clashing to so close above her head that they actually caught in their +death-grip, and held, till she pulled them out by the roots, two +bristles of her neck. + +And then--well, then the queen hurried back up to her city, just in +time to help out of its cell the first of her children--and citizens at +last--the first limp, clambering, damp, newly painted, freshly bedecked +young worker-wasp, perfect from feeler to sting, from wing to claw. + +Quickly they broke out now from the cocoons, and the queen bustled from +one to the other, assisting, cleaning, encouraging; for it is a tricky +job for an insect to come out of its chrysalis-case. The queen's work, +however, was really done; for, though for a day or two, till their +cuirasses and wings hardened, these new young worker-wasps only did +light labor, acting as nurses to the others that were following, and so +on, they quickly took upon their own shoulders the whole of the work of +the city: the nursing and feeding of the young, the hunting, the +building, the scavenging, and the waiting upon and feeding the +queen-mother herself completely, so that she should henceforth labor +not, nor fight, nor waste herself in the chase, but should keep at home +and lay countless eggs, and eggs, and always nothing but eggs, for the +workers to rear for the benefit of the State. + + * * * * * * + +To-day that city has a population of nearly 60,000, and contains over +11,000 cells; and the queen is still there, laying eggs, eggs, and +again eggs, till-- + + + + +IV + +NINE POINTS OF THE LAW + + Sharp's the word with her.--SWIFT. + +Some people never know when they are well off. It is a complaint which +afflicts cats, you may have noticed, and gets them into much trouble +that their contemptuous temper might otherwise leave them free from. +The silver tabby would have done better if she had remained asleep upon +Miss Somebody's arm-chair, instead of squatting, still as marble, out +in a damp field on a damp night, watching a rabbits' "stop"--which is +vernacular for a bunnies' nursery--and thinking how nice raw, pink +baby-rabbit would taste if she got the chance to sample it. She +didn't. At least, she hadn't for an hour and a half; but, then, what's +an hour and a half to a cat? Apparently the silver tabby could wait, +just like that, utterly inert, till the crack of doom--or dawn. + +Mind you, she was not alone. She had company. One always has in the +wild at night, or nearly always. You couldn't see that company, but I +don't know whether the silver tabby could. Who can tell how much a cat +sees, anyway? Nor do I think the company could see her, she being +still, and wild eyes not being good at picking out the still form. +Neither could they hear her, for she said nothing; neither did she +purr. They must have smelt her, though. Anyway, she seemed to be a +little island in the mist--the faint, faint, ethereal dew-mist--where +nobody walked. You could hear them--a rustle here, a squeak there, a +thud somewhere else, a displaced leaf, a cracked twig--this only +once--a drumming, a patter, a sniff, a snuffle, a sigh; but they all +passed by on the other side, so to say, and gave the silver tabby room +to think. Apparently cats are not considered good company in the wild; +lonely creatures, they are best left alone. + +No mother-rabbit came to the "stop"--which the cat knew to be there--to +feed her babies, which the cat, thanks to her nose, knew to be there, +too. No baby-rabbits came out to be fed--or to feed the cat either. +"Stops" are secrets, kept from the rest of rabbitdom by the wise +mothers, and, they hope, from other inquisitive people also. The +little short holes in the middle of the field are plugged up by the old +does with grass and fur when they are away, which is pretty often. + +Then the silver tabby heard a thump come out of the night--a thud, +hollow, resounding, and noticeable. It was repeated after an interval, +and again repeated. There was a certain note of insistence about +it--like a signal. And if the cat had been a wild creature she would +have thrown up the sponge, or gone away, and returned secretly later, +or, anyway, not persisted in crouching there; for those thuds were a +signal, and they meant that the game was up. In other words, some wily +old mother circling the approach, or some wandering back-eddy of wind, +had given the cat away; she had been scented, and rabbit after rabbit, +squatting invisible in the night, was thumping the ground with its feet +to say so and warn all off whom it might concern. The silver tabby, +however, neither wild nor satisfied to be tame, did not know. She sat +on, and in doing so wondered, perhaps, at the scarcity of rabbits +thereabouts. + +She sat, or hunched, or crouched, or couched, or whatever you call that +precise position of cats, which is neither lying down nor sitting up, +for some time longer--for another twenty minutes, to be precise; and +all the while the thuds of mystery serenaded her from nowhere in +particular out of the dark--and from down-wind. + +Then she must have come to the conclusion that she was being made a +fool of, for she got up, stretched herself lazily, with arched back and +bared claws, and yawned a bored feline yawn. And even as she did so +she was aware of a sudden final flourish of thuds, and then +dead-silence. Next moment, in that same dead-silence, she distinctly +heard something coming towards her, and that something was taking no +pains to conceal the fact. + +Now, in the wild it is not the custom to go towards anything and take +no pains to conceal the fact. The unhealth of such a procedure is +swiftly borne in upon such rash ones as make the experiment, and they +seldom live long enough to pass their folly on. Only the mighty can +afford not to walk circumspectly, and they are very few, and, with man +about, even they have learnt wisdom. That is why the wild is so +guarded, and why self-effacement becomes almost a religion therein. + +Even the cat knew this, I fancy. Anyway, she looked surprised as she +crouched again, and quickly. + +Now, of all the wild-people, probably one of the most brazen is the +pig; it is also one of the bravest. I mean, the wild pig. And it +would seem that he, or she, who came that way was a pig, only a +precious little one. You know the ways of a pig? How you can hear him +coming long before he comes; how he must snuffle, and grunt, and poke +dead leaves, and snort, and tread on things, and snore. Very good. So +it was here; and these things did this new-comer, who approached +through the mist--only all in a dwarfed way, as if they were done by a +tiny grown-up pig. Its gruntings were almost to itself; its snortings, +snorings, and sniffings quite small; and its snorts little miniature +ones. Only, in the profound silence of the night, and in comparison +with the furtive noises of all the rest of the night-wild, they sounded +quite loud. + +The cat, as she crouched, passed from supercilious surprise to +amazement. You could tell that by the roundness of her eyes. She had +no knowledge of pigs, and had never met any of the wild-folk gone mad; +yet it seemed that one must have done so now, and that one--to her +growing uneasiness--was coming straight towards her. I fancy that in +that moment she thought of the warm fire, the singing kettle, the +saucer of milk, and Miss Somebody's best arm-chair. + +The thing, whatever it was, came straight on in a more or less zigzag +line, till the cat could make it out dimly in the moonlight, a +blotched, roughly egg-shaped form, less than a foot long, so low to the +ground that it appeared to be running on wheels, and covered all over +with prickles, like a Rugby ball into which tin tacks had been driven +head first, the sharp ends pointing outwards and backwards. Its head +was the small end, and much lower than its back. Its eyes, little and +pig-like, set in a black cowl, gleamed red in the tired moonlight; and +its face was the face of a pig, nothing else--just pure pig; insolent, +cunning, vulgar, and blatant. Occasionally men name a wild beast +correctly, and this little beast could only have one name--hedgehog: It +was obvious on the face of it. + +But the cat, being a cat and an aristocrat, knew, as has been said, +nothing about pigs, real or only so called. She had killed a shrew +once, and spat it out for tasting abominably and smelling worse; and +shrews are cousins of the hedgehogs, of the same great clan, +Insectivora--far removed from the pigs, really--and that is the nearest +she had got. + +She had never heard of hedgehogs, and never, never met a beast that +walked through the wild as if he owned it. And, more, he expected her +to get out of his way, which she did with feline and concentrated +remarks; and he--by the whiskers and talons!--the fool exposed his +back--turned his back openly, a thing no wild beast in its senses would +do, unless running away. And that, for a cat who had waited close on +two hours for baby business that didn't turn up, had got most +unfashionably drenched, and had, moreover, in her time, tackled more +than one grown-up rabbit, which was considerably larger than any +hedgehog--that, I say, was, for the silver tabby, too much. + +She sprang. Rather, she executed two bounds, and somewhat unexpectedly +found herself on top of the hedgehog. I say "unexpectedly," because +she had hitherto bounded upon wild-folk who contrived mostly not to be +there. This one contrived nothing, except to stop still. And the cat +executed a third bound--_off_ the hedgehog, and rather more violently +and more quickly than the first two. Also, she spat. + +When she had got over the intense pain--and cats feel pain badly--of +sharp spines digging into her soft and tender forefoot-pads, she +stopped, about two yards away, and glared at the hedgehog as if he had +played off a foul upon her, and she was surprised to see that he was no +longer egg-shaped, but rolled up into himself like a ball, so to speak, +and utterly quiescent. (I wonder if she remembered the little +wood-lice that she had so often amused herself playing with in idle +hours. They rolled themselves up just like that. Perhaps she thought +she'd come upon the Colossus of all the wood-lice.) Anyway, after she +had spat off at him all the vile remarks she could think of for the +moment, without producing any more reply than she would get from the +average stone, she came back, drawn with curiosity as by strings. + +The hedgehog did not move; there was no need. It was for the cat to +make the next move--if she chose. He did not care. All things were +one to him, and all the views which he presented to the world were +points, a _cheval-de-frise_, a coiled ball of barbed wire, a living +Gibraltar, what you will, but, anyway, practically impregnable; and the +beggar knew it. "He who believeth doth not make haste"--that seemed to +be his motto, and he had, by the same token, a fine facility for +withstanding a siege. + +He felt the cat, that cat who did not know hedgehogs, pat him +tentatively. Then he heard her swearing softly and tensely at the +painful result. She did not pat again--at least, only once, and, in +spite of care, that hurt her worse than ever. Then she began growling, +low and beastily--for all the cat tribe have a horrible growl; you may +have noticed it. Perhaps the hedgehog smiled. I don't know. He knew +that growl, anyhow; had heard it before--the anger of utter +exasperation. He was an exasperating brute, too, for he never said +anything, only shut himself up, and let others do the arguing, if they +were fools enough to do so. + +Suddenly he heard the growl stop. Followed a tense pause, during which +he tightened his back-muscles under his spines, and tucked himself in, +to meet any coming shock, more tightly than ever. Followed the pause a +short warning hiss, jerked out almost in fright, it seemed--that cat's +hiss that is only a bluff, and meant to imitate a snake--a sudden +explosion of snarls, and a thud. A fractional silence, then a perfect +boil-over of snarls, and thud upon thud. + +Now, our friend hedgehog was an old hand, and he had heard many and +curious sounds take place outside himself, so to speak; but, all the +same, he was just tickled to death to know what, in claws and whiskers, +was happening out there in the leering moonlight now; so much so, +indeed, that at last he risked it, and took a furtive peep out of a +chink in himself, as it were. And what he saw might have amazed him, +if he had not been a hedgehog and scarcely ever amazed at anything. He +just got a snapshot view of the cat's fine ringed tail whirling round +and round as she balanced herself on the swerve, vanishing into the +ghostly moonlight haze of the night; and in front of him, close beside +him, squatting, stare-eyed and phlegmatic, he saw the form of a big, +gaunt, old doe-rabbit. And I think he knew what had happened. He +seemed to, anyway, and remained rolled up. + +Rabbits are thoughtless, headstrong, headlong, hopeless, helpless +cowards as a race and a rule. "The heart of a rabbit," they say in +France, speaking of a coward. But all races and rules have exceptions. +Occasionally the exceptions are old buck-rabbits, who know a thing or +two; but more often they are old doe-rabbits with young. And, mark +you, from the point of view of those wild-folk, there may be easier +rough handfuls to tackle than old doe-rabbits with young. This one had +simply streaked out of the night from nowhere--and behind--and knocked +the cat flying before she knew. Then, ere ever the feline could gather +her wits, the old doe had descended upon her with an avalanche of +blows--punches they were with the forefeet, all over the head and the +nose, where a cat hates to be hit--and all so swiftly, so irresistibly, +that that cat had never been given a chance to consider before she was +stampeded into the night. It was the silver tabby's first experience +of Mrs. Rabbit doing the devoted-mother act, and, by the look of +her--tail only--and the speed at which she was going, it appeared most +likely that it would be her last. + +[Illustration: "This one had simply streaked out of the night from +nowhere"] + +Meanwhile the old doe-rabbit sat there in the moonlight as immovable +and impassive as a Buddha, and the hedgehog, peering at her, guessed +that the time to unroll was not yet. He knew that it would hurt any +one to attack him; the cat knew it; all rabbits in their senses knew +it; but was that mother-rabbit in her senses? He concluded to lie low +and remain a fortress, therefore. + +Then, after waiting about five minutes, as if she knew that cats +sometimes steal back, the old doe-rabbit came to a "stop" quite close +to the hedgehog, and went in. She remained there some time, during +which a fox came by and sniffed at the hedgehog, but was quite wise as +to the foolishness of doing more; and a deadly, curved-backed, +flat-headed little murderer of a stoat galloped by, and sniffed too, +but was no bigger fool than the fox, and went his way. + +Both missed the "stop" by about two yards, though I don't know what +would have happened if they had found it. Digging and death in the +former case, and battle and blood in the latter, perhaps. But no +matter, they passed on their unlawful occasions; and half-an-hour after +the going of the stoat the old doe-rabbit came out, and dissolved into +the moon-haze. + +Then the hedgehog came out, too--of himself, and--well, dissolved into +the "stop." + +What happened in there it was too dark to see, but not to hear; and +what one could hear was--pitiful. He was there some time, for your +hedgehog rarely hurries; and when he came out again, his little pig's +eyes gleaming red under their spined cowl, it was with the same +snuffling, softly grunting deliberation with which he had gone in; but +the pale moon, that showed the gleam in his eyes, showed also blood on +his snout, and on the bristles of his forefeet, blood. + +Then, slowly, snorting, sniffing very audibly--as loud as a big dog +often does--grunting softly in an undertone, as if talking to himself, +he departed, rustling through the grass, leaving an irregular winding +track behind in the dew and the gossamer, as he searched, eternally +searched, for food. + +The hedgehog moved through the night as if he owned it and had no fear +of anything on earth; but many, it would seem, had cause to fear him. +He turned and snorted, and snatched up a slug. Three very quick and +suggestive--quite audible--scrunches, and it was gone. He described a +half-circle, sniffing very loudly, and chopped up a grub. He paused +for a fraction to nose out a beetle, and disposed of it with the same +quick three or four chopping scrunches. (It sounded rather like a +child eating toast-crusts.) He continued, always wandering devious, +always very busy and ant-like, always snorting loudly; grabbed another +beetle, and then a worm--all by scent, apparently--and reached the +hedge-ditch, where, in the pitch-darkness, he could still be heard +snorting and scrunching hapless insects, slugs, and worms at scarcely +more than one-minute intervals. And he never stopped. He seemed to +have been appointed by Nature as a sort of machine, a spiked "tank," to +sniff tirelessly about, reducing the surplus population of pests, as if +he were under a curse--as, indeed, the whole of the great order of +little beasts to which he belonged, the Insectivora, are--which, +afflicting him with an insatiable hunger, drove him everlastingly to +hunt blindly through the night for gastronomic horrors, and to eat 'em. +Anyway, he did it, and in doing it seemed to make himself worthy of the +everlasting thanks and protection of the people who owned that +land--thanks which to date he had never received. + +Strange to say, he never stopped of his own free-will, though he was +stopped: once when he walked up to a man kneeling--and he was a +poacher--and did not see him till, if I may so put it, the man coughed, +when he ran like winkle into the hedge, and promptly became a ball for +ten minutes; and once when he came upon a low, long, sinister, big, and +grunting shadow, which again, if I be allowed the term, he did not see, +though quite close, till he heard it grunt, when he instantly jerked +himself into a ball on the spot and in the open. In both cases it +seemed, on the face of it, more as if he had scented, rather than had +either seen or heard, the dangers, and in both cases he had come within +two yards of them--though they were not hidden--before scenting, +seeing, or hearing them, whichever he did do. + +Now, books and men have said that friend hedgehog fears only two +things: gypsies and badgers--who eat him. I should not be surprised at +anything the "gyp" did; nor, to this day, can we stake much on our +knowledge of the secret badger; but this badger, at any rate, seemed to +know nothing of books and men. He was delving for roots when the +hedgehog cast up out of the night and jumped him to "attention" by his +loud sniffs--much like a big dog's, I said. Thereafter, however, when +our prickly friend was represented as a ball only, and was as silent as +the grave, the badger took no further notice of him, beyond keeping one +eye--the weather eye--upon him, and treating him to a low growl, or +curse, truly, from time to time. + +The hedgehog, however, once there, did not seem keen upon unrolling and +exposing himself till the badger had gone, which it did finally, +vanishing so suddenly and unexpectedly into the dark as almost to seem +to have been a ghost. And after some minutes the hedgehog straightened +out, and ate his way--one can call it nothing else--to the hedge. Here +he came upon a wounded mouse, complaining into the night in a little, +thin voice, because its back was broken, and it could not return to its +hole. It was a harvest mouse, rejoicing in the enormous weight of 4.7 +grains and a length of 57 mm., but with as much love of life and fear +of death as an elephant. Heaven knows what had smitten it! Perhaps it +was one of the very few who just escape the owl, or who foil that +scientific death, the weasel, at the last moment--but no matter. The +result was the same--death, anyway. + +The hedgehog saw its eyes shining like stars in a little jet of +moonlight, and I fear the hedgehog slew far less adroitly than the owl, +and not nearly so scientifically as the weasel; but he slew, none the +less, and he did that which he did. + +From thence we find our hedgehog, still wandering devious, but with +always a direction, just as an ant has, heading his way down-ditch to a +farm, and all the way he ate--beetles mostly, but with slugs and worms +thrown in. + +Now, those of the wild-folk who approach the farm, even by night, do so +with their life in their paws, and most of them know it. Far, far +safer would it be to remain in wood or field-hedge, gorse-patch or +growing crop. Yet they go, like the adventurers of old. + +First of all, if he approached by ditch, before getting to the farm +proper, the hedgehog knew that he must pass the entrenchments of the +rat-folk, and that alone was enough to put off many, for the rat-folk +are no longer strictly wild, and, wild or tame, are hated with that +cordiality that only fear can impose. I don't know that our hedgehog +was given to fearing anything very much. He came of a brave race, and +one cursed, moreover, with a vile, quick temper, more than likely to +squash in its incipient stage any fear that might threaten to exist; +but he did most emphatically detest rats, except to eat them--a +compliment which the rats would have returned, if they had got a chance. + +As a matter of fact, it is unlikely that Prickles--for such was the +name of our hedgehog--would have gone that risky way, traveled so +unhealthily far, left his more or less--mostly less--safe home wood at +all, had it not been that it is sometimes with hedgehogs as it is with +men--in the warm seasons--their fancy turns to thoughts of love. +Prickles's fancy had so turned, not lightly, for he was of an ancient +and antediluvian race, heavy in thought, but certainly to love. And +love, I want you to realize, in the wild, or anywhere else, for the +matter of that, is the very devil. "Unite and multiply; there is no +other law or aim than love," one great savant despairingly assorts is +Nature's cry, and adds that she mutters to herself under her breath, +"and exist afterwards if you can. That is no concern of mine." + +To be precise, Prickles, who did more business with his nose than all +the rest of his organs put together, was following a love-trail. A +lady hedgehog, a flapper undoubtedly, and beautiful--all loves are +beautiful in imagination--had passed that way. Why _that_ unhealthful +way, Heaven knew; but, allowing for the capriciousness of the sex, and +mad because in love, Prickles followed, slowly, deliberately, heavily, +as befitted one descended from one of the oldest races on earth. + +The air was heavy with the scent of may and of honeysuckle, and his way +was a green-gold--silver where the moon cascaded down the hedge--and +blue-black bridal-path, arched with scented swords, strewn with pink +and rose and cream and white confetti of blossom. But he only saw and +smelt one thing, and that, those who have known hedgehogs intimately +will agree, is not like unto the scent of any blossom. + +Prickles was ruminating anciently upon these things, possibly, and +others, as he came down the trench--ditch, I mean--when the cry smote +him. It smote everything--the filtered silence of the wonderful, +tranquil night, the pale moon half-light, the furtive rustling shadows +that stopped rustling, the wonderful breathing pulse of growing +vegetation. And Prickles stopped as abruptly as if it had smitten him +on his nose, too. He heard _that_, at any rate, whatever might have +been hinted about the value of his ears elsewhere. + +There was no doubt about that cry, no possible shadow of doubt +whatever--it was a cry of extreme distress, a final, despairing S.O.S., +flung out to the night in the frantic hope that one of the same species +would hear and help. + +Several night-foraging wild-folk have S.O.S. signals of their own, but +none like this. It was not a rabbit's cry, for bunny's signal is thin +and child-like; nor a hare's, for puss's last scream is like bunny's, +only more so; nor a stoat's, for that is instinct with anger as well as +pain; nor a cat's, for that thrills with hate; nor an owl's, for that +is ghostly; nor a fox's, for Reynard is dumb then; nor a rat's, for +that is gibbering and devilish; nor a mouse's, for that is weak and +helpless. Then what? And why had it touched up Prickles as if with a +live wire? It was perhaps the rarest S.O.S. signal of all heard in the +wild, or one of the rarest, the peculiar, high, chattering, pig-like, +savage tremolo of a hedgehog booked for some extra deathly form of +death. And Prickles--naturally he knew it. + +It came from straightaway down the ditch; from ahead, where Prickles +had been heading for; from the farm, and Heaven know what it portended! +Perhaps, too, Prickles could tell a lady hedgehog's S.O.S. from that of +a gentleman of the same breed; or, perhaps--but how do I know? He +certainly acted that way. + +Prickles waited the one-fifth part of an instant, to listen and locate. +Then he got going, and provided one astonishment. Till then he had +seemed slow as the times he had descended from--like a rhinoceros. +But, like a rhino, he proved that he could shift some when hustled. He +did. It looked like suddenly releasing a clockwork toy wound up to +breaking-point. His short legs gave this impression, and his +next-to-no-neck, giving him a look of rigidity, assisted it. He did +not run so much as rush, and his spines and bristles, coming low on +either side in an overhang, so to speak, like an armored car, made him +rustle and scuffle tremendously. Three rabbits doing the same act, or +five cats, could scarce have made more row than he did. + +It was not, however, so much the fact that Prickles had gone that was +so noticeable as the fact that he had _arrived_. His arrival seemed to +follow his going as one slide follows another on a screen. One would +never have believed such quickness of him; nor, as a matter of fact, do +I think he would have believed it of himself; but--well, love is a +mighty power, and makes folks do some strange things. + +What he found was two ditch-banks, pock-marked with the untidy dug-outs +of the rat-people, smelling ratty, and looking worse, one original ray +of moonlight lighting the beaten ditch between. In the moonlight one +young female hedgehog, who may have been pretty by hedgehog standards, +but was now pretty by none, and five rats, frankly beastly, very busy +indeed with that same hedgehog. They must have caught that young lady +of the spikes "napping"--a rare thing. Yet, allowing for the fact that +she was in love--with love and nothing else, so far--and careless, or +allowing that she may have mistaken the unclean ones momentarily, she +may have given them one brief half-instant. And it doesn't do to give +a rat even the half of a half-instant. If you do, he has got you, or +you haven't got him. + +Apparently they had pretty well got her before she could quite roll up, +and in a half-rolled-up condition she was doing her best to meet the +jabs of five pairs of gnawing, cold-chisel, incisor, yellow-rats' teeth +at once. To time, apparently, she had not been successful in the +attempt--you could see the dark stains of blood glisten in the +moonlight, and the end was certain, on the face of it. + +Prickles, however, was a new factor that had got to short-circuit that +end, and Prickles didn't wait to meditate prehistorically _that_ time. +He came. He came full tilt into the midst of the melee like--well, +like a clockwork toy still, that couldn't stop. Only he did stop, +against the biggest rat of all, ducking his head, and jerking forward +his shoulder-muscles, and spines, with a sort of a thrust over his +head, and a noise like a pair of expiring bellows; and the prickles hit +home. + +That rat removed about one foot in one bound in one-fortieth of a +second, and he let rip one squeal in the process that sent away every +other rat into the nearest available hole as if it had been fired there +from a spring. Then the lady hedgehog took the Heaven-sent opportunity +to complete her rolling-up completely, and Prickles took his own +created opportunity to roll up almost more completely, and--well, they +were rolled up into two balls, you see, and there is nothing more to be +said about them. The rats did that, but it was all they did, except +hurt their noses presently, and delicate, pink, hand-like fore-paws, +and make 'em bleed on prickles. They were very angry indeed, those +unspeakable ones--very angry; but it didn't make any difference to the +hedgehogs. They were there; they were rolled up; they were together. +What _could_ make any difference after _that_? And at last, when the +rats gave them up as a very bad job, they went away _together_, and +that's all there is to say. _Together_ clinches it, you understand. + + + + +V + +PHARAOH + + +I + +Upon a day Hawkley came to the district, and took up his abode in a +cottage of four rooms. He "did" for himself. Every housekeeper will +know what "did" for himself means. But he did for himself in another +way also. He came to read up for an exam. He told everybody this, +which was one reason why he would be seen at ungodly hours, when no one +was about, going to and from lonely spots, with a pair of blue glasses +on his nose, a book under one arm, and a walking-stick with a silver +band and a tassel--he was always careful to display the silver band and +the tassel--under the other. + +Then Nemesis descended upon him. + +He was caught by Colonel Lymington's head-keeper on Colonel Lymington's +most strictly preserved wild-bird sanctuary, shooting certain rare +birds--many rare birds. Now, the colonel prided himself on his +sanctuary, and upon the number of rare birds he had living therein, and +the colonel was wroth. Hawkley had, in fact, ruined the sanctuary, and +taken or slain pretty well every other bird worth having in the place, +so that five years would not make good the harm he had done. Moreover, +it was shown in the evidence that Hawkley had been able to accomplish +his work by aid of a folding pocket-rifle with a silencer on, and his +cat--especially the cat, whose name was Pharaoh. + +No words of the keeper's could be found sufficiently to revile that +cat. Indeed, the head-keeper went speechless, and nearly had epilepsy, +in trying to describe it to the Court, and if it had done only one-half +the things that the keeper asserted, it must have been a very +remarkable beast indeed; the magistrate said so. In consequence +Hawkley got rather heavily fined, and went. He went more quickly than +was expected, because the police got a telephone message from the +police of another district--several other districts, I think--to say +that he was "wanted" for precisely the same game there: and Hawkley +must have expected this, for he walked out of the court with a grin on +his face, and was no more seen. + +So quickly did he go that he had no time to take the cat. He left it +at home in the cottage--which shows that he must have been badly +scared, for such a cat must have been worth a lot to a collector's +agent, such as Hawkley was. But perhaps he left it by way of revenge. +I do not know. Anyway, there it was in his cottage, asleep on the sofa +before the fire--just as Hawkley, at the invitation of the authorities, +had left it that morning. + +It was about five o'clock in the afternoon when the cat, Pharaoh, woke +up, and transformed himself instantly from deep sleep to strained +alertness, in that way which is peculiar to the children of the wild, +but has been lost by their domestic degenerates. The sun was shining +full in at the little diamond-paned window. The window was open, and a +late fly of metallic hue was shooting about with a pinging noise, like +the twang of some instrumental string. But neither fly, nor sun, nor +the tick of the little clock on the mantelpiece had awakened the cat. +It was the click of the little front-gate latch. + +The cat--the pupils of his eyes like vertical slits in green-yellow +stone--gave one quick look at, and through, the open window. He had +the impression, framed in the window, of a bobbing, black, "square" +bowler hat--not often seen these days--and a red face with small eyes, +and a sticking-out beard of aggressiveness. This was no Hawkley. The +cat knew it, as he knew, probably, the alien tread. Hawkley had a +white, clean-shaven face, and big eyes--the eyes that an animal may +love and trust. Possibly the cat knew even the profession of him who +came that way so softly and alone in the still afternoon. Anyway, he +acted as if he did. + +Like a snake, and with rather less noise, Pharaoh slid off the sofa and +to the door leading into the scullery. For a moment he stopped, +looking back over his shoulder, one paw uplifted, body drooping on bent +legs, inscrutable, fierce eyes staring. Then he was gone. + +I don't know how he went. He just seemed to fade out in the frame of +the doorway and into the shadowed coolth of the scullery like a +dissolving picture. + +A pause followed, while the little clock on the mantel-piece ticked +hurriedly, as if anxious to get on and pass over an awkward moment. + +Came then the click of the front-door latch, the flinging open of the +door wide, the bar-like gleam of hastily raised gun-barrels in the new +flood of light, and--silence. Only the one or two late flies "pinged," +while the little clock fairly raced. + +The tall, uncompromising figure of the head-keeper was standing in the +doorway, with a double-barreled 12-bore gun half-raised. + +He stood there a moment with his dog, bent a little, peering in. He +had come to find "that there pesky cat." And in this, perhaps, he +showed more sense than most people gave him credit for. Apparently, he +had seen enough to know that the cat was quite unlike any ordinary +cat--and cats of any kind are bad enough--and certainly he guessed that +the cat under control of its master was one, and away from that +questionable influence likely to be another, and very much worse, +calamity. + +The keeper searched that cottage from chimney to doorstep. No cat +there. His dog did not, as might have been expected, help him in this +search. Indeed, his dog, he now discovered, had vanished--had, in +fact, gone out at the back-door and cleared off. + +Meanwhile the cat was, for his sins, being horribly pricked by the +holly-hedge through which he was sliding. He growled under the +punishment. Ordinary domestic cats do not, as a rule, growl in such +cases, though they may "swear." + +Once through the hedge, the cat dropped into the ditch on the other +side, turned to his right, and galloped up it. It ran upwards, +skirting a sloping wet field, to a dark, damp, black wood, as woods +always are that stand on cold clay and have much evergreen growth. +They remind one of a wet, chill rhododendron forest of Tibet. + +The cat's gallop was in itself peculiar, loose, long, his head low, his +forepaws straight, his hindlegs trailing out behind. So does the tiger +gallop across the jungle glade when the beaters rouse him. + +There were other things peculiar about Pharaoh also, now that one had +him on the move and could see. He was, perhaps, a fraction big for his +kind; his coat was yellowish, fading beneath, with "faint pale stripes" +well marked on the sides; his tail was long, and oddly slender and +"whippy," ringed faintly to the black tip; his fur was short and harsh, +quite unlike that of a domestic cat, and the expression of his eyes was +one of permanent, unsleeping fierceness. + +Once he stopped and stared back, and in the pause which followed one +could distinctly hear a faint but rapidly increasing drumming sound +following his trail up the ditch. And least of all beasts had that cat +delusions. He turned and galloped on. The keeper's dog was of an +independent turn of mind. He had quietly run that cat's trail, +forgetting that, in the long-run, dogs are not fitted to maneuver +independently, and may suffer if they do so. You see him flying up the +trail, square nose to ground, tracking really very cleverly indeed, and +with a fine amount of what huntsmen call "drive." + +Ho had overtaken Pharaoh before the hunted one could reach the wood. +He realized it as he took the last bend in the ditch, when he saw a +yellow streak rise under his nose, and bound, with all four legs stuck +out quite straight, and claws spread abroad, like a rubber ball out of +his path, avoiding his clumsy, murderous snap by an inch, and then felt +it rebound right on to his back. + +The next few seconds were quite crowded, and that dog had the time of +his life. + +Even an ordinary domestic "puss" can make wonderful havoc of a dog's +back when once it gets there; and stays, as it does, like a burr, and +this one could go a bit better than most; and when that dog at last got +the cat's "leave to go," he went rather sooner than at once, +proclaiming his misery aloud to all the world, so that his master, +coming at that moment out of the back-door of the cottage, heard him +afar off, and swore. + +As for the cat, he turned about, all bristling, and went too. He went +straight up to, and through, the wood, disturbing in clouds the +starlings, who had just come in to roost in the rhododendrons, so that +they rose with a rushing of wings like the voice of a thunder-shower on +forest leaves, and incidentally drenched the cat with a deluge of +raindrops collected in the leaves as he raced through underneath. A +lesser beast, it may be noted, would have climbed a tree, but Hawkley, +I think, had convinced his cat of that folly when a man might be +following up behind. + +Straight through the wood galloped Pharaoh, and into a stretch of +age-old furze, or gorse, if you like, beyond. That showed strategy. +The furze was a maze of a million spikes, and branches, and twisted, +gnarled stems tough as wire-rope; a wonderful place, all honeycombed +with rabbit-runs; a world unto itself. + +The cat moved on quickly into the heart of the furze, pausing every few +strides to listen and glare round. Several times he sniffed the sickly +grass and the carpet of dead spikes. + +Once or twice something moved ahead; a branch was shaking as he came +up, a blade of grass slowly righting itself, as if something that had +been sitting upon it had but just stolen away. All round were hints of +life, but no life was visible. It was as if the cat were moving +through an army of ghosts. + +Then, in a flash, without any kind of hint or warning to prepare one +for the unnerving contrast of the change, was war--raw, red war. + +There had come up a rabbit-run--a regular rabbit-turnpike--a creature. +It was strikingly colored, that creature, and big--nearly three feet +long, to be exact; but it looked much bigger in the ghostly +twilight--and yet till it was actually upon him he, even he, had failed +to see it. + +Long, low, bear-like, and burly, with claws caked with earth, gashed +and bleeding on flank and shoulder it was, red-fanged and wild-eyed. +It charged home upon Pharaoh without a second's pause, and with an +obscene chatter that was unnerving to any one, let alone so highly +strung a bag of tricks as a cat. + +Men and dogs had been besieging this badger in its den for twelve +hours. It had in the end made a desperate _sortie_, upset one man who +had failed to grab its tail, run into and bitten another, and got clean +away. Pharaoh was unfortunate in that he stood between the half-mad +beast and another den for which it was making. + +There was no time to go back, no room to execute one of those beautiful +lightning side-leaps which are the pride of all the cats, and less to +spring into the air, a neat trick of the tribe which it has also +perfected. + +The cat was cornered, and, being cornered, fought like--a cornered cat! +That is to say, an electrified devil. + +He reared up. He struck, pat! pat! right and left, with the terrible, +rending, full stroke of his kind. He met open jaws with open jaws--you +could hear fang clash against fang. He grabbed, scrunched, drew back, +grabbed, scrunched again, as a lion will--for the cats neither hold +fast like a weasel nor snap like a wolf. Then, as the full force of +the charge and the weight of the enemy's body--some twenty-seven and a +half pounds--took him, he hugged, round-arm fashion, with his talons, +and, still grabbing and scrunching, rolled over backwards. + +Cat and badger turned into a ball--a parti-colored ball, very lively as +to its center, and it whirled. Unfortunately there was not much room +to whirl in. That made things all the more grisly. You could almost +see the grim skeleton shape of death, hovering over that growling, +snarling, spitting, worrying, tearing, kicking, gnashing, scrunching, +foaming, blood-flecked Catherine-wheel--almost see death, I say, +bending down with upraised arm ready to strike. But death never struck. + +In an instant there came, sounding strangely hollow in that still, damp +air of dusk, as though it were in a cave, the unmistakable noise of a +deep, dry, hacking cough. Truly, it was nothing much--just a good old +churchy and human cough. But it might have been a blast from the +trumpet of the archangel Gabriel himself by the effect it had upon the +two combatants. They shot apart like released electrified dust-atoms, +and--pff!--they were gone--wiped out. Like pricked bubbles, they had +ceased to be. And neither gave any explanation. Being wild things, of +course they wouldn't. + +The cough had only come from a laborer, who, passing along a pathway +through the furze, had heard the commotion, and stopped. He never saw +anything, though he crashed into the furze and hunted--he never saw +anything, which was no wonder, seeing that he could hardly have +selected a way to see less. The cat was four hundred yards away by +that time, and goodness knows where the badger was---deep down in his +den, one presumes. + +Later the cat slept, in a fortress of nature safe enough, surrounded by +a hundred unseen sentries with brown jackets and white tails--rabbits, +who would give him all the warning he required. + + +II + +The lean night wind next evening came down, and day went out almost +imperceptibly. Blackness grew under the furze caverns, and the last +glimpse of the estuary faded away in a steely glimmer; a brown ghost of +an owl slid low over the spiked ramparts, and wings--the wings of +fighting wild-duck coming up from the sea to feed--"spoke" like swords +through the star-spangled blue-black canopy of heaven. + +The night-folk began to move abroad. You could hear them pass--now a +faint rustle here, now a surreptitious "pad-pad" there. Once some +bird-thing of the night cried out suddenly, very far away in the sky, +"Keck! keck!" and was gone. + +It was not Pharaoh, however, that you would have heard move. None of +the wild-folk could tell how at midnight he managed to land himself far +out over the marsh, unperceived. He was there--you must take my word +for it--just two faintly luminous yellow-green lamps floating on the +mist. + +Not many men knew their way across the marsh by day; certainly not five +even of the oldest wildfowlers could have got over safely by night. It +was not man, therefore, that was causing the cat to melt into the +short, salt grass, so closely that there was nothing of him left. +Something else was coming his way. + +Along the edge of the dike it came--tall, thin, pale, ghostly, +and--yes, I could have sworn it, though night does play odd tricks with +the human eyesight--faintly phosphorescent. At least, it seemed to +glow ever so dimly, like one that moves in a nearly burnt-out halo. + +Every yard or two it paused, that thing. Once there was a splash, as +if some one were spearing fish and had missed. + +The cat moved rather less than an average stone. He knew that in the +wild to be motionless is, in nine cases out of ten, to be invisible. +The tenth case doesn't matter, because the creature that discovers it +usually dies. Moreover, there was no cover to move to, and cover is +the cat's trump card. + +Now, everything would have gone off all right if--well, if the cat +hadn't been a cat, I suppose; that is, if he had been able to stop the +ceaseless twitching of the black tip of his tail. Tiger-hunters know +that twitching, and those who have stalked the lion will tell you of +it, as also the sparrow on the garden wall, whose life may have been +saved from somebody's pet "tabby" by that same twitching. It is a +characteristic habit of the tribe, I take it. + +The luminous ghost-thing was close now. Heaven knows whether it saw +that twitching then! I think so. It stopped, anyway, and became a +pillar of stone. The cat, almost under it, fairly pressed himself into +the grass. + +Then--whrrp! + +Something shot through the air like a lance, and pinned that twitching +tail-point to the ground. There had been no warning--nothing! Just +that javelin from the ghost, and---the cat on his hindlegs, screaming +like a stricken devil, clawing at the ghost, now revealed as a very +big, long-legged bird which flapped. It flapped huge wings and danced +a grotesque dance, and it smelt abominably, with the stench of ten +fish-markets on a hot day. + +Then at last, the cat clawing and yelling the whole time, the bird's +slow brain seemed to realize the mistake. The javelin, which was its +beak, was withdrawn from the protesting tail-tip hurriedly--to be +driven through the cat's skull as a sheer act of necessary +self-defense, I fancy. But the cat did not wait to see. Imagine the +infamy, the absolute sacrilege, from a cat's point of view, of spitting +a feline tail in that disgusting fashion. Why, if you only tread on +one, you hear about it in five-tenths of the average second, and offend +the supercilious owner for a month afterwards! + +There was a vision, just a half-guessed vision, of our cat shooting +straight upwards through the air, and outwards over the still waters of +the dike; there was a number one splash that set the reflected stars +dancing, and the water-voles ("rats," if you like) bolting to their +holes; and there was the sighing "frou-frou-frou!" of great wings as +the big bird rose and fled majestically. There was the sucking gurgle +and drip-drip of a furred body leaving the water on the far side, eyes +that glared more hate than pen can set down, and a deep, low, malignant +feline curse. That cat had swum the rest of the way over the dike +which he could not jump. + +The bird was only a heron, and that does not sound much unless you are +acquainted with the ways of the heron and all his beak implies. A +heron is one of those birds that can fight at need, and--knows it. +Moreover, in his long beak, set on his steel-spring neck, he has a +weapon of awful "piercefulness," and--knows that too. The bird is an +example of armed defense. + +This one had merely been fishing for eels in that pessimistic way +peculiar to all fishermen, and seeing the tail-tip waving in the grass, +and nothing else, had mistaken the same for his quarry. And this will +be the easier to believe because we know, and probably the heron did +also, that eels are given at times to overland journeys on secret +errands of their own. + +The cat crawled away down the dike in offended silence. He was wet, +and the only cat I ever knew who did not seem to be scandalized past +speech at the fact. Indeed, he went farther. He came upon a ripple +and a dot, some fifty yards farther on, which to the initiated such as +he, represented a water-vole ("rat," if you will) swimming. + +Then, before you could take your pipe from your mouth to exclaim, the +water-vole was not swimming. He was squealing in a most loud and +public-spirited fashion from between Pharaoh's jaws, and it was the cat +who was swimming. He had just taken a flying leap from the bank and +landed full upon the dumbfounded water-vole--splash! Then he swam +calmly ashore and dined, all wet and cold. Now, what is one to say of +such a cat? + +[Illustration: "Landed full upon the dumbfounded water-vole--splash!"] + + +III + +Long did the keepers, in Colonel Lymington's woods and along the +hedges, search with dog and gun for Pharaoh, and many traps did they +set. The dogs truly found a cat--two cats, and the guns stopped them, +but one had a nice blue ribbon round his neck, and the other had +kittens; the traps were found by one cat--and that was the pet of the +colonel's lady--one stoat, one black "Pom"--and that was the idol of +the parson's daughter--and one vixen--and she was buried secretly and +at night--but Pharaoh remained where he had chosen to remain, and he +remained also an enigma. + +Then the colonel's rare birds began to evaporate in real earnest. +Hawkley's little efforts at depleting them were child's-play to those +of Pharaoh that followed, although, of course, Pharaoh himself did not +know, or care the twitch of a whisker, whether the birds he slew were +rare or not. + +Now, if there was one thing more than another about which the colonel +prided himself in his bird sanctuary, it was the presence of the +bittern. I don't know where the bittern came from, nor does the +colonel. Perhaps the head-keeper knew. Bitterns migrate sometimes, +but--well, that keeper was no fool, and knew his master's soft spot. + +It was a night or two later that Pharaoh surmounted the limit, so to +speak, and "sprung all mines in quick succession." He had been curled +up all day in his furze fortress, that vast stretch of prickly +impenetrability which, even if a dog had been found with pluck enough +to push through to its heart, would still, in its massed and tangled +boughs, have given a cat with Pharaoh's fighting prowess full chance to +defy any dog. + +He was beautifully oblivious of the stir his previous doings had kicked +up, and of the winged words the colonel had used to the head-keeper; of +the traps set all about, of the gins doubled and trebled in the wood +and round the park, and of the under-keepers who, with guns and +tempting baits, took up their positions to wait for him as night fell. + +No one seemed to have suspected the furze a mile away, and still less +the marsh and the coverless bleak shore of the estuary, as his home. +Indeed, no one looks for a cat on a wind-whipped marsh when woods are +near at all. Yet this open, wet country seemed to be a peculiarly +favorite hunting-ground of Pharaoh's. + +It was a night of rain-squalls and moonlit streaks when Pharaoh, +wandering devious among the reeds, first became aware of the bittern, +in the shape of reptilian green eyes steadily regarding him from the +piebald shadows. Possibly the cat's whiskers first hinted at some new +presence by reason of the "ancient and fish-like smell" which pervaded +this precise reed jungle. + +Pharaoh stopped dead. Pharaoh, with cruel, thin ears pressed back, +sank like a wraith into the soft ground. Pharaoh ceased to be even a +grayish-yellow, smoky something, and became nothing but eyes--eyes +floating and wicked. A domestic cat, after one frozen interval, would +have crept away from the foe it could not fathom, but Pharaoh had other +blood in his veins. + +To begin with, he was wondering what manner of beast the owner of those +saurian-like orbs might be. To go on with, he was hungry, and--smelt +fish. But though he was looking full at the big bird, he could not see +it, which is the bittern's own private little bit of magic. + +Nature has given him a coat just like a bunch of dried reeds and the +shadows between, and he does the rest by standing with his bead stuck +straight up and as still as a brass idol. Result--invisibility. + +None know how long those two sought to "outfreeze" the "freezer," while +the rain-showers came up and passed hissing, and the moon played at +hide-and-seek. None knew when Pharaoh, flat as a snake, first began +that deadly, silent circling, which was but acting in miniature the +ways of the lion. None knew, either, at what point of bittern first +begun to sink and sink, till he crouched, and puffed, his neck curved +on his back like a spring ready set, his beak, like a sharpened +assegai, upright. + +Only the short-eared owl, with his wonderful eyes, beheld Pharaoh make +his final rush; watched that living spring _sprung_ quick as light, +shooting out straight at the cat's glaring eyes, and saw--greatest +miracle of all the lot--Pharaoh dodge his head aside in the twentieth +of a second, and blink, letting the blow that spelt death whiz by. + +And only those same owl's ears--sharpest of all the ears of the +wild--heard the diabolical yell of Pharaoh as the long, sharp beak +pierced through the loose skin of his shoulders, and, thanks to that +same looseness, came out again an inch or two farther on, transfixing +him; or listened to the devilish noise of the "worry," as the cat +turned in agony on himself and buried his fangs where he could behind +those expressionless green reptilian eyes; or caught the stupendous +flurry and whirl of wings and fur and gripping claws and scaly legs, as +a cloud put out the moon and darkness fell with silence, like the +falling curtain that ends a play. + + * * * * * * + +The very last pale rays of a watery setting sun slid bar-like through +the cottage window, and fell, twirling, aslant the floor. + +A late spider had spun a web across the fireplace, and the one last fly +that always lingers sat in the sunbeam. It was Hawkley's cottage, +dismantled and derelict. + +Something like a furry round hassock, lying motionless in a far corner, +moved at the sound of rain, and lifted a round head with round eyes +that glared with so terrible an expression that one caught one's +breath. There was blood--dried blood--by the furry shape, and drops of +dried blood across the floor from the window in the next room, that it +had been nobody's business to shut. + +The day went out in gloom and howling rain-rushes. Darkness took +possession of the room. And--_the gate clicked_. + +Truly, it might only have been the wind, but--Pharaoh was on his feet +in a flash, growling, and there was a glint of green-yellow light as +his eyes whipped round. + +Followed a pause. Then, in a lull, once, twice, the unmistakable +crunch of a shod foot on gravel. + +Another pause. Pharaoh was crouching close now, trembling from head to +foot. + +"Pharaoh! Pharaoh! Pharaoh, old cat, are--are you in there?" + +The voice, strained and husky, came in at the open window. In the last +lingering afterglow of dying day, a face, haggard and set, showed +there, framed in the lead casement. + +"Phar---- Ah!" + +Pharaoh was up. Pharaoh had given a strange, coaxing little cry, such +as a she-cat gives to her kittens. Pharaoh, lame and stiff, but with +tail straight as a poker, was running to the window in the next room, +was up on the sill, was rubbing against and caressing the haggard face +like a mad thing. + +There was a long, tense pause, broken only by a continuous purring. +Then the creaking sound as of the lid of a wicker basket being opened. +The purring ceased. The creaking came again, as if the lid were being +shut. There came the crunch once more of stealthy shod feet on gravel, +the click of the gate, and--silence! + +Hawkley had come for, and found, his cat. + + + + +VI + +THE CRIPPLE + +It was gradually getting colder and colder as he flew, till at last, in +a wonderful, luminous, clear, moonlit sunset, when day passed, +lingering almost imperceptibly, into night, the wind fixed in the +north, and a hard white frost shone on the glistening roofs--far, far +below. + +Up there, at the three-thousand or four-thousand feet level, where he +was flying, the air was as clear and sparkling as champagne, and as +still as the tomb. If he had been passing over the moon instead of +over the earth, the effect would have been something like it, perhaps. + +He was only a thrush, _Turdus philomelus_ the songster, but big and +dull and dark for his kind, and he had come from--well, behind him, all +shimmering and restless in the moonlight, like a fountain-basin full of +quicksilver, lay the North Sea; ahead and beneath lay England; and +across that sea, three hundred miles, as I count it, at the very least, +to the lands of melting snow, he was going when late cold weather had +caught him and warned him to come back. And alone? No, sirs, not +quite. Ahead, just visible, blurredly--a little phantom form rose and +fell on the magic air; behind, another; on his right, a third--all +thrushes, flying steadily westward in silence; and there may have been +a few more that could not be seen, or there may not. + +His crop, as were the crops of the others, was perfectly empty. +Indeed, he appeared to prefer traveling in ballast that way. But his +eyes shone, and his wing-strokes, with little pauses of rigidity +between, such as many birds take--only one doesn't notice it much--were +strong and sure. + +Once a large-winged, smudged shape, making no sound as it slipped +across the heavens, came flapping almost up to him, peering this way +and that at him and his companions, with amber flaming eyes set in a +cat-like, oval face. The thrush's heart gave a great jump, and seemed +threatening to choke him, for that shape--and it howled at him +suddenly, in a voice calculated to make strong men jump--was death of +the night, otherwise a short-eared owl. + +But a gun went "boomp!" with that thick, damp sort of sound that smacks +of black powder, somewhere down on earth, and a huge "herd" of green +plover, _alias_ peewits, which are lapwings, rose, as if blown up by an +explosion, to meet them, their thousand wings flickering in the +frost-haze like a shower of confetti, and the owl was so disconcerted +by the disturbance that he dropped back into the night whence he came, +as one who falls into a sea. + +Then suddenly the thrush--all the thrushes, indeed--tipped tails, and +flew downward--offering no explanation to help one to understand +why--till they dropped, each one entirely on his own hook, apparently, +in or about some gardens, as if they had tumbled out of the sky; and +our thrush, in twenty seconds, had slipped into some apple-trees, and +thence to some laurels round a shed, and--was asleep! I say "was +asleep." Out of the starry sky, down, in under, and asleep--all +without emotion, and like a machine. Now, what is one to make of such +a bird? + +He did not see, or, more correctly, did not appear to see--for I do not +know what he saw and what he pretended not to see, really--the lean, +lithe, long, low weasel that passed, climbing and sniffing, beneath +him--within six inches--possibly scenting out a rat. He did not hear, +or show that he heard, the blackbird--she was rusty, dark brown, as a +matter of actual fact--scream, a piercing and public-spirited scream, +when the very big claws of a little, round, spotted-feathered ball with +wings, like a parody of a cherub--but men call it a little owl, +really--closed upon her and squeezed, or pierced, out her life. He did +not feel, or let on that he felt, the branches gently sway as two eyes, +glinting back the light of the moon--eyes which were the property of a +"silver tabby" female cat--floated among the twigs, looking for him, +him most certainly, whom she seemed faintly to smell, but never saw. + +[Illustration: "A 'silver tabby' floated among the twigs, looking for +him"] + +These things represented tense moments dotted through hours of cold, +dark silence, and the blue-black dome of night arched, and the moon +drifted, all in rigid, cold, and appalling stillness. + +Then the wind changed, and our thrush awoke to a "muggy" day, under a +soaked, cotton-wool, gray sky, all sodden with streaming showers of +rain. And, by that token alone, he must have known that he was in +England. No other climate is capable of such crazy, unwarned, +health-trying changes. He had come in an icy, practically petrified +silence. He left in a steaming, swishing, streaming gale. + +But that was not before he had been down to scratch like a fowl among +the dead leaves under the privet-hedge for grubs, who "kidded" +themselves that they were going to be fine, flashing insects next +summer. He also prospected a snail or two, and broke through their +fortifications by hammering the same upon a stone. And, by some magic +process that looked akin to the way in which some men divine water, he +divined a worm out of seemingly bare earth. It was there, too, and it +came up, not joyfully, but tugged, to be hammered and shaken into +something not too disgustingly alive to be swallowed. + +Then, while a robin mounted to a spruce-spire and acted as Job's +comforter to all the birds of the garden by singing--ah, so plaintively +and sweetly!--of the dismal days of frost and snow, he "preened"--i.e. +went over and combed every feather, and tested and retested, cleaned +and recleaned, each vital quill. Then, in one single, watery, weak +stab of apology for sunshine, on the top of a fowl-shed, he surrendered +himself to what, in wild-bird land, is known as the "sunning reaction," +which really consists of giving body and mind utterly to the sun and +complete rest. + +And then he left. + +Now, it was no chance that he left. Birds don't do business that way. +To you or me, that location and its climate would have seemed as good +for him to "peg out a claim" in as any other. He knew better. +Something--Heaven alone knows what--within him told him what was +coming. He had the power to take a draft on the future, and by that +means to save himself--if he could. Wherefore he flew on +southward--always south. + +And six hours after he had gone, the wind swung like a weather-cock, +swung and stopped at northeast, and frost began to grip that garden in +an iron fist that threatened to squeeze the life out of every living +thing in it, and the sky hung like the lid of a lead box. + +The thrush flew, with a few halts, practically all day and well into +the night, and the northeast wind and the Frost King chased him south. + +He roosted in a great fastness of age-old holly-bushes within a wood, +whose branches were packed with his relations--redwings, thrushes, and +blackbirds, and also starlings--all tired out, all booked for the south. + +Some woods seem to hold a curse of gloom. One cannot say why. And +this was one of them. And the tawny owl that nobody saw but everybody +heard, and the white stoat that everybody saw and nobody heard, and the +amorous dog-fox with the cruel bark that everybody saw and heard, did +not, taken together or singly, add to the gayety of the scene. + +The thrush was just ahead of the cold when he went to roost in pouring +rain. In the night, however, the cold had overtaken him, and the +thousand-jeweled beauty of frost-flakes flashed to his waking eye. + +He was numbed and puffed out and peevish, and disinclined to move, but +anything was better than sticking about in this roosting-place, this +casual ward and clearing-house of the wild. The keen starlings were +already off, swinging away, regiment by regiment, with a fine, bold +rush of wings; the blackbirds were dotting the glades; the redwings +were slipping "weeping" away, to find soft fields to mope in; and the +pigeon host--what was left alive of it after diphtheria had taken its +toll--had streamed onwards, heading southwest. + +_Turdus philomelus_ spelt L-u-c-k for our friend that morn, for he had +not prospected two hundred yards when he came on a place where a +vagrant "sounder" of half-grown, domestic, unringed pigs had been +canvassing the wood for beech-mast, acorns, and roots during the night. +The soil was all torn up for a space of about an acre, probably the +only soil for miles--except along streams and by springs--penetrable by +beaks until the sun came out; and the thrush feasted royally upon +hibernating caterpillars and chrysalids that would have become moths, +beetle larvae all curled up and asleep, and other pests; and he must +have done a considerable amount of good in that place during the next +hour or so. + +But feasts do not go begging long in a frost-bound wild, even if they +are hidden; and by the time our thrush had driven several other +thrushes away--for he was a jealous feeder--and had been driven away by +blackbirds himself more than once, starlings descended upon the place +with their furious greed, and our thrush concluded that it was about +time to "step off." The crowded place might become a quick-lunch +resort for some others, not insect-feeders--hawks, for instance--and +was unhealthful for that reason. Indeed, he had not more than moved +away into the shelter of the rhododendrons when a shadow with a hooked +bill shot round the corner, going like the wind. He had time to see it +dive like a dipping kite--but it was a sparrow-hawk--and to hear the +death-scream of a feeding blackbird, before he went completely from +that place, and it knew him no more. + +Soon after that he sighted the sea, wide-stretched and restless, ahead, +and turned westward parallel with the coast-line, till, in the +afternoon, he came unto "a land where it was always afternoon"--a flat, +damp, dwarf-treed, relaxing, gray land, mild, as a rule, and +melancholy--a land full of water. But for once it was a cold land, and +the thrush realized that the bitter frost had leapt ahead of him, and +that he might now never outstrip it again, perhaps. I do not know if +he realized, too, that the lead sky, that looked as if it were going to +come down and crush one, meant snow. + +In a bare orchard he was attracted by the sight of several blue titmice +and two robins, feeding upon one or two odd apples that had been left +unpicked at the very top of a tree. It seemed strange and out of place +to behold apples in midwinter like that; but, for some reason, he took +only a few pecks, and his devil prompted him down to peck at some +soaked bread among the violets, and to drink at a spring so exquisitely +encrusted with moss that it looked as if everything, every floating +dead leaf, stone, and root, had been upholstered in plush. + +Then Fate struck--hard. + +A snap, a thump, and he was bouncing over and over, with an air-rifle +bullet in his thigh. It was a blow that knocked him half-silly, and he +was down before he knew, but only for a second, because of what he saw. +He beheld a boy, with an air-rifle in hand, running towards him; but +ahead of the boy was the boy's young cat, who evidently had learnt to +look for a meal when the air-rifle went off. + +The cat, being young, however, managed to bungle his pounce for the +fraction of a second, and that is long enough for most of the +wild-folk. Came a mad fluttering, a beating of wings, a quick mix-up, +and, before he knew, that cat found himself frantically chasing that +thrush across the orchard, striking wildly always at a thrush that just +wasn't there, as the latter part flew, part hopped, with every ounce of +strength and agility that clean, hard living had given him, till he was +clear of the trees. Then--up and away, with his heart in his beak, so +to speak, and his brain whirling, till the orchard lay "hull down" on +the horizon, and was only another bitter experience, and a warning, +seared into the bird's memory. + +So far, so good. He had made his escape, had euchred Fate, but--the +payment for laziness, the terrible cess for a momentary lapse from +vigilance, which great Nature, in her grim, wise cruelty, always +demands, had to be met, and the end of it was not yet. + +It began, however, now. + +The thrush discovered that he was not alone in the air, and that he had +all at once got himself, as it were, fixed in the public eye, and was +"wanted." A swish in the sky made him look up, to see a rook, with a +leering eye, coming down upon him. He cleverly "side-slipped" in +mid-air, and let the rook, braking wildly, go diving by. Perhaps he +wondered what had turned the rook hawk. As a matter of fact, the +weather had, partly, and the rifle had, the rest; for the rook could +see what the thrush did not yet realize. + +The rook went away astern, shouting bad language, and another foe came +to take his, or her, place. Again our thrush discovered that he was +not alone. Little, white, silent, cruel, dancing flakes of white were +traveling more or less with him and downwards, upon the following wind. +The snow! The snow at last! And he was trapped, for it was to keep +ahead of the snow that he had journeyed all that way back again. +Indeed, you can hardly realize, unless you have almost lived their +life, what the snow and the frost mean to all the thrush people, but +more especially to the common song-thrush and the redwing. At the +worst it means death; at the best, little more than a living death. + +However, to race the snow were useless. Yet he flew on, and on, and +on, like a stampeded horse, blindly, one-sidedly, while the ordnance +survey map beneath turned from brown, and chocolate, and silver-gray, +and dull green, first to pepper and salt, then to freckled white, then +all over to the spotless white eider-down quilt of the winter returned, +as far as the eye--even his binocular orbs--could reach, muffling tree +and house, and garden and copse, and farm and field, and fallow and +plow and meadow in the one mystical, silent, white disguise of winter. +And the thrush at length came down. + +His eye had spotted a little corner of a garden that might have been a +spread table in the wilderness. It was only a small triangle of lawn, +with a summer-house at its apex, and a spruce-fir and a house at its +base, and privet-hedges marking off the rest. But it had a +"bird-table," and a swept-clean circle on the grass, and there was +sopped bread upon both. And that place was given over entirely to +chaffinches, _all hens_, tripping, mincing, pecking, feasting, +fighting--because they were chaffinches, I suppose, and must fight--all +over the place. + +The thrush came to anchor upon the roof of the summer-house, +and--straightway fell upon his beak! And that was Fate's punishment +for laziness, one second's relaxation from vigilance. + +Righting himself, he almost overbalanced the other way, and only +finally managed to come to an intricate halt on one leg. The other +leg--the right one--was twisted back under him, in line with his closed +wings and tail; that is to say, it was pointing the wrong way for a +bird's leg, or, rather, so far as could be seen among the feathers, +that was how it seemed. But the leg was not broken; he could still +move his toes and expand his foot. Otherwise he could do nothing with +it. The leg might not have been there, for all the use it was to him; +it would have been better if it had not been there, for it hampered his +flight, or unbalanced him, or something, so that he was incapable of +traveling now beyond the snow, even if he would. Undoubtedly the +air-rifle had done its work. + +Now, in the wild it is a fairly sound maxim that an injured wildling is +a dead wildling--that is, unless the injury is quite slight. There are +exceptions, of course. Flesh-wounds and quick-healing wounds are +exceptions. + +However, our thrush seemed to be no coward, and he at once buckled to, +to fight Fate and all the world--one bird _v_. the rest. It was +appalling odds, and I guess no darn fool could have been found to back +that bird's chance of winning through. + +Then he showed that he had at least one trump up his sleeve. A shape +like unto the shape of a silken kite came floating in ample circles +across the low-hung sky. And the color of that shape was brown--pale +brown; and the shape was alive, and had the appearance of eternally +looking for something, which it always could not find. So hunts the +kestrel falcon, and by the same token the thrush knew that this was a +big hen-kestrel. I say "big" advisedly, because in kestrel society it +is the ladies who have the weight and the vote. + +And the thrush, who had by that time flown to the ground, promptly +"froze "--froze to stillness, I mean--and vanished. It was a startling +little trick of his, almost an eccentricity; but the fact was that so +long as he kept still on the dark ground where the snow had been swept +away--and earth and grass mingled almost to a black whole against the +white--he was practically invisible. This was because of his peculiar +somber color. Had he been light of dress, like an ordinary +song-thrush, any eye could have picked him up in that spot. + +Now, that kestrel was in a bad temper and vicious. She was cursing the +snow which covered the doings of the field-mice, which ordinarily were +her "staff of life"; and she had not killed since dawn. Hence she was +a public danger, even to wild-folk she usually left alone, and just now +she was looking for our thrush, who she had seen fly down and--vanish. + +There he was, however, bang in the open, unshielded by any cover, +motionless on one leg, looking upwards, and, to all intents and +purposes, not there. The kestrel came shooting up superbly, going at a +great pace on the wind, cutting the cold air like a knife, twisting and +turning her long tail tins way and that, but moving her quarter-shut +wings not one stroke. Right over him she dived, her wonderful eyes +stabbing down, so close that you could see her small, rounded head +turning and craning. But no thrush did she see. She "banked," hung, +swept round, and came back. Then she hovered, like a bird hung from +the sky by an invisible hair; and for our thrush she was indeed the +sword of Damocles, for the spot in the air where she hung was directly +over him. If anybody had shot her dead at that instant, she would have +fallen upon his back. At that instant, or the next, she might fall +upon his back, anyway, without anybody shooting her. Indeed, the +betting seemed a good few hundred to one that she would. + +Very few human beings know the full meaning of the word "still"--not +even bluejackets!--but most of the wild-folk do. They have to. So did +the thrush, but never before had he kept so utterly, stonily, frozenly, +strickenly motionless. If he had moved an eyelid even, winked, or +gulped too hard, it would have been all up with him. But he didn't and +it was not all up; though the kestrel seemed as if she were going to +hover there, in that spot, through all eternity. And when at last she +condescended to surrender to the wind and vanish like a falling star +into the horizon, our friend was as near nervous prostration and +hysteria as a bird can be. A very little longer and I believe he would +actually have died from sheer overstrain, instead of from kestrel. + +Then the thrush fed. He did it against time, before dark, for if night +came and caught him with an empty crop, he froze. Perhaps he would +freeze, anyway; but no matter. + +The hen-chaffinches, presumably at the end of a journey, or part way +along it, too, were in a like hurry, and for the same reason. He could +see them now only as faint splashes of white, as they opened tail and +wing to fight; but they could not fight _him_, and he savagely kept the +little clearing in the snow free of all save himself. It was as if he +knew that he was "up against it," and the fact had developed a grim +fierceness in his character. + +An owl must have gone over about this time, because an owl did go over +that garden about the same time every night; but perhaps she was not +expecting thrushes in that gloom, or was in a hurry to keep an +appointment with a rat. Anyway, the owl did not develop. + +Thereafter and at last the thrush went to sleep in a spruce-fir. + +Dead silence reigned over the garden, and Cold, with a capital C, +gripped the land. Heaven help any bird who roosted on an empty stomach +on such a night! It would freeze to its perch before morning, most +like. + +Indeed, our thrush had a neighbor, a hedge-sparrow just newly arrived +from "somewhere up north." It had come in after dark, and therefore +had no time to feed. The thrush just took his head out from under his +wing and opened one eye, as the poor little beggar perched close to him +for company. He could see it plainly in the petrified moonlight. + +When next he opened one eye and looked, dawn was at hand, and the poor +little bird was still there. When at last, with shoulders humped and +feathers puffed, our thrush flew down to feed in the first pale-gold +glimmer of very-much-diluted sunlight, the hedge-sparrow did not move. +Now, in opening his wings, possibly from a vague idea of frightening +the hedge-sparrow away from the magic swept circle on the lawn close +by, and its bread, the thrush brushed heavily against that +hedge-sparrow, so that--oh, horror!--it fell, or swung over backwards, +rather, and hung head downwards, swaying slightly, like a toy acrobat +on a wire, before it fell, so rigidly and so stiffly immovable that one +expected it to shatter to pieces like glass as it hit the ground. It +did not, however. But it did not matter. The hedge-sparrow was quite, +quite dead before it fell, frozen stiff and stark in the night. And +none of the other birds seemed to care. Why should they? Such a fate +might overtake themselves. + +The thrush, much tucked up, but still with some fight in him, was late. +Big flocks of peewits or green plover--he could see them between the +spruce-boughs--had gone drifting by, winking like floating silver, high +overhead, bound westward; and skylarks were passing over the garden, +one by one, heading southwest towards the warm, and chortling to each +other as they went. Starlings--some of them with extraordinarily +bright-yellow dagger-beaks, and some with dull beaks--were before him, +squabbling and sparring over the bread on the lawn. A robin dropped a +little chain of melancholy silvery notes, and a great titmouse bugled +clearly, "Ting-ling! Ting-ling! Ting-ling!" Some one opened a window +of the house giving on to the lawn, and the last house-fly blundered +out into the cold air; and a company of gnats--surely the most hardy of +insects--was dancing in the pale sunlight by the summer-house, _above +the snow_. + +The opening of the window had erupted the starlings into the +surrounding trees, there to whistle and indulge in a "shiveree," such +as is dear to the heart of the excitable, social starling. And our +thrush was standing motionless in the middle of the swept circle on the +lawn almost at once. No one saw him go there. Indeed, unless the +observer looked closely, no one saw him at all, for even then he was, +unless he moved, difficult to see, and, whatever had been his custom +before, in those days he moved but little. + +He had come at even to a garden given over to hen-chaffinches--no +cocks, as we said--but at dawn, or, rather, his later hour for rising, +he found the garden given over to song-thrushes, all pale beside him, +all slim, all snaky of build--Continental song-thrushes, most like, and +the same only come to those parts in very hard weather, for they come a +long way. + +Our song-thrush, standing on his one leg, looked at them with one +shrewd eye. There were two of them in the snowless circle on the lawn, +which had been swept clear of the snow, that was now deep, before he +was up, and had also been replenished with bread. Two thrushes sat in +the spruce-fir, and one on the top of the summer-house, and every jack +of them was ravenous. He could expect no mercy from _them_. They must +live, if they could, and there was not enough food for all. And he +asked no mercy himself, either. Still, it was long odds. + +Then he showed that he, even a bird, knew the laws of strategy, the +essence of which is surprise. He surprised everybody by suddenly +charging at the thrush on the lawn near him with a murderous ferocity +that took one's breath away. It certainly would have taken away that +of the other song-thrush, if our friend had not knocked it out of him +by the impact. By all the laws of precedence, of course, any one of +those others ought to have sent him, with his one leg, into headlong +retreat by merely threatening. But our friend was not concerned with +the laws of precedence, it seemed. He became a law unto himself, and a +most amazing "character" to boot. Also, he fought like several demons, +and, by sheer reckless fury, removed that dumbfounded rival of his from +the lawn in twenty-one hectic seconds. + +Then he fed--it was enough only to glance, just glance, at the other +thrushes and the chaffinches, after that astounding exhibition of his +character. He fed, and, after he had stuffed full, he stood still a +little way off. + +This was the signal for two of the thrushes in the spruce-fir to flap +down to the bread. One got there. The other saw what was coming, and +turned hastily back. The one that got there snatched up a piece of +bread. But he never ate it. Something hit him on the side. It felt +like the point of a skewer, but it was our thrush's beak, really, and +by the time he had recovered from that blow he found himself so busy +saving his eyesight that he was glad enough to drop his bread and go. + +That, however, was not enough for our thrush. He appeared to "see +red," and with a terrible cruel, relentless "redness." He followed the +retreating foe to the spruce-fir, flying heavily and awkwardly by +reason of his smashed leg. He perched beside him on the branch he +settled upon, nearly overbalancing, and perilously swaying and +wobbling, with wings wildly flapping, and he drove that thrush to +another branch, with such a rain of pecks that the feathers flew. Nor +was even that enough. He followed up the attack, and hustled the +thrush from that other branch, so that he flew down the snowed-up road. +Then our cripple, spinning in a whirl of snow, hurled himself upon the +other thrush in the tree, and drove him out of it into the road. + +But even that did not suffice him, for devils seemed to have possessed +him, and the thought of opposition sent him crazy. He blundered into +the privet-hedge, and unearthed a half-frozen _confrere_, who fled, +squawking peevishly, leaving one tail-feather in our friend's beak; and +finally he flew down to the road. + +In the road, he first of all buried his face in snow, then fell on his +side, deep snow not being, he discovered, an ideal medium in which to +get about on one leg. During that performance his rivals could have +abolished him five times over if they had had the heart to unite. But +they seemed to think otherwise, and had not the heart for anything. +They sat still, with that helpless abandon that afflicts fowls and +other birds in disaster, and they seemed about to starve practically on +the spot, if left alone. + +Our thrush, however, did not leave them alone. They were a direct +threat to his only line of communication with life, so to +speak--namely, food. Wherefore, either they or he must go. Soon he +found that cart-ruts make convenient roads for the birds in the snow, +or perhaps it was the chaffinches, who were following one another in +lines along the cart-ruts, who showed him. + +Then and there, in the road, our thrush seemed to go berserk. He +landed upon the thrush nearest to him, spread-eagled and hammering like +a feathered devil. There was a whirl of brown feathers and finely +powdered snow for about ten seconds, at the end of which time that +other thrush detached himself and fled, oven as his conqueror hurled +himself upon the next bird. + +There were two here, side by side, but neither was quick enough to +parry our friend's lightning lunges, after he had beaten down their +guard with his wings; and they, too, got up and winged into the leaden, +frowning sky. The others did not wait. They had seen all they wanted +to, apparently, and would take no part in the play. They faded out +among the drifting snowflakes, over the still, white fields, and our +thrush was left to the lawn, and the bread, and the swarming +chaffinches, whom he easily kept aloof, and--yes, there was no getting +away from it--the one thrush on the summer-house who, you will note, +had never moved. But when he looked he found that thrush was not on +the summer-house, but on the lawn, eating bread; and when he flew down +to the lawn to investigate--he flew and landed very clumsily--he made a +discovery that seemed to surprise him; or did he already know it? +Anyway, the thrush on the lawn was a lady, and--well, what would you? +The cripple balanced as well as he could, and looked foolish. It was +all he could do. + +The day passed swiftly, and faded out in blinding snow. Most of the +time the cripple stood motionless, watching his companion and guarding +his swept circle, and, as often as he could, he fed. And neither then +nor at any other time, except once when the gardener nearly trod upon +him before he would move, did he utter a sound. The last glimmer of +day showed him still at his post, motionless, all but invisible. But +he roosted, as a matter of fact, in the privet-hedge, on the south side +of the summer-house, and this time he was not alone. + +The day had been trying enough, with its fights and its three cats, +which passed within reach of him, and could have slain him--for his +injuries made him slow to get under way--if they had not failed to see +him, because so still. The night, however, was a clouded terror. + +Certainly he went to bed--if one may so call it--full, if not warm +exactly; but that was the only advantage. It snowed with ghastly, +relentless steadiness, and it blew like the hacking of sharp knives. + +But through it all, because full fed, the cripple, with all his +handicap, and his lady companion lived; lived to see the hard dawn pale +tardily; lived to watch the kind gardener--under strict orders +assuredly, or he would never have done it--sweep a space clear on the +lawn and spread food for the birds; lived to ruffle his feathers and +fly down; and lived to see the thaw which came that afternoon, when the +warm sou'-wester came romping over the land, and winter's last stand +was overcome by the forces of spring, and all the wild breathed a sigh +of relief and went abroad gayly to feed. + +But the cripple lived to see other things. For there came a day, about +a week later, when our cripple, who had been "keeping company" all the +time with his lady friend, heard the whole dawn awaken to a sudden +mighty chorus of thrush song. I don't know why they all chose to burst +into song thus as at a given signal, but they did, and the effect upon +the cripple and his companion was curious. He had just landed upon the +top of the summer-house on his one leg, in a particularly awkward and +unbalanced manner, and he perched, listening, as if rooted to the spot, +and with something nearly approaching horror in his eyes, it seemed to +me. + +The female bird listened, too, for about a minute, and then, ignoring +the poor cripple as if he had never existed, hopped towards the +spruce-fir--atop of which a particularly fine and strong-voiced +songster was warbling--as if she were drawn by ropes. And--oh, +horror!--the songster came down to _her_. + +The cripple never uttered a sound, not a song, or a call, or a sign. +He hurled himself straight at this new rival like a bolt shot from a +crossbow, and he fought. My word, how he fought! But this new +antagonist was no half-frozen, half-starved Continental song thrush. +He was a Britisher, thick-set, bullet-headed, thick-necked, who had +wintered, perhaps, in the south of Ireland or farther, and he fought +like a Trojan. + +All up and down the lawn the fight raged, and in and out of the hedges, +into the mountain ash and out again, down to the ground and up again; +but in the end--ah, but it could have only one end!--the Britisher was +on the top of the summer-house, literally shouting his song of triumph. +And the cripple was on the ground at the foot of the hedge, beneath the +spruce-fir, lying on his side, blood-stained and panting. Nobody saw +him creep away. Nobody cared--certainly not his lady acquaintance, who +was too busy receiving glad eyes from the conqueror. + +Also, nobody saw him die. Yet next morning he was dead, stiff and +still on the ground beside the summer-house. Some think that it was +the injuries he received in his last great fight that killed him. I do +not. I could find no wounds upon him sufficiently severe to sustain +that theory. I think he died of a broken heart. Don't you? + + + + +VII + +"SET A THIEF"---- + +Cob arrived in a snowstorm of unparalleled ferocity. He came upon +extended vans sixty-nine inches from tip to tip, which he seemed as if +he were never going to flap. All black above, all white below, he was. +The fact was worth noting, because, as seen from below, he looked +neither black nor any other hue, but just indiscriminate dark, unless +he swerved against the little light, and then his white "hull" shone +like silver. + +In his calm tacking, in his effortless play, in his superb mastery of +the furious gale, one realized that here was one of Nature's +masterpieces. He arrested the gaze with his serenity, and in his +majesty of flight marked himself as a bird apart. + +Here was a bird accustomed to power, to respect, and to wield fear, as +a king might do; but he was no king, even among birds. He was a great +black-backed gull, immense, austere, and cruel, with eyes as cold as +the waves whose glitter they reflected, and a heart as implacable as +the storm that cherished it; sea-rover, pillager, pirate, swashbuckler, +son of the storm in whose fierce buffetings he rejoiced, master of the +gale upon whose fury he flourished--the very spirit of the ocean's +frontiers, arrayed in the spotless uniform of the sea, sailing under +her bold colors. + +And then, as he suddenly came, the watcher, had there been one, would +have looked at him expectantly, for an eagle, bristling with weapons, +so to speak, fierce-eyed, mighty, and scowling, came flapping heavily +across the white-fretted bay. There is expression in birds, and most +have their feelings and their character stamped upon their whole body. +But there was no expression in Cob. His cold eyes continued to stare +with steady stoniness, his vast vans to waft an occasional shallow, +lazy quarter-flap, his spotless head to peer down at times. Once only, +as the real king of the birds, on his course, drew very near, so that +you could hear the deep, dry "hough! hough!" of the powerful wings, did +Cob open his red-stained--as it were blood--yellow beak, and give +utterance--one could call it no more--and so instantly close his beak +again and revert to his absolute expressionlessness that one had a job +to realize what, or who, in all that vast scene, had spoken. + +"I'm-Great-Black-Back!" he said very quietly, quickly, gratingly, and +tersely; and then, as if expecting an answer, added, "Eh?" in a hollow +undertone. + +The eagle's imperial head jerked round as he flew, and he shot a +stabbing, sheathed glance at the great sea-bird, as a king might at a +man in a crowd who begins to fumble at his hip-pocket. But, save for +that, he took no further notice, and beat on with his terrific, +piston-like, regular wing-beats; and the gull, that speckless, +dazzling, hardened, hard giant, laughed--laughed, I say, softly and to +himself, hoarsely and insolently: "How-how-how-how!" It was as if he +laughed in derision. + +And then a strange thing happened. From the opposite stupendous +cliffs, draped in snow, bejeweled with icicles, frowning and desolate, +an ominous black shape flung itself furiously, and made straight for +the eagle, barking hoarsely with rage as it came. Another hollow bark +followed, and a second evil ebony form hurled down from the tottering +cliff-top, and flapped towards the eagle in the path of the first. +Bark echoed bark above the deep mutter of the breakers, and the echoes +along the cliffs answered both uncannily and mockingly. + +They were a raven, disturbed from her wool-quilted nest, and her mate; +but if they had been hobgoblins straight from an evil dream, they could +not, in that immense, grim setting, have been much more impressive. + +The great black-backed gull said no more, but wheeled on as if nothing +had happened. + +The eagle said nothing, and tried to beat on as if nothing had +happened, too. He did not succeed, for the ravens who had been +addressing him most particularly soon addressed themselves personally +to him; and before he knew just how it all came about, they had +summoned a quite amazing and unexpected aerial acrobatic power, and +were shooting and diving, striking and flapping, about his regal head +in a manner that even _he_ could not pretend any longer to ignore. No +one, not even a king of all the birds, feels comfortable under the +imminent possibility of losing an eye--and such a haughty, wonderful +eye, too. Nor did the eagle. And he showed it. One presumes he might +have abolished the pair--one or both--but the eagle never let on what +he presumed. What he _knew_ was that he had nothing to gain in a fight +with such super-hooligans, and everything to lose, for one wound only +might mean a dead eagle _via_ starvation and a dead raven--what was a +dead raven worth, anyway, to him, or anybody else? + +Therefore the eagle changed his mind about continuing his course, which +would have taken him above the ravens' nest. He did it grandly, and +without giving the impression that the ravens had anything to do with +it--he could have squeezed the life out of them with one awful +handshake, if his heart had been as big as his claws. But they had +something to do with it. And they knew it. So did Cob, who laughed +again, hoarsely and as one appreciating a joke, while he wheeled and +wheeled over the following waves, seeing all things and never appearing +to see anything. + +Then at last, when the king of all the birds had sunk, like a speck of +floating burnt paper, away over the far, white-mantled hills, the +ravens suddenly evaporated into nowhere. Probably no one had seen them +go except Cob, and Cob was by now a lonely, dwindling speck away over +the restless ocean. Then he was not. He was coming back, swinging +along with great, easy, shallow half-flaps, so sublimely lazy that he +seemed merely to swim through the gale. But he covered distance; there +was speed as well as majesty in his flight, for all that. + +In a very short time he was above the cliffs, silent, sinister, almost +stealthy. One of the ravens came back suddenly, diving over the crest, +half-demented with anxiety to cover her eggs from that stony stare of +the sea-rover; and Cob, seeing where she had come from, surrendered +himself to the gale, hurtled down-wind, veered, tacked, circled, +rocking, and came down in a series of his oblique plunges--smack-bang +into the middle of a gory dinner-party, consisting of the male raven, +five gray or hooded crows, and one silver herring-gull, feasting upon +the carcass of a dead sheep. + +Every head went up, every eye blinked, every wing half-opened, every +beak shut tight as Cob, whom everybody had thought to be miles away by +that time, threw forward his wings, umbrella-fashion, flung them up, +hat-fashion, fanning wide his tail, dropped his giant webbed feet, and +came to anchor with a rush. Then he folded those wonderful pinions of +his, foot by rustling foot, stared stonily at the amazed, mute company +around him, and, throwing back his immaculate, smooth, low-browed, +spotless head, laughed to the winds, hoarsely, loudly, wildly--a rude, +baleful, transport of mirth: + +"How-how-how-how-how!" + +The raven did not laugh. He had to feed his sitting wife--not counting +his big self--in that bitter weather, and he was pluming himself upon +having turned the eagle from sight of this gift banquet from Providence +as well as his nest. The gray crows saw no cause for merriment, +remembering how big the great gull was, and how small are these little, +long-wooled, black-faced hill sheep. Moreover, sheep do not often +oblige by getting turned turtle in a cleft of rock, and being unable to +right themselves before poor, starving, wild hunters--I won't swear +who, but it was not the raven _this_ time--can come and peck their eyes +out. + +Cob looked at them again--all five of the gray crows sitting staring +straight down their own black gouge-beaks, hunched, cold, out-at-heels, +and dejected. Then he laughed again--burst into another wild, jeering +fit of merriment, and fell to work. + +First of all, he pointed out to the raven--his beak was the +pointer--that he was sitting upon the choicest portion of that sheep, +and must make way therefrom _instantly_. Next, he turned his head and +looked--only looked--at a gray crow that had presumed, upon the turning +of his broad, black back, to recommence feeding, and that hooded crow +moved one yard in one second--out of reach. And next, Cob, who +apparently loved discipline and cherished good manners, started his +banquet, and allowed the others to start theirs. + +But it was an unholy feast. Cob tugged and tore like a butcher without +any knives. At times he nearly fell backwards, when the meat gave way; +at times he bolted, and gulped, and choked horribly; at times he was +nearly standing upon his head, and at other times upon his tail; and, +in case the others should find the woolly outside, where they alone +could feed, too easy, he was continually breaking off, to rush--a +red-headed demon from hell now--at the raven, or glare at the crows and +remove them yards, as if his eyes could kill. As for the herring-gull, +he raced and danced in a crazy circle round his giant clansman, +apparently smitten with delirium at the luscious titbits he was obliged +to watch vanishing down Cob's bright throat. + +The raven, however, was growing desperate. He was under contract to +Fate to feed his wife. She would freeze there on her nest in the snow +among the icicle-studded ledges else. And every time he had got hold +of a big enough dainty to tug free and fly off with, Cob had cut in and +collared the said morsel. As a matter of fact, friend raven was a +better carver than the sea-pirate, had a beak better suited for the +grisly purpose. Finally, the black one got hold of a piece of meat, +and did not let go. He hung on, and, before anybody realized that he +had moved, Cob's yellow-and-red-painted bill--nearly all red now--had +closed upon that raven's neck. There was one wild, asthmatical croak +from the raven, a whirl of sturdy black and overshadowing +black-and-white wings, and the raven was jerked clean head-over-heels, +where, among the heather, he lay for a brief second, kicking +ignominiously, on his sable back. + +Here the crows fled to strategic positions upon bowlders, waist-deep in +heather, hard by, expecting a like fate, and leaving the herring-gull +to gobble up what he could in the confusion, and risk his life in the +process, when suddenly, above the beating of wings and the hiss of +wind, all distinctly heard, and jumped at, the sound of a single, +horrible, instantaneous, metallic clash. + +Cob's agonized yell, the clash itself, and the whir and rush of wings, +as every bird there present literally flung itself into the air, seemed +really, though of course they were not, coincident--such is the +quickness with which these wild creatures act. But Cob alone remained. + +He stopped in mid-spring horribly, and suddenly, as if a Hand had +reached up and plucked him back. For a second his wonderful wings beat +and beat tremendously, frenziedly, with a noise you could hear all up +the hill; then he fell back in one demented, frenzied mix up of +bashing, smashing pinions, legs, tail, and whirling feathers. + +That clash, which had jarred Cob's frame from head to hind-toe, was a +trap, _alias_ a gin, _alias_ a clam, and the rack of man's Inquisition +of the wild. He had stepped upon it; it had gone off, and caught him +by the right leg, and, being anchored by a chain, had refused to let +him go when he sought to remove himself, trap and all. + +What followed during the next minute or two it would scarcely be fair +to so fine a bird to print. Moreover, it was unnice to behold. +Wild-folk have a habit often of going temporarily insane when they +first find themselves trapped, because the trap represents to them the +most supreme, the most unbearable, of all terrors--loss of freedom; and +freedom is to them more than life, especially to birds, and more +especially still to those whose lives are dedicated to the wild, free +sea. + +At the end of that time Cob lay exhausted upon his side, one mighty +pinion pathetically trailing in the snow, his beak open, his whole jet +and spotless white body shaken and convulsed with pantings that were +almost sobs. He seemed in danger of dying there and then upon the +spot, with sheer, sickening horror or a broken heart. + +The herring-gull was a silver line--about as big as a thrip--to +seaward. The gray crows climbed the heavens to landward, like flies +that climb a window-pane. Only the raven had not gone, quite. + +The raven was a bird, of course, and every bird has got to do its duty. +There can be no shirking. _His_ duty was to supply food to keep the +fires of life burning in his mate as she sat upon her icy nest. His +duty was to see that his eggs, _their_ eggs, hatched out; and with him +the motto was: "The end justifies the means." This bird, this +sea-rover, this big pirate, alone stood between him and the discharge +of duty. There was no other way, no other food; he had searched. +Wherefore, the raven stayed; he knew all about traps, few better, and +he stayed, waiting, if it please you, for Cob to--die! + +But Cob would not oblige. He had not got a broken and crushed leg, as +the raven possibly expected. He was not injured, as he should have +been, according to program; only puffed. The mercy of Allah had seen +to it that some teeth of that instrument of vile torture that had hold +of him were broken off, and that his leg should have been caught in the +gap thus formed. Moreover, the trap had not been looked after; it was +rusty, and did not shut quite properly. The spring was weak, or some +grit had got in, or something, and a smart rat would have got out of it +easily, but a rat is not a gull, and knows too much. + +Thereafter, nothing happened for a long while. Cob's first delirium +seemed to have spent him, and perhaps taught him how much a leg can +hurt when tugged by the full lift of sixty-nine-inch wings, especially +when one tries to whirl round upon it when it cannot turn. + +The raven sat on his lichen-decorated, snow-draped bowlder, hands in +pockets, so to speak, abominably untidy, with a pessimistic hunch of +the shoulders, but a light in his eyes, a strangely malignant, +devilishly roguish leer, that belied his appearance. Perhaps he was +waiting to see if Cob during his struggles obligingly touched off any +further deadly surprises that might lie hidden in the vicinity. One +never knows. He had seen a gray crow double-catch himself in two traps +lying close to one another--once. + +Nothing happening, however, that raven presently sailed in on his fine +work. He broke his neutrality with a sudden dry rustle of wings, and +clumsily half-hopped, half-heavily napped, down to Cob, lying there +still and silent, but very much awake, upon the snow. He almost seemed +to be rubbing his hands, or, rather, his claws, that ebon rascal. This +was, indeed, a game after his own heart. + +Cob never moved when the raven arrived. I suppose he knew all about +ravens, and what one may expect from them. He only stared at him with +one cold eye, a tense, lop-sided stare; and he mouthed a little--if one +may be permitted the expression--with his beak, like a man moistening +his lips. + +The raven looked him over critically, leeringly, insolently, with a +hateful air of ownership. Then the raven sharpened the gouge thing +which he called his beak--wheep-wheep--upon a stone, as birds do, and +tightened his feathers, as if almost visibly tucking up his sleeves +for--well, for the job. + +Then he tweaked Cob's tail, apparently just to see how much alive he +was. But Cob did not move, beyond drawing one webbed leg--the free +one--up under him. + +Then the raven dug him under the wing--punched him in the ribs, so to +speak. But Cob did nothing more than cringe--cringe from head to +hind-toe, like a worm. + +Then suddenly, startlingly suddenly, with the full stroke, the dreaded +pickax blow, of all the ravens, he let drive straight at Cob's clear, +shining eye--the left one, with which Cob, with his head twisted, had +all along been regarding him. He had disclosed his hand, that raven. +It was devil's work. + +Till that moment Cob had never moved, as we have said. Save for his +one eye and his quivering, one would scarcely have known that he lived. +That was his game, perhaps. Who can tell? For a stolid, slow-thinking +gull may have, in his way, just as deep, or low, a cunning as a +brilliant-brained raven. Anyhow, in that fiftieth of a second allowed, +just when it seemed as if nothing could save his eye, Cob's head +snicked round and up, and he slid the enemy's beak down off his own +with as neat a parry as ever you saw. And he did more. He caught hold +of the said raven's beak, got a grip on beak in beak, and once having +got hold, he kept hold. This was nothing new to him. It was his +way--one of his ways--of fighting rival great black-backed gulls. But +it was new to the raven, and he had not previously thought out any +proper counter to it. (There is a counter, I think.) Result--caught +raven as well as caught gull. + +Then it was that raven's turn to go mad, and dance a paralytic kan-kan; +but he could not get any change out of that gull. Cob hung on almost +as well as the trap hung on to him, and far more twistfully. He was +quite at home, of course. He had been brought up to this sort of +thing. It was the official regulation gull way of fighting under set +rules, but he could rarely get any other bird than a gull to fight with +him like it. It was not the raven's way of fighting, though, and I +think he felt himself in a trap. He certainly acted like a bird out of +its senses, while the gull, flapping hugely, and forgetting, in the +excitement, his own bondage, gradually forced the raven's head back and +back over his back, till that raven was in the unenviable position of +staring over his own back at his own tail, upon which he was +ignominiously sitting. Also, his neck was half-dislocated, and he was +nearly choking. And about this time it began to dawn upon him that it +did not pay in the wild to monkey with great black-backed gulls, even +trapped ones. He swore, as well as he could, in a gurgling croak. +Then---- + +Clash! + +Horrors upon diabolical horrors! Another trap? + +The same ghastly thought flashed to both birds' brains at the same +moment, and both literally sprang bodily up into the gale in one +maddened leap, both forgetting all else in the panic to be gone. + +Both stopped at the same instant, with a jerk that nearly unhinged +every bone in their bodies. Both yelled with terror at the identical +moment. + +Both were released--as by the cutting of a string--at the same fraction +of time, and both hurtled aloft at the same fear-blinded, rocket-like +speed. + +But both had not been caught by the same kind of trap. + +It was the jerk that had freed Cob from the really quite light hold, as +we have already explained, of the jaws of the steel trap. + +And it was the jerk that had torn out some of the raven's +tail-feathers, and left them in the jaws of the--gray, old, hill fox. + +And it was the fox who was standing all alone, watching, with oblique +eyes, the two great birds fast dissolving with every desperate, +stampeding wing-beat into the hurrying cloud-wrack and the wild +seascape--in opposite directions. He had made a good stalk, but had +sprung a little short, had brer fox. + +Upon a day, weeks later, we find the raven, whose young had left the +nest, stolidly soaring over a small, flat island, golden with furze, +purple with heather, pale-rose chiffon where it was covered with +sea-pinks. + +In addition to these, only one other hue, beside green, was there upon +that island gem floating on the jade-green sea, and that was a patch of +black and white! It flashed to the eye of the raiding rogue-raven, and +he altered course towards it, when it turned into a female great +black-backed gull, running, literally racing, to her nest, which the +raven could now see, with its two big, buff, dark-splashed eggs. + +Down flopped the giant gull upon her treasure, and began yelling, +"How-how-how-how!" at the top of her voice. + +But the island seemed empty of life, and her yelling useless. + +Down dropped the raven in front of her. + +Down winnowed the hen-raven at the back of her. + +And, both together, they approached. And all the time the great +black-backed gull continued to yell, "How-how-how-how!" + +At last, when he had got close enough, the cock-raven lunged at her, +or, rather, underneath her. She parried his stroke, and--the hen-raven +lunged. Nothing now, she knew, could save her eggs, unless she rose to +fight the cock-raven. The hen-raven then ran in. She only required a +second in which to ruin each egg, but she never got it. + +Nobody saw the avalanche coming, but everybody heard it arrive. It was +of snow-white, and it was of jet-black, and it knocked the cock-raven +one way, and sent the hen-raven, picking up her skirts, as it were, and +fleeing, the other. And the name of the avalanche was Cob. + +I fancy he considered that he bore a grudge against that cock +bandit-raven. Perhaps in dreams he could still feel that trap on his +leg. Who knows? He certainly used to wake up with outcries, and he +equally certainly made that cock-raven shy of that island for evermore. + + + + +VIII + +THE WHERE IS IT? + +No one would have thought of looking for any living beast in the raffle +of dried twigs and tamarisk "leaves" between the crawling, snake-like +roots of the feathery tamarisks if it had not been for the noise. The +noise was unmistakable, as the noise of a fight always is; and the only +other living thing near the spot, a tiny, tip-tailed, brown wren--a +little ball of feathers, dainty as you please, and all alone there, and +out of place down by the terrible, snow-covered, wind-tortured estuary +shore--made shift to remove herself, making remarks--wrens can't help +saying what they feel--as she flitted. + +Then the combatants fell out--literally. Up from the solid earth +between the twisted roots they seemed to come, but that proved the art +of one of them in concealing his front-door from the curious, and down +the bank of the sea-wall, over and over and over, squeaking the most +murderous language, and grappling like pocket-devils--tumbled a little +jet-black and a little dark-brown beast. + +They continued the duel upon the dry gravel below--the finest and the +whitest gravel ever you did see--and they would apparently have gone on +for goodness knows how long if a gray-white, thin, worn post a couple +of yards away had not turned into a heron and stalked an ungainly stalk +towards them. + +Then they fell apart, and one of them, at any rate--the brown one--ran +away in the shape of a water-vole--water-"rat," if you will--the heron +making spear-lunges at him with his bill as he ungainlily skipped at +the other's tail all the way up the bank. The other fighter, the black +one, could not rightly be said to have turned into anything very +much--at least, not anything that any one could swear to. It just +seemed as if a dark blur whizzed about--more bird-like than +beast-like--around the astonished and prancing heron, and then into +nowhere. It was like watching a blue-bottle in a tumbler, and very +extraordinary. The heron never even professed to follow it or lunge at +it. He preferred the water-vole, whose agility was not too fast to see. + +At the place where it had come from, the mouth of the hole, it +stopped--this beast that could move quicker than eye could +follow--stopped so suddenly and completely that its change from almost +lightning motion to stony motionlessness in the fraction of a second +was nearly as amazing as its first marvelous exhibition. It stopped, I +say, and became a--a rat. + +To nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of a thousand, the word +"rat" conveys only one impression. This rat did not fulfill that +impression. In fact, there is more than one kind of rat, and though +fate and their fathers' Kismet has cursed them all with a name of +shame, they are not all the kind of people that made it so. There is +the foreigner, the invader, the common brown rat, who is accursed; +there is the old English black rat, whom the accursed one has nearly +wiped out into little more than a ghost; and there is the water-rat, +who is not a rat, but a vole, and would thank you to remember the fact. + +And this rat was a black rat, as black as jet, shark-jawed, star-eyed, +elfin-eared, snake-tailed, lean, long-legged, and graceful--a very +greyhound among the rats. He was there, in that dancing-floor of the +winds by the estuary, because no common or sewer rats were there. They +were anathema to him, and they were worse--death in many horrible +forms. He had been there all the summer, all the autumn, and all +the---- No, by whiskers! he was not going to remain there all the +winter. He had his limit, and he hated cold; and here, down by the +flat, sodden, mud-choked shore of the estuary, it was so cold that if +you didn't jolly well mind what you were up to and keep your tummy +always full, you went to sleep, and--never woke up any more. + +A little pile of mussel, winkle, and shore-crab shells, and the +backbone of what had been a stranded fish, close to the mouth of the +hole, showed the rat's account-book to date; but there was a line to be +drawn even in this trade. That dawn--if you could call the gray dark +of a snowstorm dawn--he, wondrously adventurous, had gone shell-fish +collecting, away out upon the freezing wet mud-ooze. He had got three +mussels; a muddy face; muddier feet; nearly an eye pecked out by a +mighty, great black-backed gull; three chivyings from herring-gulls; +one nip from a crab who ought to have been dead; two winkles under big +stones that took half-an-hour to shift; one dead pigmy shrew--length +two inches--with a hole in its skull, no brains, and a horrible smell; +nearly his life removed by the swoop of a kestrel falcon and the +javelin-stab of a heron's beak; and twenty minutes' hard cleaning to +remove the mud-stains that were not properly off--to his nice +liking--yet. And, to add to that, he had no sooner finished than he +found that some clumsy fool of a water-rat--vole, I mean--with a mania +for mining, had run a shaft into his hole, and brought the whole roof +crumbling down upon his scrupulously neat and tidy nest of fine hay and +carefully shredded rush--the only approximately warm corner he +possessed in all that biting cold--so that days of labor would not +repair the silly damage; and he had had to enter into a free fight with +and turn the fool out, nearly losing his life, for the fourth time that +short, dark, bitter day, in the process. And now he had to clean +himself all over again! + +No wonder he was fed-up, and decided to quit. He loved the dank marsh, +the brackish channels, the long, lone wind blowing through the +tamarisks, and the smell--salt, seaweed, mud, and fish--of it all; but +in this--weather, when the cold here, even in shelter, was greater than +the cold in any other spot--and the unchecked wind cut like swords of +ice--he realized that one must be an eider-duck or an Iceland gull, a +northern diver or an Arctic owl, to stand it, and he was none of these. +Wherefore, though the dusk had made the dull day only a little more +dark as yet, and the pink, luminous frost-haze still hung in the west, +he called down his hole to his wife--his one and only wife, but that +was not his fault--and quitted. + +Ten minutes later you behold our black rat--if you had eyes quick +enough, but it was a matter of momentary glimpses, anyway--trekking up +a ditch. You have pretty well got to take my word for it, because, +though sometimes you saw him for the half of a second, mostly you +didn't, and couldn't tell whether there was his wife only, or he only, +or both. Really there were both, but our black friend with the +embarrassingly, the abnormally, long tail and the genteel head--Mr. +_Mus rattus_ on Sundays, if you please, and in nowise to be confused +with that _canaille_, Citizen _Mus decumanus_, the common brown +rat--had not the slightest intention that any one should see him, if he +could help it. His wife might be trusted to look out for herself. And +for this reason, perhaps, his march was a progress to wonder at. + +Did a flock of wild-duck come over from the sea with whistling wings, +he did not so much get under the over-hanging grass as _be_ there. Did +a "gaggle" of wild-geese go by high over, clamoring like hounds, he +went out like a blown candle. Did a party of teal--for it was the +magic hour of "flight," when all wildfowl shift their quarters to feed, +or not to feed--fairly hissing with speed, like masterless bullets, +dash over, he--well, he was not before you could realize that he had +moved. + +Then up and flew round them a shape, and the name of that shape was +death. It might have been a gull with hawk-like form. It might have +been a hawk in gull-like light-gray uniform. And it might have been an +owl with gull-like dress and hawk-like lines. Whatever it was, it was +clipper-built, swift, and in fighting trim. As a matter of fact, it +was neither gull nor hawk nor owl, but a harrier, a hen-harrier--that's +its name, not its sex, for it was a cock--and the same is a half-way +house, so to speak, between hawk and owl. Possibly because they are +crepuscular, harriers may be thought more rare than they are. This one +was "crepusculing," and--the black rat did not like it. They had met +before, and Mr. Ratus had gained a lively dislike for this hawk-owl +combination, greater than his respect--which itself was not small--for +owl or hawk. + +Seeing nowhere to go, and nothing to hide in when he got there, our Mr. +Ratus shifted from one spot to the other when the harrier made his +cat-like pounce--yes, he was something cat-like, too--and had the +pleasure of seeing the harrier's uninviting talons grab a clawful of +grass, which, by all powers of judgment, ought to have been black rat's +fur. + +A mere hawk, or even an owl, might have considered this rebuff enough, +but not the harrier. _He_ wafted himself ten feet aloft on his long +narrow vans, and, flapping owl-like, or almost butterfly-like, began to +beat, and the beating of the harrying harrier, up and down, is one of +the most trying ordeals, for the game beaten for, in the wild. + +Mrs. Ratus sat where she was, he presumed, playing the same bluff. + +But both were without cover, and the black rat, I fear, devoutly hoped +that she would be fool enough to move and give herself away first; +whilst she, on her part, was cursing him for many kinds of a fool for +starting their "flitting" before it was dark. + +While she sat and froze--in both senses--however, the black rat, rigid +as a beast cut out of coal, with one bright, shining eye upon the +harrier beating up and down, was probing the dusk with the other eye. +And presently he thought he saw his chance. He would have had to move, +anyway, I fancy, for the strain of sitting there bang in the open was +unendurable. His nerves would have snapped. So he went to his +chance--a hole in the bank of the ditch. + +I say he went, but I only take it to be so because he got there. One +could not actually see him go. One had only an idea, quite an +uncertain idea, that something, most like a swift bird, had passed up +the ditch, and one could not swear even to that. It seemed impossible +that the flying something had been a four-legged animal. + +It was the black rat. Nor did he go straight. He went, if I may so +put it, every way at once, ending up with a merry-go-round dance with +death--the harrier was pouncing savagely--round a tuft of grass, at +such a speed that he looked exactly like the rim of a quickly spun +bicycle-wheel--a halo, that is to say, and nothing else. + +And then--he was crouched, panting, inside the hole, wondering whether +his heart or his lungs would be the first to burst. And then? Oh, and +then he--cleaned himself, naturally and of course. What else did you +expect? He was the original black rat of Old England, and one of the +cleanest animals on earth. + +Mrs. Ratus, having vanished past finding while the hunt to the hole was +on, presently scented her lord out, when the night had come and the +harrier was gone, and together, starting like antelope at every hint of +a sound, they traveled up the ditch, and up the bank of a stream that +the ditch folded into. + +Once an owl--the nomad, short-eared owl of the marshes--let forth a +hoot that would have sent a nervous lady into "astericks," and sent +_them_ into no-where, as if it had detonated a charge of that lively +mystery called T.N.T. under their dainty feet. Once, just as they were +lapping like dogs at the edge of the ice that was conspiring to span +the brook, an otter shot up his head--jaws wide and dripping--almost +under their long and pointed noses, and they, with one accord, and +driven by their long tails acting as a spring, leapt simply into space. +At any rate, they could not be followed by mortal eye, wherever they +did leap to. + +And once they met a wandering cat. And that cat seemed to go mad, for +she shifted about the steep bank of that stream, and up, and +about--here she swore because the spikes pricked her--and down a +holly-bush, as if she had got a rocket tied to her tail. She had not, +of course. She was hunting black rats. I suppose she saw them. If +so, she was the only person who did, and I feel sure that, instant as +she was, when she was up the bank or the holly-bush they were down it, +and when she was down they were up. Finally, when her lost temper had +completely run her out of breath, she slouched away, spitting like a +worn sparking-plug, and very much disgusted. And--the black rats +cleaned themselves! + +That night was not a profitable one. The shell-fish of the estuary +were gone, and there was little instead on the stream--only snow, and +the snow fell quietly at intervals throughout the night, hiding +everything. Rats, too, are creatures of warmth. They hate cold as +much as the writer, and these two black rats became very miserable. +They had no home, and did not know where to go; and, save for a few +berries, they had nothing to eat. Mercifully, they had plenty to +drink, and that is an item with rats, who die in a very few hours if +they cannot get a drink. + +A bitter, dull paling of the sky, which by courtesy we will call dawn, +found them cleaning again, with their hand-like forepaws, exactly like +cats, inside a water-vole burrow. The owner had been out, +bark-chipping, all night--it was the only thing he could find to keep +body and life from parting company--and was not over-pleased, on his +return, to find that he had company at home. A short two-round contest +ensued, during which the water-vole must have felt as if he had taken +on a bit of black lightning. Then the water-vole went away, somewhat +bewildered, to turn some smaller water-vole out of his winter bed; and +the rats curled themselves up, heads between hindlegs, tail encircling +all, with only their ever-ready, elfin ears poking out to give the +alarm, and they slept. And, by the way, it was a saying in the wild +that no one had ever seen them asleep, or knew if, or how, they did +sleep. + +Nothing came to disturb them during the day--which was a wonder, for +all the wild was hungry and looking for food--and at the hour when + + Night, busy with her dawn, begins it with a star, + +they came out, after a prolonged, starry-eyed stare, from their +fastness, and continued their journey. + +Things were serious now. They had not fed, and could find nothing to +feed upon but two hawthorn-berries, dropped by the wasteful fieldfares; +but they drank, _and_ cleaned, and proceeded up-stream, with that +caution one only learns in a world full of enemies and empty of friends. + +Another six hours of this cold on an empty stomach would send them into +that sleep--the dread, drugged slumber of the cold--from which there is +no awakening in this world, and they seemed to know it. They were +desperate, and their eyes burnt in their sharp heads like gimlet-holes +of light. Desperate they were, as the poor, little, brilliantly +resplendent, and tropic-looking kingfisher had, no doubt, been, whom +they found, frozen into a dried, huddled heap, under the stream-bank, +and so emaciated that, after they had picked his bones, they scarcely +knew that they had touched him. + +But anon the face of the snow changed--meaningly for them. Whereas +before they had been alone, almost, in a frozen world, scarcely +crossing a trail but the quadruple track of water-voles or the +chain-pattern impression of a moorhen--nor had seen a living thing but +the square-ended, squat, little, black form of a water-vole out upon an +alder-branch, gnawing bark--they now began to be aware of gradually +increasing company. Not that the company advertised itself, mark you. +Being wild company, it would not; but they knew it was there. + +The chain-trail of the moorhen reduplicated itself. It was joined by +that of a water-rail--they saw his ruby eyes and rat-like form in +passing. The fourfold track of a rabbit led the way ahead of them, as +if pointing the path, to be joined by the broken footprints of another +rabbit, and then by the track made by the longer leap of a hare, +fourfold also. The delicate lined marks left by a wood-mouse now kept +company with the others, and anon the little fairy imprints of two +field-voles--short-tailed field-mice, if you prefer. They crossed the +track of another rabbit going, at right-angles, down to the water to +drink, and then the little, busy tattoo of bank-voles. Another hare's +trail, and more rabbits' tracks, began to meander about, but all +heading more or less one way--the way they were going. And then they +stopped dead at the smudged groove and ancient and fish-like scent of +an otter. Moreover, they had scarcely got over that than they came +upon the dog-like tracks, and the smell, like nothing else, of Reynard, +the fox; and, with nerves fairly tingling now, and eyes everywhere at +once, they arrived at last--as the converging trails seemed to say they +would--at the towering, smudged blur against the sky, which was the +farm-buildings. + +The black rat peered under the lower rung of a gate into a straw-yard, +and heard the rustlings of little folk--field-vole, bank-vole, and +wood-mouse--who had gone before him. There was no sign of the others; +but that was not strange, for the hares and the rabbits had probably +gone round to the kitchen-garden, for which they were making in their +extremity of hunger; and the otter and the fox were, most likely, +keeping each other off the fowlhouse. + +Wherefore, plucking up courage, the black rat skipped into the yard, +and made straight for the manger, where, in the inky blackness under +the open-sided roofs, he could hear the long-drawn blowing and sigh of +fat cattle lying down. + +A pale moon came out behind him, and showed him tripping lightly over a +bullock's broad back. Then he was up on the manger-edge, had paused to +make sure, and was down in the manger, picking up crumbs and dust of +linseed-cake and chaff. Three mice were doing the same thing, but fled +at his approach; but he did not trouble about that, for the cattle had +not left even him and his wife a full meal, having blown what was left +of the chaff away, and licked up practically all of the cake-crumbs and +dust. However, it was better than nothing. + +The rat's natural curiosity was awakened, and his comparative warmth in +this place, out of the razor-edged wind--oh, what a relief to be out of +that infernal sawing blast!--made him explore. And he ran along the +edge of the manger to a hole in the wall, which led--the peculiar and +indescribable smell said so--through to the pig-sties. But here he +stopped, and his wife behind him stopped. Some one was coming through +from the opposite side--some one who smelt very much worse than any pig. + +Next instant both black rats had gone off together like sparks--if ever +sparks were black--and the brown rat, coming through the hole, wondered +what on earth had happened. Then he sniffed at their trail, tried, but +found it impossible, to follow, and passed on. He would have felt +great pleasure in slaying them if he could, and they knew that. + +The black rat now essayed to cross the yard to the stable. He could +not very well stop there--up among the rafters, that is--all night, so +he came down, and, with his wife following him, gingerly rustled out +upon the partially snow-covered straw. + +Then he got a shock that turned him into a winking series of black +streaks. + +Then he got another shock which turned him, literally, into--well, into +black lightning. You never saw anything like it in all your life. You +never would have believed that any living beast could have so +frantically and so furiously got itself about from place to place so +instantaneously. It was--dazzling. It made you blink. It was It in +the agility line, and no mistake. + +Firstly, the brown rat, having hidden up in some black corner, with +brown-rat cunning, came hopping out instantly--nay, charging--on the +black rat's trail. And there was murder in his wicked, little, +glinting eyes at he came. + +Secondly, a white eider-down quilt--at least, that was what it seemed +like--descended lightly as--as an eider quilt, and as soundlessly, out +of the blue-black sky, and covered the brown rat up. You could hear +his horrid, muffled screaming of rage and fear under the quilt; you +could see the quilt--but they saw that it looked pale brown on +top--lifting about, and feeling for that murder-child of a rat +underneath. Then the quilt got him--you could hear the unspeakably +beastly death-squeal reverberate mufflingly--and then the quilt rose, +still utterly without sound, and one saw it was a big barn-owl, with a +rat--a brown rat--twitching in its white-mittened claws. + +But do you think that made any difference? If so, you don't know the +cruel devil of perseverance that is the brown rat. + +As the black rat, at the end of his amazing lightning display, reached +the barn, with his mate behind him, he leapt--he could not stop--clean +over the back of one great twenty-inch, glitter-eyed brown ghoul, +called by the death-scream of his colleague--other rats usually answer +it--coming out of a hole. The black rats dashed into the hole like +flickering streaks, but the brown rat had instantly spun upon himself, +and was after them. + +The barn was an unfortunate choice. It seemed full of brown rats, and +four of them, in the darkness, instantly took up the pursuit of the now +fairly hunted black couple. Nothing but their miraculous agility saved +those two from being eaten alive, but they came out of the barn on to +the spotless snow on the far side, with only a foot to spare between +their long tails and the mangy, scarred head of the leading brown fiend +behind them. + +Straight across the open, like a drawn black bar, they shot, to a +towering building of wood, and along this--here they lost six inches of +the precious twelve by which they led--looking for a hole. They found +it, whizzed in, five brown rats close behind them, nine brown rats hard +behind the five. + +They discovered themselves in a great room half-filled with sacks and +the sweet smell of corn, and in and out among these sacks they led +their hunters such a dizzy chase as no man ever witnessed, or could +witness, for the matter of that, since human eyes could not follow it. +But the end seemed positive, anyway. It was only a question of tiring +the black sparks out, for the four brown rats in the place, engaged +upon lowering the weight of the flour in the sacks--one of those rats a +dreaded cannibal of twenty-one and a half inches--joined in the +mobbing, and soon the black rats found themselves in such a position +that there was no escape--no escape for any but a black rat. For them +there was one way. And those two living electric sparks on four feet +took it. They went up the wall! + +I don't know, but I guess that, as the black rats' upper jaws were +longer and sharper and more shark-like than the brown rats', and their +tails very much longer, they got a spring off the tail--and legs, +too--and had an agility in hanging on to knots and crannies above that +possessed by the brown ghouls. Be that as it may, they did it, and got +a respite under the floor of the room above, before their enemies, +traveling more normally, and by holes, could swarm up after them. + +Then the two, cornered at last, with one last desperate rush, shot up +through a hole in the boards, out into the middle of the room on the +first floor, and stopped dead. + +Ah! they stopped. Good reason, too. Good reason had the five brown +rats, excited with blood-lust, hard on their tails, to stop also. + +They found themselves suddenly revealed in the middle of a big room, +furnished mainly with a few sacks, and flooded with a dazzling, +blinding glare of electric light, that seemed brighter than the very +sun. + +There they were, all seven, black and brown, struck rigid, plain and +clear for any to see. And four men and two dogs stood there seeing +them. They, those men and dogs, had just come quietly for their +evening rat-hunt, turning on the light suddenly, for the place was a +mill as well as a farm, making--from the mill-wheel--its own +electricity. + +There was a strained, aching pause for about as long as a man takes to +gasp. Then the dogs sprang in, and one of the men jumped to the only +hole in the room they had not previously stopped up. + +But the black rats! The brown rats died, at intervals, fighting +horribly, as cornered brown rats do. In five minutes they were, all +five, dead--that is, all that had come into the room and been cut off. +The black rats, however, in five minutes, were not dead. Nobody seems +to have seen them, after the hunt had once begun, till the others were +killed. Even then all four men aver that they could never rightly +swear that they saw them. They saw lines, and streaks, and flashes, +and whirls, and halos of black, which might have been rats--and the +dogs said they were--but no one could swear to it. At times these +giddy phenomena were among the rafters, at other times they were on the +floor, and yet again they were going up or coming down the walls; but +all the while both men and dogs seemed to be everlastingly too late, +and hunting them where, half-a-second before, they had been. In fact, +they perpetually had been, and were always where snapping jaws and +beating sticks were not. + +At the end of half-an-hour the men, mopping their foreheads, even in +that cold, gasped, "Lor' love yer! Did yer ever see th' like?" + +At the end of three-quarters of an hour the men flung themselves, +gasping, on to the sacks of flour, and the dogs, panting, on to the +floor--done. And the black rat and his mate, lively as ever, perkily +watched them from the rafters. + +Then the men and dogs went away, the light went out, and presently +great sounds of war below suggested that the brown rats on the +ground-floor were having the time of their lives. So were the two +black rats, but a different sort of time. They were feasting upon meal +and grain. And there, so far as I know, as they were like birds, +flying among the rafters like black lightning if molested, they live to +this day. + + + + +IX + +LAWLESS LITTLE LOVE + +She rolled over and regained her feet in a flash, to find herself facing +a dark beast, with a huge, bushy, white tail, held up straight like a +pleased cat's--but this was a sign of warning, not pleasure--that shone +ghostily in the gloom of the mysterious, dread thorn-scrub. And the face +of the beast was the face of a black and grinning devil, and its eyes +shone red. + +She stood there, shivering a little, with the tiny young thing crawling +weakly away from almost under her feet, and the long, vivid, raw gash +that the white-tailed beast, coming from nowhere special out of the +night, had set upon her shoulder--a murderess caught in the act. + +On three legs--her left hindleg had been bitten off by a trap set for a +hyena--emaciated, with all her natural buoyant courage gone out of her, +her wonderful agility gone too, she felt instantly in her heart that she +could neither face this diabolical-faced foe, nor yet get away from it. +This same crippled condition had spoilt her hunting forays, and, driven +by hunger, had made her nose into other people's nurseries, and be caught +just on the point of slaying somebody else's baby, when the owner had +come home, like a streak out of the night. + +But that was not the worst of it, for she was longer than the enemy, a +bit, and might have put up a good fight--she had fought for her life, as +a matter of course, ever since she left her mother's side--if the enemy +had not brought with her an ally. It was not visible to the eye, that +ally, but it was to the nose--a most distinct and appalling stink, and it +could be felt, for it made her nostrils smart. Apparently, then, that +white tail was intentional, was as a red flag, insolently displayed, +warning all to beware of the stink. Well, there is more than one way of +holding your own in the wild, and a most unholy smell is not such a bad +way, either, when you come to think about it. + +The owner of that nameless odor was a polecat--not our polecat; worse +than that--and--well, you know the breed. Fear they know not; neither is +pity with them a weakness, especially where the lives of their young are +concerned. This one did not wait. She attacked quicker than you could +cry "Knife," taking off with all four feet together, in a peculiar and +patent way of her own. + +The would-be murderess, who was long, and absurdly short in the leg, too, +just like her opponent, only with a more graceful and not such a +thick-set body, turned on herself in a snaky fashion, and her neck, that +the fangs had aimed at, was not there when the polecat arrived, but her +teeth were, and they closed on the polecat's cheek. + +The latter gibbered horribly at the spark of pain, and set herself really +down to fight. + +The intending murderess said nothing at all, but, unbalanced with her +game hindleg, having no force to push or spring with, and being very +weak, she knew she was done for directly they closed to the clinch. + +In a few seconds the polecat had her down, and only an awful, mad, +desperate clashing of fang against fang kept the attacker off her throat. +It could not last. + +Then it was, at that moment, that a sharp little, gray little, +dark-spotted, clean-cut, close-cropped, intelligent head, on a snaky, +long neck, peeped out of the shadows, and peered about, as if to see what +in whiskers all the pother was about. The head might have been there by +chance, but it wasn't. Its owner had been running her trail for hours, +and looking for it for days, and didn't mean to let her go, now that he +had finally come up with her, polecats or no polecats, smells or not. +But he was not a fool. He knew the game, the bitter, cruel game of +death, as it is played throughout the wild. With man the inexorable law +is, "Get on or get out." In the wild they phrase it another way: "Kill +or be killed." Man puts it more politely, perhaps, but it's all the same +old natural law, I guess. + +The head and snaky neck developed a long, creamy, tawny-spotted body, and +the body a long, banded, tapering tail--all set on legs so short, they +scarcely kept the owner off the ground; and the name of that beast was +genet. The same are a sort of distant relation of the cats, a fourth +cousin once removed; but it is necessary to tell you, because you might +think they were beautiful weasels, otherwise. _And she was a genet_, +too--the murderess that might have been. + +Then the new-comer moved. Then he began to move, and--here! It was just +like the buzzing of a fly in a tumbler. Certainly you could say that he +was still there, but you could not swear that you actually saw him. + +The first that the polecat knew of him was that red-hot fork-like feeling +that means fangs in the back of your neck. The polecat spun on herself, +and bit, quick as an electric needle, at the spotted thing, that promptly +ceased to be there, and, to use the professional term, she "made the +stink" for all she was worth. She forgot all about the long female +would-be slayer of her children, and the genet was mightily thankful to +drag herself clear, but she would not have been she if she had failed to +get her fangs home, as a parting shot, before she went. + +Then, I fancy, she was ill; and, upon my soul, I don't wonder. It was +enough to asphyxiate a whale-factory hand. But the male genet was not +ill, or, if he was, he was moving from place to place too quickly to give +the fact away; and by the time he shot up a tree, like a long, rippling, +cream and tawny-dappled, banded line, he left that polecat considerably +redder than when he found her, and weak, as if she had been bitten by +leeches. The polecat had certainly saved her young, or thought she had, +although I cannot swear that the female genet had really meant them harm; +but she did not look as if she had saved much else. However, she held +the field of battle, and the foe had fled, and that is supposed to be the +sign of victory; but that had been done by her "gassing" methods, so to +speak, not by fighting alone. + +Rippling about among the branches, an incarnation of grace personified, +and hunting for her by nose alone, for in the moonlight her exquisite +creamy, dappled coat was invisible--a real piece of magic, this--the male +genet quickly found her for whom he sought. She remained low, lying +along a bough, line for line, shadow-patch for shadow-patch, flat as the +very bark, and as undulating, until she felt sure that he would run over +her; then she rose, spitting and snarling in his face, cat-like and +vicious. + +It was a poor kind of thanks for having saved her life, perhaps, but it +was her way--_then_. And, anyway, who can blame her? She had never met +any living creature that was not a foe or an armed "unbenevolent" neutral +in all her life, and she did not know that any other category or creature +existed, the recent fight notwithstanding. + +But the male genet neither ran nor fought. He dodged her snap, by a +tenth of an inch, almost without seeming to move, and there he stood +looking at her meekly. She leapt to him, and he shot off, as she arrived +upon, the place where he had been. Perhaps she knew that only a genet, +or a mongoose, could do that trick in a manner at once so machine-like +and precise; and after that she merely sat, bent in a curve, with her +lips up. But her spring had given her away, and he saw that she was +lame. Perhaps he saw, too, the gleam of hunger, the wild, cruel gleam +that forgets all else, in her eyes; but who am I to say whether he +understood it? + +Be that as it may, the male vanished suddenly and without explanation, +doubling on his trail and going out like a snuffed candle. He was in +view, as a matter of fact, several times during the next few minutes, +climbing quietly; but the dark blotches of the leaf-shadows magicked him +into invisibility, and no one could tell where he was, till suddenly the +silence was smitten by one piercing squawk somewhere among the greenery +above. Then a crash, wild flutterings, a hectic commotion, and he and a +terrified guinea-fowl came down together, more nearly falling than he +liked. Indeed, he must have let it fall, or gone himself with it, as he +slid past, grabbing for holds, if she had not dropped quickly to the next +bough and taken a hold, too. Then, side by side, they hauled the warm, +feathery, fluttering thing up, and he slew swiftly, in order to silence +the noisy prey, who foolishly kicked up such a noise, as if maliciously; +for he knew--and perhaps the gleany (guinea-fowl) did, too--how quickly a +crowd may gather to interfere in an advertised "killing" in that wild. + +The female genet, however, was past caring about risks. She had reached +a stage of hunger when no risks can overshadow the risk of starvation, +and she had the guinea-fowl by the throat, and was sucking its blood +before the other had time to realize what she was at. Then, with fine +discrimination, she ate the breast and thigh, and later might, or might +not, have let him have a look in, if some blotched shape had not slid up, +without sound, across the blue black night sky, and, halting in the tree, +begun, apparently, to crack nuts very sharply and very quickly. +Whereupon, without saying anything, the genets faded out. + +It was nothing much, really--only the noise she makes when the giant +eagle-owl is angry; but when you are a genet, with a body under two feet +long, you may find it rather a bore, if nothing else, to remain cheek by +jowl with an angry eagle-owl three feet or so across the wings, with the +feline temper of an owl, and armed, owl-like, to the teeth, if I may so +put it. + +[Illustration: "An angry eagle-owl"] + +Now the question came as the two genets arrived at the ground--would she +follow him, or would he have to follow her? He was determined, anyway, +that nothing short of calamity should part them. Yet I don't see, since +he never uttered a sound, how she understood him to say that if she would +follow him he would find her food, even though she was still hungry, for +she had not yet got to trusting him much more than she trusted any other +beast, and seemed to think that he was half as likely to eat her as to +get her something to eat. Such a thing as another creature finding her +food for only just friendliness--love was out of the question yet, or out +of her question--was an idea her suspicious nature could not yet grasp. +However, she followed. + +Twining and twisting, turning and tripping, in and out among the bush and +the tree-trunks, soundless, and quite invisible, except when they crossed +a moonbeam--and then nearly so, because the moon has a trick of, as it +were, dissolving the colors of even fairly conspicuous creatures--they +crept on their low way. There was not a sound that they did not crouch +for, often flat as a whip-lash--and that wild is full of sounds by night, +too--not a puff of air that they did not throw up their sharp little +muzzles to test, not a movement or the hint of a movement which their +eyes did not fix with a suspicious stare. + +They passed a hippopotamus feeding--a sheaf at a mouthful--upon long +grass; they came upon three wild dogs eating an antelope and gibbering +like gnomes; they beheld two striped zebras stampeding from a lion; they +got into the middle of a herd of elephants--but what must those giants +have seemed to them, almost at ground-level?--and did not know it, so +silent can the mighty ones be, till they heard the unmistakable digestive +rumblings; they happened on the tail of a leopard, observing a young +waterbuck antelope, and retired therefrom without his suspecting them; +they watched some bush-pigs rooting in a clearing, hoping they might turn +up some insects worth eating; they heard a mother-lion grunting among +some reeds, and were nearly run over by the stampede of zebras that +followed; they chased a rat that ran into a hole in which was a snake, +and it never came out again; they went up a tree after a weaver-bird's +nest, but, from the way the bottle-shaped structure was hung, could not +get at it; they investigated a hare's hole, and found a six-foot mamba +snake, with four-minute death-fangs, in possession; they risked the +thousand spikes of a thorn-bush to get at a red-necked pheasant roosting, +only to find the branch he was on too slender to hold their weight; they +were stalked by a wild cat, and hid in a hollow tree; and were pounced +upon by a civet cat--who was their big cousin--and dodged him most +wonderfully; and were chased by a jackal, whose nose they bit when it +followed them into a hollow log. Finally, they came to the wall, and +stopped. + +Their noses told them it was not the wall of a native village, for no +one, not even a man, could possibly make any mistake about _that_. Also, +their noses may have told them other things. Anyway, the moon saw them, +in the form of two gray lines, slide over the wall and drop silently into +the shadow on the far side. + +A wild cat was courting a domestic cat of the bungalow close by, at the +corner of the compound, but, flat as strips of tawny-spotted cloth, they +got past him all right. + +A black-backed jackal was gnawing a bit of old hide at the angle of the +wall, and they were forced to make a detour up to the veranda of the +bungalow to avoid that sharp-eared, sharp-eyed one. + +Here, on the veranda, they discovered a chair, and the male genet, +standing on hindlegs to see what was in the chair, found himself looking +straight into the electric-blue, purplish balls of light that betokened +another cat, which had been asleep, but was now very wide awake. + +He went round that chair in the form of a hazy, wavy, streak, as the cat +shot out of it. The female genet faded from publicity behind a palm in a +pot. But the genet's tail was so long that, with the cat and himself +going round and round that chair like a living Catherine-wheel--both he +and the cat spitting no end--the cat was touching his tail, while he was +snapping at the cat's. Wherefore he moved across the veranda as an arrow +flies, and round the corner, and as he turned the corner he--leapt. + +It was a beautiful leap, and it cleared the danger that he seemed bound +to run into, as it lifted in his path, by about an inch. As he sprang he +heard the cat's claws scraping loudly, as she madly endeavored to +stop--too late. + +Then the head of the eight-foot python that had been creeping up round +that corner in the process of stalking that cat whizzed by beneath him +like a hurled poleax. + +As he landed the genet heard the cat make one sound--only one--and it was +indescribable, and he dropped off the veranda into the shadow of a bush, +where the female genet presently joined him. + +There was a small mongoose (my! what a lot of hunters do collect about +the bungalows at night, to be sure!) under the bush, engaged in eating +that precise reptilian form of poisoned death known as a night adder, +which it had just killed. But the genets had other and private business, +and they parted from the mongoose with no more than a snarl, the two +genets to appear next--or, rather, to be no more than guessed +at--crossing the last stretch of moonlight between them and the fowlhouse. + +As they did so, a blurred, vast-winged, silent, dark shadow passed +overhead, and a peculiarly piercing whistle stabbed dagger-like through +the waiting, listening silence. Both genets jumped, as if the whistle +had really been a dagger and had stabbed them, and vanished into hiding +before the sound had ceased, almost. They knew that shadow--the owner of +the whistle; they had met her earlier that night--the giant eagle-owl. +But what the fangs and claws was she doing here? After rats, perhaps. +They hoped so, and tried to think she was not after them. + +The people who are condemned to live in those parts know that deaths, +many and mysterious, go about there in the night, seeking victims, and +that fowls must, in consequence, be well penned. Yet they die; and it +has been said that where a snake can squeeze into a fowl-house, there a +genet can follow--perhaps dealing with the snake first, and the fowls +afterwards. Certainly, there seems to be no longer, and narrower, and +lower, and more sinuous little beast on this earth than the genet. + +The male genet took the problem upon himself as his own special province +to find entrance into places; and the female, her suspicions of him +oozing away more and more every minute, "kept cave." And he found an +entrance, that little, long, low beggar; he found an entrance, a hole up +under the roof, that appeared small enough, in all conscience, to be +overlooked by anybody. + +The moon knows how they climbed to it--I don't. And as the male genet +dropped down inside, the female took his place. But even as he landed he +wished he had not. Fear was there before him. + +In the smelly, stifling, heated pitch-darkness a fowl squawked with pain, +and others burst into noise above his head. + +Then he made a blunder. Surprised certainly, and angry perhaps, he +growled. + +Instantly the confusion ceased and hushed to silence; and instantly, too, +round, large, amber-gold balls of light like lamps, to the number of two, +were switched on--fixed upon him, staring, so that he "froze" in his +tracks where he stood, and her crest stood up on the female genet, as it +does on a cat, as she peered through the hole. They had disturbed +something at its killing. + +Very few graven images move less than those two pretty but small hunters +did in the nest half-minute, while the fowls settled down again, and the +genets tried--mainly with their noses--to find out what, in the +wilderness or out of it, they had run up against this time. + +At the end of that period there fell upon their stupefied ears the sound +as if some one unseen were cracking nuts--nut after nut, very quickly--in +the blackness, and both genets very nearly had a fit--a motionless +one--on the spot. + +Then they knew, most entirely did they know, and the knowledge gave them +no end of a fright. It was the giant eagle-owl. She--it was a she--had +beaten the robbers in hole-creeping, had outburgled the burglars, and +outcrept the creepers, though goodness alone knows how. + +The only difficulty was, who was going out first, and who alive, and who +dead? + +The male genet apparently knew about owls, and nothing of what he knew +had shown that they were cowards. Nor was he a coward; but the wild +hunters we not out to win the V.C., as a rule, I guess; and, if they +were, he was not one of them. He was out to feed, not fight. + +Possibly, while he was considering this, standing there with arched +back--by reason of his long body and apologies for legs--in the darkness, +the owl was considering the same thing. Anyway, both seemed to make up +their minds in the same instant, and to act on it. Wherefore they +arrived at the hole under the roof in the same instant, too; and you can +take it from me that there are very few creatures indeed who can go into +a hole, or come out of it, with such an amazing rush as the genet. + +The result naturally was war, and red-hot at that. + +Grappling, spitting, hissing, growling, snorting, coughing, the two fell +in a heap to the ground--and an owl on the ground is one degree more of a +spiked handful than an owl in the air--where they continued the +discussion in a young whirlwind of their own, much to the perturbation of +the roosting fowls, who woke up and added to the riot. + +The female genet had gone out of the other end of the hole, like a cork +out of a bottle, taking a scratch on the nose from the owl with her; but, +finding nothing further happen, she now crept back and peered in. What +she discovered did not give her any comfort, for, although upon her back, +it looked as if that she-owl had been specially designed to fight that +way. She had one fiend's claw gripped well home on the male genet's +shoulder, and another doing its best to skin him alive; while her beak +was hammering the gray top of his weasely-looking head. True, the male +genet's fangs were buried up to the socket in the owl's throat, but that +was no proof that he had found either her windpipe or the equally useful +jugular vein, and, if he did not pretty quick, it looked as if it would +never matter, so far as he was concerned. + +I like to think of what that little, long, crippled female genet did +then, in that well-like blackness and that smelly heat, with the chance +of retreat open to her, and no one to say her nay. Without hesitation, +she dropped to the ground beside the scuffle, and flung herself into +it--into the winnowing, slapping radius of big pinions, that beat and +beat and beat, smothering all with feathers and dust. One wing caught +her squarely, and she fetched up against the wall, winded and dazed; but +she was back again in a flash, dancing on her toes, and, suddenly +flattening, shot in, level with the ground, like a snake. + +She arrived. She felt feathers against her nose--she could not see. The +wings pounded her flatter. She laid hold, biting in as deep and as far +as she could get. + +As a matter of fact, she had got the owl by the neck, but one would have +thought she had turned on a young volcano by the confusion that followed. +Both genets shut their precious eyes, and hung on, while that owl beat +herself round and round in one last wild flurry, coughing horribly and +humanly the while, and cracking nuts. Finally she collapsed as suddenly +as a pricked bladder, and lay still--a great, mixed-up feathery heap, +limp and pathetic, with her vast flung-out wings. + +The two genets backed away, glad enough to be done with such a fiery, +feathered fury. The male genet stumbled a little, and sat down. He was +nearly as red as the sun on a stormy dawn, but all the blood was not his. + +They did not seem to trouble further about the great foe lying beside +them. Certainly she pervaded the air with a musty smell that was not +attractive, or, at least, not attractive when fowls were by; and it was +to the fowls they turned, the female first, the male later, after he had +done some very necessary licking. + +I fancy that, though dizzy, the male genet was rather proud of himself. +He had brought his lady-love to such a feast as she may have dreamed of, +and she had saved his life. That gave them a fellow-feeling that looked +well for his prospects in love. But I do not think he had quite realized +how hungry that beautiful velvet-skinned damsel of his choice was till +that minute, and then he was given no time to think about it. + +The dark over his head burst like a mine, and feathers and noise +enveloped him whirling. That represented the female genet coming down, +fixed to the throat of a hapless fowl. She sucked the blood, and flew at +another. Ordinarily she would have removed that one and found it enough; +but men who have been "broke," when they got suddenly rich, seem to go +temporarily mad with the lust of spending, and so it was with her; only, +her madness was the lust of killing. + +She killed, leaping and wrenching at the poor, screaming birds' throats, +blinded to the world with excitement, drunk with blood. That is an awful +intoxication, and makes even men, let alone wild, carnivorous beasts, do +unmentionable things. Also, the smell of blood was too much for the male +genet, and he presently rushed, with flying tail, into the crimson orgy +too. + +They were some time at this craziness; and when they had finished, they +and the fowls that were still alive could only lie and pant together +among the contorted slain, the blood--you would never believe how a +cockerel will bleed--and the carmine-tinted feathers. You might not +believe me if I told you how many fowls they had killed, but it was a +most disgraceful number, and quite inexcusable. + +And then, even as they lay there, dead-beat, they started suddenly and +together, for, almost like a blow, the fact dawned upon them that it was +day. Night had stolen away, and dawn discovered them at the killing; and +goodness alone knows how long they had been at it--ten minutes or hours. +Anyway, here it was, and they leapt to their feet together. + +As they hurried out they had to pass the place where the carcass of the +owl _had been_! It was gone--mysteriously sauntered as a corpse into +nowhere. Owls are uncanny creatures at any time, but moving about when +dead is not usually a recognized habit of theirs. The genets sniffed +anxiously, and ran the trail to the hole under the roof, since it +happened to be on their way. Through the hole it went, and into the +air--literally into the air. In other words, that owl had simply +"bluffed" death when she realized that she was near death. The bluff had +come off; and at a later, and what she judged a proper, time, she had +just, and of course silently, flown off by the way she had come; and--as +I live!--a fowl had gone with her. + +One minute later an unsuspected martial hawk-eagle precipitated himself +out of a big, hoary, old fig-tree, a hundred yards away from the +fowlhouse, on to one of the genets' disappearing tails. This is the +world's most general view of a genet, by the way--its disappearing tail; +and it is given to very few to see the beautiful, dark-blotched, creamy, +little, lithe, long beast that the ringed tail belongs to. Of course, +the eagle was too late. + +Two minutes later, a late leopard, returning to his lair after a blank +night's hunt, saw the tail of the female genet, who was leading, +disappear into a hollow tree. The male had not time to get in as the +leopard sprang, so he shot up another tree close by, disturbing a mamba +cobra, whose color was green, and whose bite was death, as it lay asleep +among the twined vines. The legless terror fell to the ground and +streaked for its hole, and the following leopard only just managed to +bound out of its way as it did so. + +Then, leaping light as thistle-down, coughing harshly, the leopard went +up the tree after the male genet, and appeared to have cut him off from +life and liberty for ever. + +The genet climbed beautifully, and dodged round the tree-bole, and in and +out among the trails and the leaf-bunches of matted creepers, with +amazing speed; but the whole time the leopard's paw, all hooked claws +bared, was whip-whip-whipping the air, only just behind that lovely, +long, ringed tail of the genet, and more than once touched it. + +Finally, hard driven, panting, at the end of his tether, it seemed, the +genet was forced out upon a branch, farther and farther, slowly and +more-slowly, the leopard creep, creep, creeping, almost flat, well spread +and craftily, his paw, well out in front, hooking at the luckless little +genet, till the twigs began to bend under the poor hunted creature, and +all hope seemed gone from him, for the ground was sixteen feet below, and +there was nothing between. And then--ah! but it was a fine effort!--just +when it seemed that he could go no farther, and that the next terrible +hooking round-arm stroke of the leopard must fish him into the +annihilating scrunch of the terrible jaws, whose foul, hot breath already +played upon him, the genet sprang. + +It was a wonderful spring; the little beast had gathered every last ounce +of his strength for it, and he literally seemed to sail out upon the air. +Sixteen feet to the ground he bounded, and twenty-two feet out from the +bole of the tree he landed, and--well, what d'you think of that? + +Quick was the leopard--to our eyes he seemed to come down almost on the +heels of the genet--but not quick enough, for he had first to gather +himself on an uncertain, swaying footing. Wherefore, by the time he got +to the ground, bounding like some great rubber ball, he had the pleasure +of seeing the male genet's tail vanishing also into the small hole in the +hollow tree. + +And there he left them, because perforce he could do nothing else. And +there, too, we leave them, curled up side by side in the darkness and +safety, reconciled, and a happy couple at last. + + + + +X + +THE KING'S SON + +They found the king's son lying in a bed of reeds with his sister, the +king's daughter, and although the prince and princess fought royally, +as befitted their rank, they were smothered up roughly in sacks and +carried speedily--the queen might return at any moment and want the +captors--to the Governor of all the Provinces, and the Governor spake +thus: + +"Oho! A royal pair, eh? They shall be sent to the capital, but first +we must put them in an inclosure while we knock up some kind of a cage." + +And into "an inclosure" were they, therefore, cast, and it was small +and bare, but for one box with dried grass in it; and the walls of the +place were of corrugated iron nine feet high, so that escape looked +impossible. Ransom was out of the question, and rescue a wild, but +still faintly possible, dream--they could even then hear their father +speaking in a mighty voice very far away, but their mother, they knew, +would be following their trail in terrible silence. + +Meantime they were king's children, and it behooved them to carry +themselves as such in the presence of the enemy. Wherefore did they +neither cry nor grieve (outwardly), nor sulk, nor cast themselves down +or about with despair or rage. They just sat down side by side, and +put their heads together, and stared with haughty insolence at the +common crowd, "the lesser breeds without the law," who gathered to +inspect them. It is not every day men get a chance to spit at and make +mock of a king's son, whose father, as like as not, killed one's mother +or little brother with no more thought than you or I would kill a +rabbit, and the crowd made the most of that chance. + +But luckily night, who was their godfather, came stalking swiftly +westward, as he does in those wild parts, and flung his protecting +cloak over them, and the crowd melted to its fleshpots, and the magic +of the dark settled down over all. + +One by one the little lights twinkled out in the huts and tents of +their captors, and the deep bass drone of men's voices within mingled +with the shrill cackle of women, and the high song of the mosquitoes +without; and the smell of cooking and tobacco together came to them, so +that they sniffed aloofly and stirred from their places. + +A pariah dog, lean and yellow, came to eye them furtively through the +chinks of the corrugated iron, and the horses snorted and stamped in +their pickets, as the night breeze carried to them their scent. + +Time passed, and the shrill voices of the women-folk ceased, the deep +mutter of the men died gradually down, the lights faded, the scene was +lit up only here and there by the sudden glow of a fire kicked into +blaze by a sentry, but the song of the mosquitoes never ceased. + +Then arose and uprose the strange, uncanny voices of the night, which, +taken together, made up a background to the great silence which they +seemed to accentuate. And the king's son bounded again. They were to +him as a mighty call, those voices, from his own land--the land of the +wilderness. + +The rumbling thunder of his father's rage, breathing of death and +destruction, had ceased now; but there were plenty more sounds, and the +king's son, listening, knew them all. The distant "Qua-ha-ha!" of a +troop of zebras going to drink; the peculiar snort of an impala +antelope, scenting danger; the far-away drumming of hoofs of a startled +herd of hartebeests; the bleat of an eland calf, pulled down by who +knows what; the "Hoot-toot!" of a hippopotamus, going out to grass; the +sudden shrill "Ya-ya-ya-ya!" of a black-backed jackal close at hand; +the yarly, snarly whines of a hunting leopard; the snap of a +crocodile's jaws, somewhere down in the nearby river; and, last, but by +no means least in ghostliness, the awful rising "Who-oo!" followed by a +sudden mad chorus of maniacal laughter, which told that somewhere a +gathering of hyenas were--at their work! + +The king's son was moving about the prison now, examining what he could +see--especially of the walls--with his wonderful, proud eyes, and what +he could not with whiskers and nose. He made no sound, of course--not +so much as a whisper; and when his sister joined him, they were simply +intangible, half-guessed shapes, drifting--there is no other word for +it--through the gloom. + +A man, even a colored one, might look long into that inclosure and, +unless he caught the sudden smolder at the back of their eyes, never +tell where they were. Indeed, the inclosure was in pitch-darkness +itself, by reason of its high "tin" walls; and even when a weird yellow +moon came and hung itself up to add to the general uncanniness of the +scene, the prison of the king's son showed only like a well of ink. + +Suddenly the silence and the voices of the crickets were broken into by +the sound of scramblings by night. A nightjar fled from the tree +overhead to the accompaniment of strange noises; and an unseen jackal, +who had crept up to the very huts pessimistically, in search of +anything awful, or offal, fled with a startled scurry. Apparently +something with claws was trying to scrape away the corrugated iron. + +Came then a scrawling scrape, and a thump. Then silence. But after a +bit the noises began again--a fresh lot, and more violent. The pariah +dog, who had come to investigate with his tail in the air, went away +again, and quickly, with his tail between his legs; and in the same +moment the king's son's head appeared over the top of the corrugated +iron wall in silhouette against the staring, surprised moon. + +Of course, and quite naturally, every sentry was asleep, or else even +they could not have failed to realize that the sounds of desperate +scratchings that followed were no ordinary phenomena, and might bear +looking into. + +Presently the king's son's body followed his head, and he sat for a +moment, balancing clumsily on that narrow top, before vanishing +suddenly, to the accompaniment of a heavy thump that was the last sound +he made in the place. + +Further and even more frantic scratchings followed, and anon the king's +daughter, who certainly meant to die rather than be left alone in the +hands of the foe, eclipsed the moon. A pause, and she, too, vanished +downwards with a thump that was the last sound she made there in that +place also. + +A minute later, and she had joined her brother under the thorny guard +of a mimosa. + +For a moment or two the pair stood rigid as rock carvings, looking +back, crouched a little, and deadly silent. Then the king's son turned +and led the way to the river at a loping trot, and his sister followed +in his tracks. They shook the dust--literally and daintily as a cat +shakes dew from her feet--of the hated captors' fastness from their +feet in little momentary halts as they went, and the place knew them no +more. + +But there is one point I should like to insert here. Go and try to +climb over a corrugated iron wall nine feet high, and with nothing but +the bare earth to take off from, and see how you succeed. Further, +when doing it, remember that these royal children were so young as to +be little more than babies. Then you may tell how they accomplished +the feat. I do not know exactly to this day. + +It is to be hoped that by this time everybody will be aware that the +king's son and the king's daughter were lion cubs, the survivors, +therefore the strongest and the fittest, of three lion cubs in a +litter. It required, you will admit, some resource, courage, and +intelligence to do what they had already done, considering their age; +but the worst was to come. Having got out of the frying-pan, they must +now face the fire, and be quick about it, too, if they didn't want to +be traced and recaptured at dawn. + +Arrived at the river's edge, they stopped and stared out across the +dark swirls and unknown, cold depths. Lion cubs, as also the young of +every other African animal, must assuredly be born with an instinctive +and a very lively dread of all rivers and their occupants. Any +horrible invention of death, they must have known, might be expected to +lurk there, ready waiting for them in that underworld of dark waters; +but if they felt fear, they never showed it, and the pride of their +birth held true. Their hesitation was only momentary. The terror had +to be faced, bravely or fearfully, as they would, but still faced, and +bravely it was done. + +Slowly and coolly the king's son waded out into the black, chill +waters. He felt the current, which was strong, plucking like invisible +great fingers at his legs; he felt the cold strike through tawny, +spotted fur and skin to his belly, but he never looked back. His feet +were whirled from under him; he trod upon nothing, cold, cold +emptiness, and that was enough to terrify any grown beast, let alone a +baby; but he struck out right manfully, and his fine eyes and face took +on that regal expression of haughty determination that you see in the +face only of King Leo himself and his mate, and in no other beast in +the world. And the king's daughter unhesitatingly followed--a real +princess, by gad, sirs! + +Steadily the pair swam, heading instinctively, one presumes, up-stream, +to counteract the drift of the ever-shouldering current. There was, +perhaps, from two to five feet of water under their sturdy paws; but +had it been twenty or thirty, I, personally, believe it would have made +no difference. There were probably also other things under and around +their sturdy paws--things very much worse and less innocent than any +water--things they must have, dimly, at any rate, if not acutely, been +aware of in an inbred sort of way; but they made no difference either. + +"Make way for the king's son and the king's daughter. It is their will +to cross the river. Hear, all of you loathly horrors, you lurking +terrors--make way. Who dares check the will of the king's son?" + +Once there came a mighty swirl on their right hand--or right paw, if +you like--and the waters parted, with waves and the spouts of a geyser, +to give up the monstrous nightmare head of a hippopotamus. Once +something cold and leathery and ghastly touched the bottom of their +padded feet; and once--but this was too awful for any expression by +pen--something else, equally cold, but smooth, coiled, writhing, round +the king's son's left hind-leg, but providentially slid clear again, as +he kicked like a budding International. + +Then came the ordeal. It arrived in the shape of two knobs, that just +were suddenly, and remained, motionless in the mocking moonlight, on +the surface of the water. It might have been merely some projection +from a half-sunken log. It might, but--well, there had grown in the +air an unspeakable stench of musk, and that wasn't there before the +knobs showed up. + +Both lion cubs saw, both little royal ones smelt, and in some dim way, +warned probably by a terrible knowledge handed down to them from their +ancestors, both baby swimmers knew. Terror--real terror, of the +white-livered, surrender-or-stampede-blindly-at-any-price kind--could +never, it seems to me, come into those fine, regal eyes; but the +nearest approach that was possible occurred in that instant, and they +swam. Ah, how those infant lions swam! What had gone before was mere +paddling; and whether or not they had ever swum before in their short +lives--and I doubt it more than a little--there could be no question +about them now; they swam like practiced hands, and almost as fast. + +Followed a pause, terrifying enough in all conscience, and then, +slowly, silently as a submarine's conning-tower goes under, so dived +those knobs, and vanished almost, not quite, without a ripple. + +The cool night-air showed the breath coming from the broad, brave, +water-frilled cubs' heads in gasps. The silence gave away their +frantic panting. You could literally see them straining every baby +nerve and muscle, could note the jerks with which they fairly kicked +themselves along. And the opposite bank, a black wall of bush and +reeds, was very near now, yet far--oh, how far, to them! + +Ssee-shhrr-r-rr-r-shrhh! + +As a torpedo hurtles hissing along barely below the surface of the +water, so hurtled the head--the head with its wicked eyes on knobs; the +head with its vast, scaly, long snout, its raised nostrils at the tip, +its shuddering array of jagged teeth, its awful, armed, diabolical +aspect of conscious power--straight at the king's son. Without warning +had it come, and with still less had it attacked. + +Swim, oh, swim, little king's son, for your very life! But the king's +son did not swim--at least, not in that sense. He turned. Yes, that +is right--turned; and the monstrosity of the armed snout, that same +being a crocodile, of course, was upon him even as he did so. There +would have been no time to turn after--no life! Still, the king's son +may not have known that. Maybe he turned, as a man attacked by a dog +does, because he felt, in a cold, nervy sort of spasm all up his spine, +the terrible defenselessness of his hind-limbs. And as he turned, he +struck--bat-bat!--struck with all his talons unsheathed; struck with +every ounce and grain of power, and force of brain to back that power, +in his system; struck as only a cornered cat can strike; struck like +a--lion. + +The result was astounding. + +The crocodile had aimed, true to a hair--you bet, he being a croc.--to +grab the king's son's hindlegs, and pull him under. He had not +reckoned on the turn, and the turn did it. His snout struck hindlegs, +which were not where they ought, by his calculations, to have been, but +were four or five inches away to one side. + +Quick as only a reptile can be, he canted, to remedy the error, but the +impetus of his ten-foot bulk was still upon him; it carried him by. +You cannot stop ten feet of bulk and five-feet-seven of girth of flesh +and bone and muscle and armor-plates, going at Old Nick may know how +many knots, in half-a-yard, you know; and it was the half-a-yard that +did the trick. + +The king's son was aware, as he half-rose and delivered that desperate +blow, of a mighty bulk shooting by, of an overpowering, sickening +stench of musk, and of eyes, through the foam and the water--two +little, wicked, unspeakably cruel eyes on knobs. + +_His chance_! And, quick as light, he took it. Ough! + +The rest was chaos. + +And that is about all, I think--unless you would like to know that +their mother, the king's consort, who had been working grimly along on +their trail since dusk, slid swiftly down the bank in that crisis, a +fiery-eyed, long, gliding shape, and plunging into the watery inferno +utterly recklessly, brought out, one by one, dripping, shivering, and +by the scruff of the neck, first the king's son, then the king's +daughter, and stopped not till she had placed them high up the bank, +safe among the thorn-scrub, where they crouched together, side by side, +listening to the cataclysmal threshings of the blind devil down in the +black waters below there; and their father, the king, came +up--pad-pad-pad-pad--behind them, to thunder out defiance at all the +world above their sturdy, broad, intelligent heads, and purr his joy at +their return. Moreover, he looked proud as he stood there in the +moonlight, that royal beast; and I like to think it was not all looks +either. + + + + +XI + +THE HIGHWAYMAN OF THE MARSH + +There was some sort of violent trouble going on down in the reeds +beside the dike. The reed-buntings--some people might easily have +mistaken them for sparrows, with their black heads and white +mustaches--said so, swaying and balancing upon the bending reeds, and +calling the makers of that trouble names in a harsh voice. + +And all the rest of the reed-people were saying so, too. It was an +amazing thing how full of wild-folk that apparently deserted reed-patch +was. Each bit of the landscape, each typical portion, is a world of +its own, with its special kind of population. This one produced +unexpectedly a pair of sedge-warblers and a reed-warbler, atoms who +gyrated and grated their annoyance; a willow-tit, who made needle-point +rebukes; a water-rail, with a long beak and long legs, running away +like a long-legged pullet; a moorhen very much concerned as to her +nest; a big rat very much concerned as to the moorhen's nest, too, but +in a different way; a grass snake, who glistened as if newly painted in +the sun; and a spotted crake, who is even more of a running winged +ventriloquial mystery than the corn-crake of our childhood's hay-times. + +All of them were on thorns--though on reeds, really--and evidently +highly rattled and in a state of nerves over the trouble in the reeds. +And not much wonder either, for, judging by the sounds, murder was +being done in there among the secret recesses of the swishing green +stems--murder cruel and violent, in spite of the sunshine and the light +of day. + +And then, all of a sudden, in the midst of almost a gasp of silent +horror, a moment of speechlessness on the part of the wild lookers-on, +out came the trouble, rolling over and over and over upon the soft, +short-cropped grass of the dike-bank, and--they all saw. Also, they +all, except the little warblers, who were safe, more or less, and +stayed to blaspheme the public nuisance, instantly and at the same +moment remembered appointments elsewhere, and went to keep them with a +haste that was noticeable and wonderful. + +There before them was a hare. But a hare is a gentle and altogether +negligible wild-person. This hare, however, was fighting, and fighting +like several furies, and grunting, and making all sorts of unharelike +motions and commotions against another beast; and that other beast was +most emphatically not a hare. + +It--or, rather, he--was big, as we count bigness among four-footed +wild-folk in Britain to-day. Probably he could stretch the tape to +twenty-three inches, of which about sixteen consisted of very long, low +body, with sturdy, bear-like, dumpy legs, the rest being rather thick, +furry tail; and, though nobody--without steel armor--might have cared +to take on the job of weighing him alive, he would have turned the +scale at about two pounds eight ounces, or perhaps a bit more. Not a +big beast, you will say; but in the wild he ruled big, being snaky and +of a fighting turn, so to say. He was, in fact, the very devil, and he +looked it--hard as nickel-steel. A dull, tawny devil, with a peculiar +purplish sheen in some lights--due to the longer hair--on his short, +hard coat, turning black on his throat, legs, and tail--as if he had +walked in black somewhere--and finished off with patches of creamy +white on head and ears. There was an extraordinary air of hard, tough, +cool, cruel, fighting-power and slow ferocity about the beast--a very +natural born gladiator of the wild places. + +Men called him polecat, apropos of nothing about him, apparently, for +he had no connection with poles or cats; or foumart, apropos--and you +wouldn't have needed to be told if you had got to leeward of him just +then--of his _very_ unroselike smell--that is, fou--foul, mart--marten, +his nearest relation; or, again, fitchett, as our forefathers termed +him. + +But never mind. What's in a name, anyway? A big sloe-hare, with a +leveret or two _not_ for sale--and that doe's leverets must have been +in the rushes somewhere--may, upon occasion, show unexpected +fighting-powers. And this one did. The polecat was kicked in the +stomach, and kicked and scratched in the ribs, and thumped on the nose, +and kicked and scratched and thumped on the head, before he could get +in the death-stroke, the terrible lightning-thrust at the brain's base, +which, like the sword-stroke that ends the bull-fight, dropped the +victim as if struck by electricity. + +And then he had whirled, and darted headlong for the reeds. He +galloped in an odd, jumpy, sidelong gallop, as if he were a sort of +glorified wild dachshund. + +It did not take him long to inspect the reed-patch, to search it from +end to end with his nose. His mind was soon made up to the fact that +the wretched leverets had vanished, and that no scenting of his keen +nose could find them. They had gone, evidently, quitted, like the pair +of obedient children that they were, while their mother was cleverly +holding the foe, and making demonstrations in his front. And now the +pair of them were probably far away, lost past all finding among the +mazes of the fields. And there was nothing for him to do but go and +dine upon the old hare, which he did, taking, according to his custom, +little more than a bite and a sip before passing on. + +Then he turned and meandered off on the war-path. And this was a +serious business, and a busy one. It was downright hard labor, for he +worked his ground properly and for all it was worth, having a lot to +kill, and not much time to kill it in. + +At times he sat bolt-upright, and stared knowingly around--because his +short legs gave him such a limited view otherwise. At times he climbed +a mole-heap. At other times he hunted head down--and again one noticed +the hound-like manner--in every possible direction, questing, casting +here, casting there, working back, throwing forward, describing +circles, and poking into and out of every reed-patch, bramble-heap, +furze-clump, or other bit of cover that that coverless land offered. + +And then suddenly he stopped. And then suddenly he ran forward. And +then suddenly, the scent carrying him right smack-bang out into the +open, he dropped flat and began to crawl. + +He crept and he crept and he crept across that absolutely bare, flat +ground, with never a tuft of fur or a feather of a single live thing +upon it to be seen, till one might have thought that he had gone mad, +and was stalking an illusion--as many, not beasts, have done before +him; only they were men, and blew their brains out--or went bankrupt +instead--afterwards. + +Finally he stopped. And this was the oddest thing of all, because, if +any creature could show intense excitement without showing it--that is +to say, without muscle, eyelid, hair, or limb moving--that polecat did +then. And yet, stare as one would upon the absolutely bare grass, +dotted only here and there with a stone, or a rat's skull, or a +daisy--all looking alike in their whiteness from a distance--not a +living, breathing thing was to be seen. + +And yet there was a living, breathing thing there. Indeed, there were +several. It was only the eye that was deceived, not the nose--at +least, not the polecat's nose--by motionlessness. + +Right in front of the polecat, within spring, still as the very ground, +the huffish, whitish check of a peewit, lap-wing, or green plover would +have been mistaken for one of the many stones; the thin, curving +top-knot for a stem of the thin, harsh grass: the low curve of the dark +back, with its light reflections in green, for no more than the natural +curve of the close-cropped turf. And she was on her nest, which was no +nest, but a scrape, backing her natural assimilation with her +surroundings to see her through. + +And the polecat knew she was there, and he knew she was on her +nest--she would not have been fool enough to keep there otherwise. His +nose told him--not his eyes, I think, for that was nearly impossible. +The thing was, he wanted her to move. That was what he was waiting +for. No more than the twitch of an eyelid would do to show which end +was head and which tail; for he could only smell her, and, in a manner, +would have to pounce blind if she did not move. + +She did not move, however, and in the end he had to pounce blind, +anyhow, so suddenly, so unexpectedly, when it did come, shifting like a +streak, that there seemed to have been no time to shout even, or gasp. + +Yet that peewit found time in that fraction of a second to rise, open +her wings, and get two feet into the air. And then the polecat took +her, leaping with unexpected agility, and pulling her down out of +limitless freedom and safety. There was just a rush, a snap, a +wild-bird squawk, and down the pair went, to the accompaniment of +furiously fluttering wings and in a cloud of feathers. + +She had made a slight mistake in her calculations, that peewit, a +matter of perhaps a quarter of a second, but enough. Nature has not +got much room for those who commit slight mistakes in the wild, I +guess; they mostly quit the stage before passing that habit on, or soon +after. + +For a moment there was a horrible, strenuous jumble of fur and feathers +on the ground, and then the polecat's flat head rose up on his long +neck out of the jumble, his eyes alight with a new look, and his lifted +upper lip stained with a single little bright carmine spot. The peewit +was dead. + +He pivoted upon his shanks and examined the nest. It was empty. + +He got to his feet with rapidity, and, in great excitement, dropped his +head and began hunting. In a minute a mottled pebble seemed to get up +under his nose and run. He snapped at it, and it fell upon the grass, +stretching out slowly in death--a baby peewit. + +He circled rapidly, stopped, swerved, and, at the canter, took up +another scent. Suddenly, in a tussock of marram, his nose and he +stopped dead. Nothing moved. Then he bit, and a second +buff-and-black-mottled soft body stretched slowly out into the open as +death took it--a second baby peewit. He circled again, fairly racing +now, and so nearly fell over a third pebble come to life that it +scuttled back between his legs; but he spun upon himself like a snake, +and caught it ere it had gone a yard. He snapped again, held it, +dropped it, and another downy, soft, warm chick thing straightened, +horribly and pathetically, in the unpitying sun, and was still--a third +baby peewit. + +But there were no more. He hunted around and around for the next ten +minutes, but never struck a trail. Evidently there had been only +three. And all the time father-peewit, who had just come back from +dinner, swooped, and stooped, and dived, and rocketed, and shot down +and around, his wings humming through the still air above as he went +clean mad, and seemed like to break his neck and the polecat's back in +any and every one of his demented abysmal plunges, but somehow never +did quite. + +And all the time, also, the polecat, without seeming to take the +slightest notice of him, was watching him out of the corner of his eye, +waiting, hoping for a chance while he hunted. + +But this was not intended as an exhibition of "frightfulness," though +the beast had slain far more innocents than he could eat. It was part +of his duty; and though men have accused his kind of being possessed of +a joy of killing, the accusation is by no means proven. And, in any +case, the accused might reply to civilization, "Same to you, sir, and +many hundreds of times more so." + +Anyway, he now picked up a young peewit and made for the nearest dike; +then along this, and presently into the water and across to the other +side, swimming strongly and well; then along a smaller dike, hugging +the reeds as much as possible, and pursued by a running fire of abuse +from the sedge and marsh and grasshopper warblers, from wagtails, +meadow-pipits, reed-buntings, larks, and all the small-bird population +of those parts, till he came to the sea-bank, called by the natives +"sea-wall." This was a high, grass-bearded bank designed to constrain +the waters of the estuary, and there, in a hole, curtained by a +dandelion and guarded by the stiff spears of the coarse marram grass, +he stuffed his victim. + +The burrow was not empty when he came to it, for it already contained +two moorhens' eggs; but there was still room for more, and one by one +he fetched the remainder of his victims, mother and all, that way, and +stuffed them into the burrow, with a plodding, steady, exact doggedness +of purpose that was rather surprising in a mere wild beast who, if seen +casually, would have appeared to the ordinary man to be merely +aimlessly wandering about the landscape. And, mind you, this was not +quite such a simple and "soft" job as it looked. Grit was needed to +accomplish it, even. + +There was, for instance, the sudden, far too suggestive, swirl in the +water as he crossed the dike for the third time, loaded, that gave more +than a hint of some unknown--and therefore the more sinister--haunter +of those muddied depths of pollution, who took a more than passing +interest in the smell of blood, and must, to judge by the swirl, have +been too big to be safe. And that was probably a giant female eel, as +dangerous a foe as any swimmer of his size--though he ate eels--might +care to face. Then there was the marsh-harrier--and the same might +have been a kind of owl if it wasn't a sort of hawk--who flapped up +like some gigantic moth, and dogged his steps, only waiting--he felt +sure of it--for the polecat to slip, or meet a foe, or have an +accident, or something, before breaking its own avine neutrality. +Then, too, there was the stoat, or, rather, not the stoat only, but the +stoat and his wife, who would have murdered him if they had dared, and +took to shadowing and watching him from cover in the most meaning sort +of way. And, finally, there was the lean, nosing, sneaking dog, the +egg-thief, who had no business there with his yolk-spattered, +slobbering jaws, plundering the homes of the wild feathered ones--he +who was only a tame slave, and a bad one at that. But the dog followed +the polecat into a jungle-like reed fastness, and--almost never came +out again! When he did, it was to the accompaniment of varied and +assorted howls, and at about the biggest thing in the speed line he had +ever evolved. He was no end glad to get out, and the distant haze +swallowed him wonderfully quickly, still howling every yard of the +way--for, mark you, that polecat's teeth, once felt, wore nothing to +laugh at or forget. + +These things he accomplished as the night was beginning to fall, and +the solemn eye of the setting sun--such an eye of such a setting sun as +the estuary alone knows; bloodshot, and in a sky asmoke as of cities +burning--regarded him as he finished and stood back outside as one who +considers. He was a grim figure of outlawry and rapine, alone there in +that lonely place, amidst the gathering, dank gray of the marsh mists, +the red rays touching his coat and turning it to deep purple, and his +eyes to dull ruby flame; a beast, once seen, you would not forget, and +could never mistake. + +But his work was not yet done. He was hungry again, but for him there +could be no more food yet, and he turned with the same immutable and +dumbly dogged air that characterized so many of his actions, and made +off down the "sea-bank." Once he hid--vanished utterly would better +express it--to avoid the passage of an eel-spearer, an inhabitant of +the estuary almost as amphibious and mysterious as himself. Once he +very nearly caught a low-flying snipe as he leapt up at it while +cutting low over the top of the "bank"; and once--here he sprang aside +with a half-stifled snarl and every bristle erect--he was very nearly +caught by a horrible steel-toothed trap, set there to entertain that +same dog we have already met, by reason of the small matter of a late +lamb or two that had suddenly developed bites, obviously not +self-inflicted, in the night. Then he crossed the dike at the foot of +the sea-wall, shook himself, sat down to scratch, and straightway +hurled himself backwards and to one side, as something that resembled a +javelin whizzed out of six straggling, upright, faded, tawny reeds at +the water's edge, by which he had sat down. The javelin struck deep +into the little circle of lightly-pressed-down grass where his haunches +had rested, and he caught a glimpse, or only a half-glimpse, of weird +onyx eyes, and heard strange and shuddery reptilian hissings. Eyes and +noises might have belonged to a crocodile, or some huge lizard thing, +or snapping turtle, but the javelin was clearly the property of no such +horror, and was very obviously a beak--now, by the way, withdrawn. + +Followed the harsh rattle and the swish of big feathers and vast +wings--he felt the draught of them--the dim outline, as it were, of a +ghost, of some great shape rising into the gloom, and as instantly +vanishing over the sea-"wall," and he was alone, _and_--there were now +three upright and faded reeds in the clump near which he had sat him +down by the water's edge to scratch, _not_ six. The Thing, the +portent, the apparition, or whatever you like to call it, had been the +_other_ three; yet you could have sworn to the six reeds before it +moved. And the worst of it was that he did not know from frogs and +fresh water what the Thing was. He had never glimpsed such a sudden +death before, and had no burning desire to do so again, for he was +shrewd enough to know that, but for that fling-back of his, the javelin +would have struck him, and struck him like a stuck pig, perhaps through +the skull! Oh, polecat! The bird was a bittern, relation of the +herons, only brown, and if not quite so long, made up for it in +strength and fiery, highly developed courage. + +Caution is not the polecat's trump card, as it is the cat's, but if +ever he trod carefully, it was thence onwards, as he threaded the +dike-cut and pool-dotted gloom. He came upon a lone bull bellowing, +and gave him room. He came upon something unknown, but certainly not a +lone bull, bellowing too; it was the bittern, and he gave that plenty +of room. He came upon two moorhens, fighting as if to the death, but +_he_ was the death; and slew one of them from behind neatly, and had to +go back with it, past both bellowings, to a second burrow in the +sea-bank, where he put it; and later he came upon only seven great, +mangy, old, stump-tailed, scarred, horrible ghouls of shore rats, all +mobbing a wounded seagull--a herring-gull--with a broken wing. + +The gull lived, but that was no fault of the polecat's, for she managed +to run off into the surrounding darkness what time he was dealing +warily but effectively with one of those yellow-toothed devils of +murderous rats--whose bite is poison--in what dear, kind-hearted people +might have said was a most praiseworthy rescue of the poor, dear, +beautiful bird. (The poor, dear, beautiful bird, be it whispered, had +herself swallowed a fat-cheeked and innocent-eyed baby rabbit whole +that very day, before she was wounded; but never mind.) + +The polecat, after one wary sniff, did not seem to think the rat worthy +of a journey to the sea-bank and decent burial, and passed on, the +richer for a drink of rat's blood, perhaps, but very hungry. He came +upon a redshank's nest in a tuft of grass. + +The redshank, who has much the cut of a snipe, plus red-orange legs, +must have heard or seen him coming in the new, thin moonlight, and told +all the marsh about it with a shrieking whistled, "Tyop! tyop!" But +the nest contained four eggs, which the polecat took in lieu of +anything bigger, carrying two--one journey for each--all the way to the +sea-bank, to yet another hole he had previously scraped, or found, +therein. One of the other two eggs he consumed himself, and was just +making off with number four, when something came galloping over the +marsh in the moonlight, splashing through the pools, and making, in +that silence, no end of a row for a wild creature. + +The polecat stood quite still, with his long back arched, his sturdy, +short forepaws anchored tense, and his short, rounded ears alert, and +watched it come, not because he wanted to, but because there did not +happen to be any cover thereabouts, and to move might give him away. + +When he saw that the beast was long and low, and short-legged and +flat-beaded, his long outer fur began to bristle. Those outlines were +the trade-marks of his own tribe--not his own species only--and were, +he knew, more likely to mean tough trouble than anything else. Then he +realized that the path of the new arrival would take it right towards +him, and that was bad, because to move now and get out of the way was +hopeless. Also, he could see the size of the beast now, and that was +worse than bad--some ten inches to a foot worse. + +The beast held a wild-duckling in its jaws, and the little body, with +its stuck-out webbed feet, flapped and flopped dismally from side to +side, as the animal cantered along with a somewhat shuffling, +undulating gait. And then the polecat became transfixed. He had +recognized the new-comer. He knew the breed, and would have given a +lot not to have molested that redshank's abode and be found there. + +The strange beast--palpably a large, sinuous, and wicked +proposition--came right up to the polecat, standing there rigid, erect, +motionless, and alone in the moonlight, with the fourth egg between his +paws, and then stopped dead, almost touching him. Apparently, it saw +him for the first time. Certainly it was not pleased; it said so under +its breath, in a low growl. + +The polecat said nothing, perhaps because he had nothing to say. + +The beast was an otter, and an old one. Also, it appeared to be +suffering from a "grouch." + +The polecat felt uncomfortable. He was eyeing the other's throat, and +marking just the place where he meant to take hold, if things came to +the worst; but he knew all the time that the otter, although its eyes +had never been removed for a fraction of a second off his face, was +really watching the egg. The otter was a female; probably she had +young to feed; the presence of the duckling darkly hinted at it. If +so, so much the worse for the polecat. + +Then the otter put down her duckling, and growled again; but the +polecat might have been carved in unbarked oak for all the sign of life +that he gave. Then--she sailed in. + +It was really very neatly and prettily done, for, as an exponent of +lithesome agility, the otter is--when the pine-marten is not +by--certainly quite It. The polecat seemed to side-twist double, +making some sort of lightning-play with his long neck and body as she +came, and--he got his hold. Yes, he got his hold all right. The only +thing was to stay there; for, as he was a polecat and a member of the +great, the famous, weasel tribe, part of his fighting creed was to +_stay there_. + +When, however, hounds fail to puncture an otter's hide, any beast might +be pardoned for losing its grip; but he did not. Between the tame +hounds' fangs and his smaller wild ones was some difference--about the +difference between our teeth and a savage's, multiplied once or twice; +and the old she-otter, who had felt hounds' teeth in her life, realized +the difference. Also, it hurt, and the polecat did not lose his hold. + +Then, maddened, wild with rage, the rage of one who expects a walk-over +and receives a bad jolt instead, that old she-otter really got to work. +She recoiled like a coiled snake, and the polecat felt fire in one loin. + +It looked like the contortions of one big, furry beast twisted with +cramp, by the moonlight. You could not possibly separate the +combatants, or tell that there were two. But the polecat only fought +because he dared not expose his flank with the foe facing him. Now, +however, as they both rolled he-- + +Hi! It was done in an instant. At a moment when the roll brought him +on top, and when the otter was shifting her own hold for another, and +more deadly, which might have "put him to sleep" forever, he +miraculously twisted and writhed, eel-fashion, and with one mighty +wrench--a good strip of his skin and fur had to go in that pull, but it +couldn't be helped--he had broken the other's hold, leapt clear of the +clinch, and was gone. + +The otter was up before you could guess what had happened, and was +drumming away on his heels; but she soon pulled up, realizing that a +polecat may be slow in the books, but not so slow in real life, with +her to assist speed. Anyway, she seemed slower; and, in any case, she +could not hope to follow him in the intricacy of holes and cover he was +sure to take to, like a fish to water. Moreover, she was spitting up +blood, result of friend polecat's neat and natty strangle-hold on her +throat, and felt more in need of the egg--which she had won, at any +rate--than a wild-goose chase. + +Like a thin, wavy line through the night, friend polecat betook himself +to the sea-bank, to a hole in the sea-bank, to the very depths of that +hole; and there, in the shape of two angrily smoldering, luminous orbs +shining steadily through the pit-like dark, he stayed. Most of the +time, I fancy, he used up in licking his wounds. They needed it, for, +though clean, the punctures from the otter's canines had gone deep, and +a red trail of drops marked the polecat's route to his lair--one of his +lairs. + +Not, be it noted, that he was entirely ignored. Blood-trails are +always items of interest in the wild, especially in the dark hours +while man sleeps. Thus there once came to the mouth of the hole +scufflings, and the noise as of an eager, inquisitive crowd--rats, who +hoped for a chance to get their own back on a detested foe. But one +evil snarl from the wounded beast removed them, convinced that the time +was not yet. + +Once, also, something sniffed out of the stilly night, and that was a +fox; but one snap from within, a perfectly abominable smell, and the +narrowness of the accommodation proved too much for brer fox, and he, +with an insolent cock of the brush, retired. + +Then, too, there was a rabbit, not looking where he was going, who got +half-way down the burrow before he realized the awful truth, and went +out backwards, like a cat with a salmon-tin on its head. + +But along towards dawn there came an altogether different sort of +sound, somehow--a sort of a little chuckling sound; and the polecat, +answering it, came out. He looked rather less awful now than when he +had gone in. A form was standing outside--a dark, low, long form, like +himself; and, like himself, you could easily become aware of it without +seeing it, even with your handkerchief to your nose. + +It was his wife, smaller, but no less dangerous, than he. She was +carrying an old hen-redshank in her jaws, its long beak and one of its +wings clearly silhouetted against the moon. And apparently she would +be very pleased if her husband would come out of the hole and make room +for her to stuff the redshank into it. + +Then, together, they moved at their indescribable, undulating +gait--they looked like a snake between them in the moonlight--along the +sea-bank, till they came, with caution and many clever tricks of +vanishing, in case anybody might be watching, to yet another burrow, +screened completely and very neatly guarded by the splayed leaves of a +bunch of frosted sea-holly. + +Both beasts went into the burrow, at the end of which was a nest +containing live things, which squirmed and made little, tiny, infant +noises in the darkness. They were the polecats' children, four of +them, all quite young, and all very hungry and very lively indeed; and +they explained a good deal of the reason for the stores of food set by +in other burrows in the "sea-wall." + +But they did not explain quite all, for, unless Mrs. Polecat liked her +dinner high--and there was nothing I could find in her methods to show +that she did--or unless Mr. Polecat had got a craze for collecting +specimens and eggs, or forgot where half of his trophies were hidden as +a natural habit of absent-mindedness, one cannot quite see the reason +for hiding so much so soon, before the young could feed upon the +"specimens." + +However, I suppose the two beasts knew their own business best. The +old male polecat seemed to, anyway, for just as the first flicker of +dawn was paling the eastern sky he went off down to the mist-hidden +dike, and, in no more than ten short minutes, returned with an eel, +protesting violently in that horrible way eels have, which he promptly +proceeded to decapitate and eat. + +The afternoon had still some little time to run, when the waving grass +down the side of the sea-bank and the half of a glimpse of dull tawny +gave away the male polecat leaving his "earth" for the war-path once +more. Was he ever anything else than on the war-path if he moved +abroad at all? + +That, even from above, was, I swear, all the indication he gave of his +exit. Now, although it is a rule in the wild that self-advertisement +is most unhealthful, there may be times when a beast like the polecat +may not advertise itself enough. And this was one of those times. + +Far overhead, circling grandly on effortless, still, great pinions, +swimming, one might say, in the dome of the sky, a big bird, known as a +buzzard, was staring downwards with the flashing, sheathed glance of +all birds of prey--and aviators--at the world below. She, too, had +young, and simply had to find a meal. The hour was late, and her +success _nil_. Perhaps that accounted for much. Perhaps, however, all +she saw was that half-glimpse of dull, tawny fur, which accounted for +still more; that is to say, she probably made a mistake. + +Anyway, the polecat was suddenly aware of a sound like the swish of a +lady's skirt in the air above him, and of a dimming of the light. He +sprang forward first, and glanced up second--knowing the rules of the +wild. But he was too late, for instantly the long, hooked talons of +the bird came down through the grass, and gripped. It was an awful +handshake, for the bird was a buzzard, we said, who is a sort of +smaller and less kingly edition of the eagle, without the imperial +power. + +For a few seconds there followed an awful struggle--great wings beating +mightily downwards, beak hammering, and fangs meeting the hammerings +with audible clashings. It seemed that the bird could not quite lift +the beast, and that the beast could not quite retain connection with +solid earth. + +And then the bird rose, slowly, strainingly, with her vast pinions +winnowing the air with deep "how-hows!" Like mighty fans rose she, +still gripping the struggling polecat hard by the back in a locked +clutch of steel--up and up, and out over the estuary, growing slowly +from a great bird to a medium-sized one, to a smaller, and a smaller, +all the time fighting, it seemed, like a mad creature, to gain the +upper air, to climb to the clouds, as a drowning man fights his way +upwards in the water. And there was reason--the old polecat's jaws +were fast shut in a vise-grip, as of a Yale lock, upon her throat. + +Never a sound broke the silence that brooded forever--in spite of the +wind--over the lake-like, flattened expanse of the estuary save the +deep "how-how!" of the buzzard's superb pinions as she climbed slowly +into the sublime vault of the heavens; never a sound from bird or from +beast. The beast hung on, dumbly dogged, with fangs that met in the +flesh beneath the stained feathers; and the blood of the bird mingled +with the blood of the beast as it trickled slowly down over his mangled +head, upon which one fearful claw of the buzzard was clutched in an +awful grip. + +The bird struggled dumbly also, upwards, ever upwards, gasping, with +open beak and staring eyes, fighting vainly for the breath she could +not draw, till at last the two were no more than a speck--one little, +dark, indefinite speck, floating athwart the great, piled, fleecy +mountains of the clouds. + +And then, quite suddenly, so suddenly that it was almost like pricking +a bladder, the end came. The magnificent, overshadowing pinions +collapsed; the bird reeled, toppled for an instant in the void, and +then slid back and down, faster and faster and faster, turning over and +over, in one long, sickening dive back to earth. + +[Illustration: "Turning over and over, in one long, sickening dive back +to earth"] + +A watcher, had there been one, might have seen, just as the last rays +of the setting sun touched the steely reaches of the estuary, turning +them to lakes of crimson, something, somebody--or bodies, truly, for +they were locked together--suddenly appear, streaking down headlong +from out the heavens. There followed a single terrific splash far out +over the tide, an upheaval of waters, a succession of ripples hurrying +outwards, ever outwards, to tell the tale, and then--nothing. + +Next morning, as the sun rose, a party of mournfully shrieking +black-backed, herring, common, and black-headed gulls were gathered +around the soaked and bedraggled carcasses of a polecat and a buzzard, +stranded by the falling tide upon a mud spur, and still locked savagely +and implacably in death. + +Half a mile away, in the darkness of her burrow, the she-polecat +stirred uneasily in her sleep, and, waking for a moment, stared out at +the still, silent, secret marshes, wondering, perhaps, why her mate had +not returned. + +And ten miles away, far up in their great nest among the boughs of a +mighty Scotch fir, three downy, but already fierce-eyed, buzzard +nestlings craned their necks upwards, calling hungrily, and wondering +why their mother had not returned; while their father shot and swerved +backwards and forwards over the tree-tops, mewing and calling, uneasily +and lonelily, to the clouds for his wife, who had so mysteriously +disappeared. And so--fate and the end. + +This only remains to be said--the female polecat and the male buzzard +did, in spite of Fate, manage to rear their young. And if the +gamekeeper and the collector, the sportsman and the farmer, have not +been too cruel, those young are alive-to-day. + + + + +XII + +THE FURTIVE FEUD + +There was a sun. You could not see it much because of burning, dancing +haze, but you could not get anywhere without feeling it. Almost +everything you touched--sand, rock, and such like--blistered you; and +the vegetation, where it wasn't four-inch thorns and six-inch spikes +and bloated cacti, was shriveled yellow-brown, like the color of a +lion. Perhaps it was a lion, some of it. How could one tell? + +Lizards, which were bad; and scorpions, which were worse; and snakes, +which were worse than worse, lay about in the sun, as if they were +pieces of leather drying. You could not see them--which was awkward, +for some of them held a five-minute death up their sleeve--partly +because they matched their surroundings, partly because they were +still. They were colored burnt to hide in a burnt land. + +Yet it was possible to be bright and gay and unobtrusive in this place, +too--if you were cold-blooded enough not to boil dry and explode before +getting a drink--for under some trees lay, in the old-gold, yellow, +black-shade-streaked, tawny-red grass, a sleek and glistening, banded, +blotched, and spotted, newly painted python. Yes, sirs, a python +snake; and you couldn't see it in its new levee uniform--the old one +lay not fifty yards away--any more than you could see the other, and +plainly attired, bad dreams--so long as it did not move. Its length +was not apparent, because it was coiled up; but it would have uncoiled +out into something most alarming if stretched, I fancy. + +The jackal made no sound as he came, tripping daintily, graceful and +light as a rubber ball, into the scene, blissfully oblivious, +apparently, of the fact that any other next step might awake a volcano +under his feet. + +He was a black-backed jackal; red-tawny sides, fading to nearly white +under-parts; black back, grizzled with white hairs, neatly ruled off +from the rest of him, like a big saddle; large, wide-awake ears; long, +thin legs; bushy tail; very knowing eyes, and all complete--part wolf, +part fox, and yet neither and something of both. No one living could, +perhaps, have been agile enough to measure him, but he looked over two +and a half feet from nose-tip to tail-root; and you can add, possibly, +a third of that for the tail. But he was all there, whatever his +length, every short hair of him, and none of the swarms of buzzing +flies around seemed anxious to settle upon him. + +He picked his way across to the shade of the trees, slouching quite +casually, apparently; though how he avoided treading upon any of the +sudden deaths variously thrown about seems a mystery. And just short +of the shade of the trees he stopped. He had spotted, or scented--the +latter is most likely, for the smell beat a chemical-works, a +slaughter-house, and a whaleship rolled into one--the big snake. + +The big snake remained motionless, and made no sign. Goodness knows +whether it was asleep, if snakes ever do sleep. It certainly had its +horrible eyes open, fixed in an evil stare at anything, or nothing, +after the fashion of snakes, who are cursed in that they cannot shut +their eyes to things. (Imagine the position of some people in this +world if they were afflicted like the snakes!) + +For about a minute that jackal stood like a carved beast in wood, with +the original bark left on his back. Then he began to sink, slowly, +gradually, till he lay as flat as a punctured bladder. And the picture +of that little black-backed fellow--that _Canis mesomelas_, if you like +official terms--all alone there, and surrounded by a dozen deaths at +least, and all nasty, doing the stalking act upon that python was +great. He stalked. My! how he stalked! And with reason, for he was +taking on, perhaps, the biggest thing in the hunting line that he had +ever tackled, and it was a million to one that, if he did not win, he +died, and horribly, too; and he knew it. Ordinarily he would have been +the python's prey. + +[Illustration: "That little black-backed fellow doing the stalking act +upon that python was great"] + +There was a little snicker, as it were, in the air as his fangs closed, +and the python, waking one-twentieth of a second too late, lifted its +head. Then, short and crisp--snap! + +Talk about tweaking a lightning-flash by its tail! It would have been +a wake to what followed then. + +The jackal knew what to expect--by instinct, I suppose. Anyway, he did +not wait longer than it takes to scrunch as hard as possible with +canine teeth as sharp as knives, and leap clear. + +Ho did it, however, and stood well back, with his ears cocked and his +head on one side. It was as if he were panting, "Now, let her +rip"--and she did. + +A hurricane in a cage, a volcano in an eligible house-lot, a geyser in +a water-jug--what you will; but they were all tame alongside that +python, after the little black-back had got his fangs home. + +You know the size of pythons? 'Bout the biggest things in snakes there +are going, bar two; and this one was not a baby. But nobody can +properly measure their strength. This one unwrapped itself in one +awful swiftness, and wrapped itself up again more awfully swiftly and +in worse knots. Then things became hazy, and one could only tell by +the dust, and the sand, and the grass, and the leaves, and the other +things flying around that something was happening. + +But the jackal did not seem to care. He only sat well back, with jaws +open and very red tongue lolling, obviously doing a dog-laugh to +himself. Perhaps it touched his sense of humor to think that so small +a beast as he, with just one scientific bite, should create such a deal +of disturbance. But the--er--aroma could not have amused even him, and +he was, as you might say, salted to stenches; for, though he was on the +up-wind side, even there it was enough to knock flat anything that the +python's tail could not reach. It was a most stupendous stench--a sort +of weapon of defense, or danger-signal, that these big snakes have. + +Now, perhaps it was the reek that drew the purr. Purring is generally +looked upon as a nice and comfy sort of a sound, but _this was not_. + +The jackal just heard it intruding upon the confusion of the python's +last contortions, as if suddenly, and it seemed to come from the +ground, and the sky, and the surrounding scenery all at the same time. +There was nothing nice and comfy about it at all. The jackal removed +himself, at sound of it, about four yards in as many bounds, and every +grizzled scrap of fur along his black back stood on end. If we had +heard it, we should have reached for our rifle, and felt tingly all +down our spine, for that was the sort of purr it was--a horrible, +hungry, suggestive, cruel, and blood-curdling sound of ghoulish +pleasure. + +The jackal ceased to dog-laugh, and his tail was between his legs, for +he knew that purr, and its name was death. Death angry is bad enough, +but death pleased-- + +Louder and louder the purr became, till it seemed, as the python began +to lash out the very last of its life, apparently, to fill the whole +place. Finally, it became real, and--a shape walked slowly out of a +thorn-bush. + +It would be blatant exaggeration to call that shape a lion. +It--he--had been one. He was now a walking hat-rack. Never have you +seen such a lion. Never had the jackal seen such a lion, even; and he +had done business--of the snatch-and-run order--with lions all his life. + +However many years that lion had lived, to kill mercilessly, Heaven +alone knows; but how on earth he had contrived to avoid for some time +being equally mercilessly killed by hyenas, or wild hogs, Heaven and +himself alone knew, too. He was a very, very old lion, a derelict of a +lion, a shadow of a ghost of one, mangy, tottering, toothless--come +down to eat snakes killed by others, even by jackals. + +Then the jackal went away, dejected and disgusted. He was honestly +proud of his slaying of that python. + +It was the biggest screw-up of courage he had ever accomplished in his +life, and to be done out of his rewarding big feast by that purring +skeleton of a king of beasts! It was too much even for his pessimistic +philosophy. + +"Yaaa-ya-ya-ya-ya!" he howled, with his nose pointed to the brazen sun, +and melted away among the accursed thorn-scrub with a look about him +that said, as plainly as words, "And that's what comes of hunting in +daylight." + +The jackal, after a long skirmish and a drink, retired homewards +towards sunset, when suddenly, from a tuft of grass ahead of him, a +shadow shot and vanished. He picked up the trail at once, diagnosed it +as that of a hare, and gave chase. + +It was a fine chase, characterized by every aspect of first-class +trailing, and carried along at such a speed that the quarry never got a +chance to stop and get its second wind. Indeed, the quarry never had a +chance to stop at all, until it was stopped, and the manner of that +happening was strange. + +Whether designedly driven, or whether by chance, one cannot tell, but +the fact remains that the hare took a "line of country" which, if +persisted in, would lead her close past the jackal's lair, or, rather, +his wife's lair. This was important--for the jackal. + +Once, indeed, our hunter all but overran a small--but quite big +enough--boa-constrictor, which must have aimed to drop from a tree upon +the hare passing below, and missed. It was in an even more evil +temper, in consequence, than snakes usually are, and struck at the +jackal with its head and shut mouth. The jackal quietly side-stepped, +snapped, missed, and made off after his quarry, and about five hundred +yards farther on he came up with "puss"--dead. + +The jackal sat on his bushy tail, stuck out his fore-feet straight, and +stopped as quickly as ever he could. Then he snarled, and full right +had he to snarl. + +The hare was lying on her back, weakly kicking out the last of her life +with her hindlegs, and a stocky, short-nosed, evil, leering, +side-striped jackal was standing over her. _He_ had done the deed. +And our black-back knew that side-stripe, had met him before. The two +families lived only a few hundred yards apart, and it was Mrs. +Side-stripe who was responsible for our friend's wife's crippled +condition at that moment. This was a typical side-striper, one of the +creeping, hunting-by-surprise-and-pounce sort, and it may be that he +had never run down any prey worth speaking about in his life. In a +way, he was the very opposite from our black-back, who was mostly legs, +and a bit of a sportsman, and, I believe, really delighted in a good +ringing hunt. Wherefore there was not much cause for surprise at the +bitter blood-feud that had gradually grown up between them, till now +things had come pretty well to a head. + +The other beast folded back his lean upper-lip till his teeth +glistened, and grinned at him--a menacing grin. I don't know if he +guessed that it was, by all the laws of the chase, the black-back's +hare, but he knew that he had pounced upon her as she passed--pounced +like a cat, as was his way, what time he was profiting by his enemy's +absence to keep that enemy's lame wife indoors, and from hunting even +for insects or fruit, by prowling round her lair, and threatening her +with growls. Perhaps he had designs upon her puppies. Perhaps his +wife had. And perhaps Mrs. Mesomelas knew that. It is difficult to +tell. + +There was a sort of a blackish-tawny line drawn to the +side-stripe--whose other and learned name was Adustus--and back. It +scarcely seemed possible that the black-backed little chap had moved, +but he had--leaped in and out again, chopping wickedly with a +sword-like gleam of fangs as he did so. The other pivoted, quick as +thought, and counter-slashed, and, before you could wink, Mesomelas was +in and away, in and out, once, twice, and again. One bite sent a +little flick of the other's brown fur a-flying; one missed, one got +home, and the side-stripe's ugly snarling changed to a yap to say so. + +Twice the two beasts whirled round and round, like roulette-balls, the +black-back always on the outside, always doing the attacking, dancing +as if on air, light as a gnat. Once he got right in, and the foe +sprang at his throat. He was not there when the enemy's teeth closed, +but his fangs were, and fang closed on fang, and the resulting tussle +was not pretty to behold. + +Mesomelas cleared himself from that scrunch with very red lips, but +never stopped his whirling, light-cavalry form of attack. He was +trying to tease the other into dashing after him, and giving up the +advantage which his foe had in size and strength, but it was no good; +and finally Adustus suddenly scurried into cover, redder than he had +been, and our black-back, too, had to bolt for his hole, as an +aardwolf, clumsy, hyena-like, and cowardly, but strong enough for them, +scenting blood, came up to investigate. + +Mercifully, the side-stripe seemed to attract the more attention, or +shed the more blood, and while the aardwolf was sniffing at his +hole--not intending to do anything if the jackal had a snap left in +him, which he had, for the aardwolf possessed the heart of a sheep, +really--the black-back managed to dash out and abscond to his hole with +the hare. When the aardwolf came back, and sniffed out what he had +done, he said things. + +Our jackal's head appeared at his hole next dawn as a francolin began +to call, and a gray lowrie--a mere shadow up among the +branches--started to call out, "Go away! go away!" as if he were +speaking to the retreating night. A gay, orange-colored bat came and +hung up above the jackal's den--well out of reach, of course--and a +ground-hornbill suddenly started his reverberating "Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" +and, behold--'twas dawn! + +The jackal scuttled down to the river to have a drink, which he got +rather riskily among the horns of drinking, congregated hartebeests, +impala, and other antelope, and returned with the leg-bone of a +bush-buck, which had been slain the night before by a leopard, and he +went to ground very quickly, for the great spotted cat could be heard, +grunting wrath, at his heels. + +Then the day strode up, and the light, creeping in, showed our jackal, +curled up and fast asleep, in his lair, as far away as he could +possibly get in the space--two ant-bears', or aardvarks', holes run +into one--from his also curled-up wife. + +Later--for it was quite chilly--he came out to sleep in the sun, under +a bush, till the sun, in turn, half-baked him, and he retired again to +the den. + +The days were, as a rule, for the jackal, a succession of sleeping +blanks, but at the end of this day it was the fate of a small +python--small for a python--to hunt a pangolin--who was as like a thin +pineapple with a long tail, if you understand me, as it was like +anything, or like a fir-cone many times enlarged, only it was an +animal, and a weird one--into that den of thieves. + +Mrs. Mesomelas, she appeared to shoot straight from dreamless slumber +on to the pangolin's back in some wonderful way, and Mr. Mesomelas, he +bounced from the arms of Morpheus into--the jaws of the snake? No, +sirs; on to the nape of that snake's neck, if snakes may be said to +have napes to their necks. But to get hold of the neck of a python is +one thing, to keep there quite a different, and very risky, affair; and +our jackal, who was no pup, knew that. If that legless creation of the +devil could only have got his tail round something, our jackal might +have been turned into food for his food, so to speak. Wherefore, +possibly, he was frightened. It was like taking hold of a live wire by +the loose end. Moreover, the space was confined, and there were the +whelps and all, and I rather fancy black-back was more frightened to +leave go and stay than he was to hold on and run. + +Anyway, he held on and ran. + +An old, fat zebra stallion, round-barreled and half-asleep, snorted +suddenly, and stared with surprise at the sight of a black-backed +jackal galloping as fast as circumstances would permit him, with the +wide-mouthed head of a python in his jaws, and the remaining long, +painted body trailing out behind. The snake was not going with any +pleasure, and his wriggling tail was feeling for a hold every inch of +the way, and if he could have got one--oh, jackal! But he could not, +for the jackal kept on going, and the snake's after-length kept on +trailing out straight, like a loose rope behind a boat, through the +perishing glare and the heat-flurry that seemed to be making the whole +world jump up and down, as it does when you look at it over the top of +a locomotive-funnel. + +Snakes take a long time to die, or to _seem_ dead, even with a double +set of glistening sharp teeth scrunching as hard as their owner knows +how into their neck. At last, however, after a final series of efforts +to get, and keep, in the shape of a letter S, the python's tail +gradually ceased to feel for a hold, and the writhing strain in the +jackal's jaws relaxed. Still, our Mesomelas was taking no chances, and +he galloped home with his capture before he stopped, as proud and happy +an old dog, rascally jackal as ever cracked a bone on a fine day. + +He was a little puffed, and more than a little puffed up, and it may +have been that he did not keep his eyes all round his head, as a jackal +should always do. Anyway, there, in the gathering shadows of night, +came a waiting, watching shadow, that was presently joined by another, +and the two--their eyes glinted once in a nasty metallic fashion--stood +head to head, watching him. + +By the time Mrs. Mesomelas had hobbled out to view the "kill" for +herself, and snarl her appreciation--truly, it was a strange way of +showing it--with thin, wicked ears laid back, and more than wicked +fangs bared, the waiting, watching shadows had crept forward a little, +on their bellies, head up, and--Mrs. Mesomelas, with the quick +suspicion of motherhood awake in her, saw them. + +The snarl that she whipped out fetched the jackal round upon himself as +if stung. Then he saw, and understood, and rage flamed into his +intelligent, dog's eyes. It was the side-striped jackals, Mr. and +Mrs., plotting to loot his "kill." + +It was the black-back who attacked. Perhaps he knew that one secret of +defense is swift and unexpected offense. Anyway, he attacked, sailing +in with his dancy, chopping, in-and-out skirmishing methods; and Mrs. +Mesomelas, on three legs and with the bill for the other to be settled, +helped him. + +It was very difficult, in the tropic dust, to follow what exactly +happened next. For the next few minutes black-back was here, there, +and everywhere, leaping and dodging in and out like a lambent flame. +The human eye could scarcely follow him, but the human ear could hear +plainly the nasty, dog-like snarling and the snap of teeth. + +The side-stripe, as I have said, was the weightier beast, but the +black-back never gave him the advantage, which he sought, of the +close-fought fight. + +More than once he was chased, but only to lead his foe into the open, +where he could play his own game to his own liking; and at last, when +the moon rose, and his mate had the female black-back driven back to +her last ditch, so to speak, at the entrance to her lair, the +side-stripped jackal, spouting blood at every joint, it seemed, +collapsed suddenly, and apparently gave up the ghost. + +Now, our black-backed jackal was not a young beast, and he was up to +most wild-folks' games--which was as well. He approached the corpse +with caution, and as he poised for the last spring the corpse was at +his throat. Black-back, however, was not there, but his tail was, and +the side-striped one got a mouthful of the bushy black tip of that. +Whereupon Mesomelas recoiled on himself, and for a moment a horrible +"worry" followed, at the end of which the other dropped limply again, +this time, apparently, really done for. + +Very, very gingerly the black-back--himself a red and weird sight in +the eye of the moon--approached, and seized and shook the foe, dropped +him, and--again that foe was a leaping streak at his throat. + +Mesomelas side-stepped, and neatly chopped--a terrible, wrenching +bite--at his hindleg in passing. It fetched him over, and he lay +still, the moon shining on his side, doubly and redly striped now. + +This time it was Mesomelas who sprang at his throat--to be met by +fangs. But in the quarter of an instant, changing his mind after he +sprang, he shot clean up in the air, and came down to one side, and, +rebounding like a ball, had the other by the neck. + +For one instant he kept there, hung, wrenching ghastlily, then sprung +clear, and, backing slowly, limping, growling horribly, flat-eared and +beaten, the side-striped jackal began his slow, backward retreat into +the heart of the nearly impenetrable thorns, where the winner was not +such a fool as to follow him. And the black-backed jackal never saw +him again. Living or dead, he faded out of our jackal's life forever. + +And when he turned, his wife was standing at the entrance to the +"earth" alone. The other, the female side-striped jackal's form, could +be dimly seen dissolving into the night--on three legs. + +"Yaaa-ya-ya-ya!" howled Mesomelas. + + + + +XIII + +THE STORM PIRATE + +The sea-birds were very happy along that terrible breaker-hewn coast. +Puffin, guillemot, black guillemot, razorbill, cormorant, shag, fulmar +petrel, storm petrel perhaps, kittiwake-gull, common gull, eider-duck, +oyster-catcher, after their kind, had the great, cliff-piled, +inlet-studded, rock-dotted stretch of coast practically to +themselves--to themselves in their thousands. Their only shadow was +the herring-gulls, and the herring-gulls, being amateur, not +professional, pirates, were too clumsy to worry too much. + +Then came the rain-shower. Not that there was anything in that. +Rain-showers came to that land as easily as blushes _used_ to do to +maidens' cheeks--rain-showers, and sudden squalls, and all manner of +swift storm phenomena. But behind the rain-shower, or in it, maybe--it +blotted out cliff and inlet and sandbar and heather-covered hills, and, +with the wind, whipped the sea into spume like an egg-whisk--came he, +the storm pirate. + +A guillemot--you know the guillemot, the fish-hunter, who flies under +the waters more easily than she flies the air above the waters--had +risen, and was making inshore with a full catch, when the squall caught +her without warning. For a little she faced it, her wings whirring +madly, her body suspended in mid-air, but she not making headway one +inch against the sudden fury of a forty-mile-an-hour wind. Then, since +she could no longer see the shore, which was blotted out with hissing +rain, she turned and ran down-wind, like a drawn streak, to the lee of +a big stack of rock. + +The next that was seen of her, she was heading out to sea at top speed, +in wake of the rain-shower and the squall, which had passed as suddenly +as it had come; and behind her, pursuing her with a relentless fury +that made one gasp, shot another and a strange bird-shape. Its lines +were the lines of the true pirate; its wings long and sharp-cut; its +beak wickedly hooked at the tip; its claws curved, for no gentle +purpose, at the end of its webbed feet; its eye fierce and haughty; its +uniform the color of the very stormcloud that had just passed--dun and +smoked cream below, and sooty above. True, he was not big, being only +twenty-one inches--two inches less than the herring-gull. But what is +size, anyway? It was the fire that counted, the ferocity, the "devil," +the armament, and the appalling speed. Just as a professional boxer of +any size can lay out any mere hulking hooligan, so this bird carried +about him the stamp of the professional fighter that could lay out +anything there in that scene that he chose--almost. + +The guillemot flew as never in all her life had she flown before, and +every known artifice of dodging she had heard of she tried, and--it all +failed. The terrible new bird gained all the time steadily, following +her as if towed by an invisible string, till at last he was above her, +his wonderful wild scream was ringing in her ears, his cruel eyes +glaring into hers, his beak snapping in her very face, his claws +a-clutch. + +No, thank you. In sheer terror she opened her beak and dropped her +fish. It fell like a column of silver, and in a flash her pursuer was +gone--nay, was not gone; had turned, rather, into a second column, a +sooty one, falling like a thunderbolt, till he overtook even the +falling fish, and wonderfully snatched it up in his hooked bill ere +ever it could touch the waves, without a word or explanation of any +kind whatever. + +That, apparently, was his manner of getting his living; a strange +manner, a peculiar way--the way of the pirate on the ocean. + +Despoiled, but safe, the guillemot rattled away "for another cast"; but +the foe settled, riding lightly on the lift and fall of the +bottle-green waves. + +Here he was no longer a wonderful phantom spirit of the storm, but just +a bird that might have been passed over at first glance as simply a +seagull. But not at a second glance. + +Men called this strange bird Richardson's skua, or Arctic skua, or +lesser skua, or, officially, _Stercorarius crepidatus_, or, most +unofficially, in the vernacular, "boatswain," or "man-o'-war," or +"gull-tormentor." Apparently you could take your choice what you +called him. But he did not belong to Mr. Richardson really. He +belonged to nobody, only to himself, to the wind and the rain, that +seemed to have begot him, and to the grim north, from which he took his +other name. He might have claimed the gulls as his near +relations--they loathed him enough. + +For a long time he sat on the lifting, breathing swell, floating idly. +There was nothing else on the face of the lonely waters except himself +and a flock, or fleet, I should say, of razorbills and guillemots, very +far away, who alternately showed all white breasts, and vanished--as +they dived and rose all together--like white-faced, disappearing +targets, and one gull, who wheeled and wheeled in the middle distance, +with one eye on the divers and one on the skua, as if, gull-like, +waiting on a chance from either. + +Then at last the skua rose again, and swept hurriedly out to sea to +meet a small black-and-white speck that was coming in. It was a +little, rotund, parrot-beaked puffin, loaded with fish--sprats--four of +them set crossways in his wonderful bill. He seemed to know nothing +about the skua till that worthy was upon him, and then, as he fled, +after a furious chase of about three minutes, he suddenly surrendered +by letting fall all his spoil. + +The skua caught up one sprat before it hit the surface, but, being too +late to overtake the rest, seemed to take no further notice of them, +but swept on, to settle upon the water a mile away and preen himself. +And this was where the waiting, watching gull came in--the +herring-gull. He sprang to strenuous life, and, arriving swiftly at +full speed over the spot, snatched up off the surface, and by clumsily +attempting to plunge, two more of the sprats, before the skua could +intervene. + +Then it was that a terrible and a totally unexpected thing happened, +and yet, if one comes to think about it and study the matter more, the +most natural in the world; probably, also, on those wild seas, even +common-place. Only, you see, there was no interval at all between the +skua sitting placidly on the lap of the waves, eyeing the gull +vengefully, and that same skua shooting straight upwards, all doubled +up, on the top of what appeared to have been a submarine mine in a mild +form in active demonstration. + +[Illustration: "Shooting straight upwards on the top of what appeared +to have been a submarine mine in a mild form"] + +This submarine mine, however, in addition to the burst and heave of +torn and upflung falling waters and foam, had a visible heart, a great, +shining, wet, torpedo-shaped body, which rose on end beneath the +stricken bird, and fell again with a splintering crash that shot up the +heads of the diving birds half a mile away. It might have been a +thresher-shark, or some other northern shark, or it might have been a +dolphin, which is bad, or a killer whale, which is a good deal worse, +if it had not been a great gray seal seeking dinner; and its effect on +the luckless skua was the effect of a battering ram, and the skua that +fell back again with the fall of snarling water was to all intents and +purposes a corpse. + +But it was a good thing that he was so. Had it been otherwise, had he +tried to get away or fluttered, there would have been no more of him. +That is to say, the head of the seal came up--or its wet and suggestive +big nose did--and poked about, trying to find the bird. It had +evidently meant to grab him, to engulf him utterly and forever in the +first rush; but something--some unlooked-for lift of a wave or turn of +the bird--had made the shot miss, or nearly miss, so that the bird had +been hit by the bloated six-footer's nose, instead of being crushed in +its teeth--its terrible long and glistening array of murderous teeth. + +All the same, the nose blow was bad enough. It was like being hit by +the beak of a torpedo at full speed, fit almost to bash a boat in. + +The seal was quite evidently looking for the bird, and, equally quite +evidently, seemed bound to find him. To know why it did not at once +see him is to know that the seal's view, from below the surface, of the +world above is about a twelve-foot circle of white-gold light, that is +all; and the skua, floating limp and floppy, had been, by chance, till +then always carried hither and yon by the waves just outside that +circle. But that chance could not last. + +Then came the other seal. Came she easily and gracefully, as a seal +should in her element, effortlessly gliding along, her head from time +to time up like a dog's--some gentle dog's, say a mild-eyed +spaniel's--looking about. She was just a female seal. She knew +nothing of the bird or her companion, who were at sea-level, and more +often than not hidden in the trough, till she came sliding down the +slope of a round-barreled swell, practically on top of them. Then it +was too late to avoid mutual recognition. + +Quick as sound she had seen, had realized, had spun on her apology for +a tail, and had gone, leaving a little trail of foam behind her to +prove her speed and her coyness. But, quick as light, the magnificent +male seal had sunk from sight, leaving a little chain of bursting +bubbles behind to mark his speed. And the last that was seen of that +lady seal was a speck far on the horizon, going like a masterless +torpedo, alternately leaping forward through the air and shooting along +on, or just under, the surface--switchbacking, they call it; and that, +I dare to fancy, if it proves anything, proves that the coyness was +only make-believe, and that she had allowed the daring admirer to catch +her up and force her to act as if she were already vanquished and using +the last arts of swift swimming she knew. + +It left the skua, however; left him still floating, floating, floating +up one long breaker's side, and sliding down its other side to its +fellow behind, towards the shore--always towards the shore. It is true +that the tide was falling offshore, but that made no difference to the +currents of those parts, which were independent currents and of a great +force. They were shouldering the skua steadily to land, and if you had +dropped a line overboard there, with an ordinary lead on, you would +have felt them pulling at it, and taking the lead along like a live +thing. And the currents were Fate, so far as that bird was concerned. + +There was a little inlet, and a little bay in the inlet no larger than +a good-sized dining-table, and seaweed, green and red, upon the +rock-bowlders that encircled it, and old-gold patches of sand between +the rock-bowlders, and green grass behind the rock-bowlders, and +brown-plush furze behind the green grass, and a patch of blue sky over +all. And in the middle of the little bay in the inlet, bob-bobbing on +the lap-lapping of the littlest waves, that--sifted out by then, as it +were--had found their way so far, floated the skua, the Richardson's or +Arctic skua, dead, to all appearances, as the proverbial door-nail. +But that was not the rub. The rub was in the--ah! + +"He-oh!" pealed down the clear, ringing bugle-cry from above, and a +shadow floated upon the reflections a-dance on the surface in the +little bay in the little inlet--floated and hung, so that it exactly +covered the skua like a funeral pall; floated, and hung, and came down. +As its claws scraped a bowlder, and it furled its long, narrow vans, it +was revealed as the big herring-gull--him we left out upon the face of +the waters, watching and waiting on chance. + +His spotless expanse of head and neck alone marked him, gave him away, +a speck you could see for a mile. His size--just on two feet--proved +what his snowy hood proclaimed, in case there were any doubts. A +smaller gull, an uncommon common gull--of eighteen inches--came and +looked, to make quite sure--and went away again. The herring-gull, in +spite of his silly name, has a reputation, and a "plug ugly" one. + +And the herring-gull, he--did nothing. That is the strength of the +herring-gull--doing nothing. He can do it for an hour, half a morning, +or most of a day. His battle-cry might well have been, "Wait and see," +but he must be one of the few living, breathing things on this earth +who have made the game pay, and--lived. He might have been a lump of +chalk, or a marble carving, or a stuffed specimen, or asleep, or dead, +for all the signs of living that he gave. One began to wonder if he +ever would move again. He had been a bird, but was now the life-size +model of one cut in alabaster, with clear pebbles for eyes--they were +quite as hard and cold as that, his eyes. + +And all the time the body of the skua floated, and danced, and drifted, +and lifted in, making an inch on one wavelet, to lose three-quarters of +it on the next, but still, unnoticeably perhaps, but undoubtedly, +gradually, surely, for all that, drifting in. + +Somebody has written somewhere that gulls never touch a carcass on +land. Sometimes they touch things on land which were not carcasses +before they touched them. This gull, however, did not wait for any +landing. Perhaps he knew that, once stranded, the gray crows might +come to assist him in their own peculiar way, or a raven, who would not +assist him at all, except into the next world, if he did not relinquish +all claim to the feast. Anyway, whatever we poor mortals may kid +ourselves into thinking he did or did not know, or what we may think he +ought to have known, he began operations as soon as the skua came +alongside, so to speak--that is, drifted against the particular bowlder +upon which the sphinx-like herring-gull happened by chance--always by +chance, of course--to be standing. + +Now, there is no particular joy in having your eyes hammered at by a +blunted sharp instrument, like a herring-gull's beak, for instance, +even if those eyes happen to be shut, as I think the skua's were, and +the instrument wielded with the extreme clumsiness of the half-trained, +as I know the herring-gull's beak was. But, all the same, it was the +kindest thing that could have happened, for, had it not been for that, +the skua was like to have drifted in that fashion from that little +inlet out upon another sea; not the one connected with the inlet, but +one where you can drift forever, and whose name is Death. The physical +pain, however, brought him round. He was only stunned, and the agony +of the eyes, or eye, rather, was acute. + +He opened the other eye--a wonderful, piercing, fierce orb. He +contracted his feathers. The world grew from a mist in that eye to a +little bay in a little inlet, with the seaweed-covered bowlder-rocks, +the old-gold sand, the green grass, the brown-plush furze, and the +patch of wonderful blue sky over-top. Then it took in the spotless, +gaunt form of the herring-gull, and--he remembered that he was a skua, +only some twenty-one inches long, 'tis true, but still a skua, to be +treated and respected as such. + +Wherefore, who so surprised as that big father of herring-gulls when +the bedraggled, smoky-hued thing under his bill, which he may, or may +not, have taken for a corpse, woke up, returned to life suddenly, and +erupted into his very face, with the yells of a fiend, the weapons of a +fury, and the rage of several devils? He yelled, too, that +herring-gull, not entirely with rage, and did his best to get under way +as quickly as might be, but became, before he knew where he was, +altogether too busy even for that. + +Not being in the habit of performing optical operations upon Arctic +skuas as a rule, he had nothing in his memory to warn him of what +followed, nothing to put him up to the absolutely diabolical fury of +the onslaught he had to meet in the next few seconds. He certainly did +his level best with such weapons as Nature had given him, but his +blunt, hooked beak and the claws he had not got seemed suddenly meager +against the hammering, tearing, stabbing, rending dagger weapons of +his--"meal." + +The skua saw red, and the herring-gull saw mainly red skua, as he was +hurled back and down under the first rush, and instantly, without a +second to recover, was hurled, equally helplessly, the other way, +shrieking for his very life, and decorating the air and the old-gold +sand with a pretty little cloud of his spotless feathers. + +He fought with the desperation of almost all the wild-people, when +there is no help for it; hammering, too, but wildly and clumsily. The +skua fought with the cunning and precision of the professional, plus +such a rage as can only be described as berserk. + +It was not a long fight. Perhaps the skua felt that, after his +collision at sea, his bolt would be soon shot, and he had better do +what he was going to do as quickly and thoroughly as possible. +Certainly he did appear to do so; and when at length he drew back, +rocking and gasping like a drunken creature, the famed purity of that +herring-gull's uniform was a thing of beauty no longer. That part of +him, indeed, which was not red was mud, or sand, or green slime, and in +his eyes was the most worried and tired look you ever saw. + +He rocked, too, in his gait, as he ran and blundered, and he gasped +with his beak open. When he rose, which he did without any sort of +procrastination, he rocked worse than ever, and twice nearly fell, and +once hit the water, before finally slowly dragging himself away upward, +flapping low and heavily across the little waves. + +With the one available eye--the eye left him in working condition by +the herring-gull's clumsy efforts--flaming like a live-coal, that +implacable skua watched him go. He may or may not have known it, of +course, but I feel pretty certain that he would a few thousand times +rather have been standing there upon the old-gold sand, with only one +eye doing duty and an unspeakable agony in the other eye, than be that +herring-gull in the condition he was then, going back to the bosom of +his tribe. It is not a thing to dwell upon in polite society, but I +tell you that the gull-folk do not always treat their wounded well, and +there would be no chance, no earthly chance at all, of his finding a +place in all that vast horizon of sea and sky and island where they, +the ceaseless, never-resting "White Patrol," would not eventually find +him. + +Then the skua lay down, and thereafter surrendered himself to that +utter reaction which birds, who live more intensely in action than +almost any other creatures, have brought to an apparently exaggerated +pitch. He did not sleep, but he did not move, and every muscle in him, +every fiber, every nerve, faculty, organ, was surrendered utterly to +rest. + +Night came fluttering her sable wings across the scene, breathing and +sighing audibly in the first silence that wild landscape of storms and +squalls had known throughout the day, and the skua moved. His neck +went up straight, and his head turned, looking sharply this way and +that, fierce apprehension written upon him. + +There was nothing one could see to give cause for this. A flock of +curlew were passing, wailing one to the other, across the sunset; a +string of late gulls trailed athwart the sky; and a wedge of those +beautiful little wild-duck known as wigeon was letting itself down to +the shores of the inlet. Far out to sea a black line, which might have +been a sea-serpent if it hadn't been scoter ducks, trailed undulating +over the waves, and a single great white gannet plunged from aloft into +the deep at intervals with a report like a sunset gun. But they were +all innocent, except in the opinion of the fish and shell-fish, and no +manner of folk to trouble the pirate skua. Set a thief to catch a +thief, however. And, besides, there was blood on the bird and around +him, or the taint of it, and blood is the devil and all in the wild. +There was nothing to be _seen_. No. That was the worst part of it. +It was what was unseen that the skua was thinking about. + +Wherefore, then, our friend of the pirate rig rose and walked stiffly +to the summit of one of the bowlder-rocks right at the water's edge. +He was by no means recovered yet, or in any condition for a fight in +that desolate scene, and had to select the most strategic position he +could crawl to. He did, and awaited Fate's reply. + +The day died, and the moon came out to wink and dodge and play a +foolish game of hide-and-seek in and out among the clouds. She showed +the skua, a black knob atop of the black blob of his bowlder, +apparently fast asleep, invisible if we did not know he was there. She +showed black dots bobbing upon silver lanes, which were sea-duck of +various kinds--scaup, long tail, scoter, and the rest. She showed a +line of old, rotten posts, broken off short by the waves, along a +sand-ridge, which were wild-geese; and she showed three big, white +swans--wild-swans, wilder even than the geese--floating like ghosts in +the enchanted light. + +But she also showed other things, indistinctly, 'tis true; but +enough--quite enough. She revealed for an instant, as she shone on the +spot on the sand where the skua had sat, the fact that the sand seemed +to be alive, horribly alive, as if the pebbles had taken legs and ran +about. It was a sudden, ghastly flashlight, hidden as soon as seen, +and it gave one the shudders. Those pebbles were crabs mad with +hunger, as crabs always seem to he. + +They had arrived there as if by magic--been creeping in ever since +dusk, probably (one of the things that were unseen); but whether blood, +or feathers, or taint of blood, or what horrible, ghoulish system of +espionage drew them, is not for me to say. They were there, anyway, +and--and--well, and then they were not there. The next flashlight of +the moon showed that some others had taken their place. This was +ghastly, for the others were bigger than any shore crabs, and they +hopped, and they sat up hunched, like hobgoblins, and--they scratched! +This last identified them, for the soulless, shelled crab-people are +not given to scratch much--at least, not in _that_ way. They were +rats--shore rats. The last designation is necessary, for there are +rats _and_ rats, all bad, but the shore rat is the worst. How many +sleeping birds, wounded, tired, or unalert, die at his hands, or, +rather, his teeth, in the course of a year would amaze anybody if +known, and the shell-fish he relieves of life are legion. + +The hard, horny carapace of a retreating crab scraped, in the dead +silence, against the rock-bowlder on which the skua sat. He made no +move at the sound, the suggestive sound; but his feathers were shut +down quite tight, and he looked far smaller than usual. When birds +shut down their feathers in that fashion they put on an armor coat, as +it were, through which very little can pierce. It showed that he was +ready. + +And you think that the mere shore crabs could be nothing to him. But a +few hundred ravening shore crabs, with their lives for sale--all +digging pieces out of you in the dark--are not so easy a proposition to +dispose of as people may think. Try it. + +One of the rats turned suddenly and faced towards him. The skua could +see its little, cruel eyes gleaming like gimlet-holes in the wall of a +lighted room. Then another, and another, and another did the same. + +The skua was scarcely bleeding at all now, but he had left enough of a +trail for _them_--they who make a specialty of the job. And they +followed it. Hopping grotesquely across the mottled, hurrying patches +of moonlight they came, one behind the other, and without noise. + +The skua remained as still as the bowlder he sat upon. In that +position, even peering closely, you would never have seen him, unless, +like ourselves, you knew he was there. But he was drawn together, +drawn in all his muscles like a tense spring, and--though this his +persecutors could not know--he was recovering from his hurts rapidly, +with the wonderful power of recuperation of all the wild-folk, who pay +their price for it in clean, hard living. + +Then suddenly there was a scuffle below him in the dark. One of the +rats squeaked a little, acknowledging receipt of a crab's pincers +closed upon him, or her. Followed the sounds of some scuttering, +confusion, and the horrible slide and scrape of horny shells upon +stone. Then silence, and the skua knew that, in that wonderful way +they have, the crabs, at any rate, were gone--for the moment. + +Remained, however, the rats, and one peered up over the bowlder the +next instant, its eyes glinting in a momentary splash of moonlight +fiendishly. Also, his quick ears could hear the soft creepings of the +others on every side of the bowlder, back and front. They had +surrounded him, and, like wolves, would now rush, and then--and +then---- They had gone. + +Yes, there could be no shadow of doubt about it. There had come an +instant's furtive, hurried movement, a glimpse--no, half a glimpse--of +hunched forms hopping through the dark, and they were no more. + +The skua stared, and as he stared a great terror seized him. What more +deadly form of death than themselves had they suddenly become aware of, +to cause them to invite themselves into nowhere in that magic fashion? + +In the dead silence that fell, he could hear nothing, see nothing. Yet +he felt--indeed he knew--something seemed to tell him, that a deadly +foe was at hand. + +Hours passed. They were minutes really, but they seemed hours to him. +Nothing happened; nothing showed. But the rats did not come back. +Therefore, whatever incarnation of death it was that removed them must +be there still. He knew that. That lonely, wounded bird knew that. +And he was right. + +Behind him, practically invisible, flat to the ground, a long, low, +narrow, dark shape was lying crouched, creeping, creeping, creeping +towards his tail. Slowly, almost painfully slowly, it drew upon him +gradually, so gradually that the distance between them could scarce be +seen to lessen. And soundlessly, so soundlessly that even his quick +ears, trained far beyond the quickest human aural perception, could not +hear it. + +Then, so quickly that the eye could not follow it, the crouching form +made its rush. + +The skua was sitting motionless, with his head looking straight in +front of him. The dark form came from behind, and there would have +been no time for the skua to move before the thing, whatever it was, +had him by the back of the neck, and dead, save for one little tiny +fact. As it propelled itself forward, in the first bound, the claws of +the beast's hindpaw's scraped upon a stone. It was only a little +sound, and it gave the skua barely a fraction of a second's warning; +but, he being a wild thing, it was enough. + +Quick as light the bird had half turned upon one side, and flung up one +claw and wing to cover his neck, whilst his head jerked round hindpart +before in the same atom of time. + +Thus it happened that the beast, unable to stop, found himself with his +head and eyes being dug at by a hooked beak, and his jaws closed upon a +skinny leg instead of upon the skua's spinal column, as he had +intended, which would have put the skua out of life like turning out a +gas-jet. + +And it was then, in that instant, that the moon chose to dodge from +behind a cloud and reveal the beast as a big, long, lean, and hungry +dog-stoat. Probably he had thought that the skua was a gull, and a +wounded one. There is a difference, however, between the skuas and the +gulls, though they bear a family likeness. He discovered the +difference now, and for the next few minutes was not overjoyed at the +knowledge. + +One cannot do much blood-sucking to weaken one's prey out of a scrawny +leg that resembles a twig wrapped round with leather. And the stoat +found this out, too, and he would have shifted his hold to the bird's +body like a flash, if he had been given a chance, but he never was. + +Before he knew what was happening, he was blinded by the beating of +vast wings, his claws began to slip and slide, and--oh, horror!--still +slipping and sliding, he found the bowlder going from him. It went +from him, receding downwards with terrifying rapidity, and the dancing, +silvery, sparkling water was sliding below, too. + +Being a stoat, he hung on with V.C. doggedness and courage; but it was +the worst thing he could have done. Moreover, as it was, he forced the +bird to attempt reprisals in mid-air--a terrible proceeding. + +Now, this was difficult, might almost seem impossible; but the skua is +one of the most wonderful flyers that haunt the seas even--and most of +the best are there--and what he could not execute in the air was +scarcely worth mentioning. It included in this case a perfectly +diabolical scraping of the foe's head with his available claw, and +after that, since the dogged stoat did not leave go, and the pain was +excruciating, a wonderful bend forward, and, at a pronounced and +dangerous angle, a fiendish stabbing at the stoat's head with his +murderous beak. This last involved a drop of nearly a hundred feet, +but it did the trick. + +Blinded, dazed, shaken, and maddened by the agony of blows upon his +sensitive nose, the stoat opened his jaws to grip higher up the leg; +and in an instant he was gone, turning over and over, down, down, down +to the hungry waves below. + +Ten minutes later the skua was calmly and safely asleep upon the top of +a frowning black stack of rock, untroubled, I think, even by dreams of +the terrible things he had gone through. + + * * * * * * + +Next morning, an apparition of wonder and fierce beauty, the skua, +quite recovered except that he had a lameness in one leg and a weakness +in one wonderful eye that would last him a lifetime, came racing +down-shore out of a stormcloud into the full gold of the sun at some +seventy miles an hour. He was in pursuit of a common gull who, with +more luck than judgment, had caught a fish. + +The gull held on for a few minutes, on and in and around the horizon, +going like the wind up and down and around, as for his life, with +friend skua ever close to his tail, before a wild yell, which he could +not mistake, sounded in his ear, and he dropped the prize. The skua +executed his wonderful dive, and caught the gleaming silver thing +before it reached the waves, and shooting up again, was just about to +continue his course, when a constant and peculiar flickering above the +beach caught his telescopic eye. + +He checked, flung up, came round beautifully effortless, and headed +towards the sight. Probably he knew what it was, had fathomed it even +from that distance. It was a gang of gulls flying round and mobbing a +hapless wounded gull on the beach. + +It was a foul thing to do, a horrible, blundering, clumsy murder, done +slowly; but even so, it was all over before, with a scream that rang +like the battle-cry of a Highland chief, and set the murderous heads up +in wild alarm, the skua came shooting, twisting, turning, diving, and +darting right into the heart of the crowd. + +And they went circling, and wheeling, and hurling down-wind like sheets +of paper, those murderous sea-birds, dispersed and scattered over the +face of the waters, and were gone almost without a word. + +Then the skua came lightly down, rocking on the wind, and settled +beside the poor, draggled, white body, no longer white, upon the +shingle, which had been so foully done to death by gulls of various +clans. He may, or may not, have known it, but I can tell _you_ that +the gull was the self-same herring-gull who had tried to kill him the +day before. Now he--but we will draw a curtain here. + +Next day the skua went away, and the fishing wild-folk breathed a sigh +of relief as they watched him go, and for three days peace brooded over +the winged fishers of those parts, so that birds could feed upon what +they caught, nor be in fear of getting hunted for it. But upon the +fourth day the skua came back. And he was not alone. A dusky, nearly +brown--for they vary much in color--female skua came with him. And in +due course they built them a home on the ground among the heather, and +they guarded their treasured eggs and reared with amazing fierce +devotion their beloved young. + +Before his advent that strip of wild sea-coast had been, mercifully, +without its skuas. Our bold buccaneer, however, having won his +footing, took care to see that, so far as one bird could accomplish the +great task, it never should be again. + + + + +XIV + +WHEN NIGHTS WERE COLD + + And the Northern Lights come down + To dance on the houseless snow; + And God, who clears the grounding berg, + And steers the grinding flow, + He hears the cry of the little kit-fox + And the lemming on the snow.--RUDYARD KIPLING. + +A snipe rose suddenly, and began to call out; a capercailzie lofted all +at once, with a great rush of winged bulk, above the snow-bound forest; +and a white hare slid, like a wraith of the winter, down a silent +forest aisle. + +Then came the White Wolf of the Frozen Wastes, the terror of the +blizzard, ghost-like, enormous, and swift. In dead, grim silence came +he, loping his loose, tireless wolf's lope, and stopped at a windfall, +where two forest giants, their decaying strength discovered by the +extra weight of snow, lay prone, one across the other. + +For a moment he paused, nose up, testing the still, cold air; then he +leapt upon the upper fallen tree. He had, seen up there and clearly, +an enormously thick and woolly coat, that magnified his already record +size. You see him trotting along the tree-trunk. Then he stopped and +stared down into the dark hollow under the upper tree. Then he +sniffed--audibly. Then he licked his nose--and very red was his +tongue. Then--but this he couldn't help, I verily believe, as he +balanced there with his pricked ears and bright eyes--he whined. + +And instantly his little, impatient, dog-like whine was answered by a +deep, deep growl, that seemed to come out of the bowels of the earth. + +He was just in time, as he leapt lightly off the windfall, to avoid the +rush of a vast brown bulk, reeking of carrion, furry, terrible, with +live-coals for eyes, and threshing the air with claws Heaven knows how +long, which hurled itself like an avalanche out of the hollow at him. +And that thing was a bear. + +Now, bears do not, as a rule, without extraordinary reason, in that +land, rouse themselves out of their winter sleep for the mere whine of +a wolf. They are impregnable where they are, and know it. The +extraordinary reason, however, was present. The white wolf was +sniffing at it now--the bear's blood-trail to the windfall. Bruin had +been roused once before that day--by beaters. He had then been driven +forward, shot at by hunters, wounded, escaped, and returned to his den. +But--but, I give you my word, if those beaters, those peasants, had +known the White Wolf of the Frozen Waste was out, nothing in the wide +world would have induced them to beat for bears or anything else in +that vicinity. + +The white wolf stretched himself to a canter, and slid away through the +forest, dropping the trees past him like telegraph-poles past a +railway-carriage window. He looked like the very spirit of winter, the +demon of the snows, and stood for that in the ignorant minds of the +sparsely scattered people--perhaps because at a short distance he was +nearly invisible. His white coat, which was simply a conspicuous curse +to him when there was no snow--which was one reason, maybe, why he +retired from the limelight to some lonely fastness during summer--was +an incalculable asset to him in winter, and he knew it. + +He ran, with his smooth, loose, effortless lope, perhaps a quarter of a +mile, then stopped, and putting up his head, howled a howl so full of +hopeless, cruel yearning, so vibrant with desolation, that it sounded +like the cry of a soul doomed forever to seek something it could never +find. It was a lugubrious yowl there, in that setting, and it made +one's scalp creep all over one's cranium. + +And instantly almost, even as the last, long, horrible echoes died, +sobbing adown the blue-haze perspective of the forest glades, the +answer came--a far-away, fluttering, wandering howl, like the moan of +the wind in its sleep. + +The white wolf waited a moment, then howled again, and the ghastly +sound came back to him, louder and nearer this time. + +A third time he howled, and the forest cringed under the reply. + +Then at last the shadows between the ranked tree-trunks took unto +themselves life, and eyes, eyes in pairs, horribly hungry, cruel +port-holes of brains, with a glary, stary, green light behind them, +suddenly appeared everywhere, like swiftly-turned-on electric lamps. +There was a whispering rush, as if giants were swiftly dealing cards in +the silence, and--the White Wolf of the Frozen Waste was away, racing +like a cloud-shadow, rapid and impetuous as a greyhound, at the head of +a pack of one hundred and twenty-nine empty-stomached wolves. + +They made no sound as they tore, compact as a Zulu impi, over the +spotless white, because they had no trail to follow, only this huge +devil of a leader; and they had their work cut out to follow him, for +he was the longest-legged male wolf any of them had ever set eyes upon. + +Straight as a twelve-inch shell the white wolf headed back to the +fallen trees and the bear's den. When he reached them, he stopped so +abruptly that the wolves behind him almost sat on their haunches in the +effort to pull up. Those that failed fell sideways under a rain of +wicked snaps from him, that followed one another quick as the stutter +of a machine-gun. + +The pack did not stop--at least, not the flanks of it. They swept on +without a pause, out and round, like flood-water round a knoll, joined +at the far side, and--were still. As a maneuver, a military maneuver, +swift, unexpected, faultless, and silent, it was perfect. + +For as long as a man takes to light a pipe there was dead silence, +broken only by the quick motor-like panting of the pack. And one +hundred and twenty-nine pairs of eyes regarded the fallen trees. + +Then the white wolf, all alone, with hackles up, stepped forward and +leaped upon the trunk of the tree that was poised upon its fellow. He +ran lightly up it till he was exactly above the hollow formed by the +junction of the two trees, then stopped, looking down. + +Half-a-dozen of the older and more cunning wolves followed him; the +pack surged forward until both trees became lined with a row of wolves, +without breaking the circle of the main pack outside, and then stopped. +All this in silence. + +Then--but you could almost hear the trees breathe while he did it--the +white wolf yawned very deliberately, and whined, insolently and very +audibly. + +The answer was instant. + +Something rumbled within the den, deep down, like a geyser. + +The white wolf whined again, and sprang aside just as the bear, +maddened with the pain of a .450-caliber rifle bullet in his stomach, +and seeking a sacrifice, hurled out of the dark and up over the +tree-trunk, striking, with appalling nail-strokes, right and left; and +the quickness of those strokes was only a less astonishment than the +agility of the wolves getting out of the way of them. But--but he had +come out to abolish one wolf, that bear; not one hundred and +twenty-nine. + +The white wolf dropped without a sound upon the bear's great, broad +back. The half-dozen old wolves followed him like figures moved by a +single lever. The pack sucked in with the rush of a waterspout. The +bear vanished under a wave of fangs and tails, as a sinking boat +vanishes beneath the billows. And the rest was the most diabolical +devils' riot that ears ever heard. + +The bear unwounded, even if he had been induced to come out at all, +might have fought his way home again; but the bear wounded and cut off +was a different matter. He battled as only a cornered bear can battle; +but the exertion of it gave the .450 bullet its chance, and he +died--horribly--as they die who are pulled down by the starving +wolf-pack, and that is not printable at all. + +He took three wolves--smashed-in-heads and chests--with him to the +other world, that bear, and left three others well on the road there. +_All six_ followed him by the path he had gone when the pack had done +with him; but the losses might not improve the temper of the pack, +though they partially stayed the hunger of a few. And the white wolf +seemed to know that. Full devilish indeed was the cunning of that +brute. + +Scarcely was the last bone cracked, scarcely the last wisp of skin +snapped up, than the white wolf, wet, and red and wringing over the +head, was away again, at full speed--and his full speed was a thing to +gasp over--with a wild and rousing howl that gave the pack no time to +ponder on its casualties. + +This time also there was no trail, so the pack had full leisure to +concentrate all its energies upon the job in hand, or paw, I should +say--namely, galloping. No, racing would be the only word; for the +white wolf, knowing his kind, perhaps, gave the pack no leisure to grow +dangerous over its losses or its hunger. Only idleness gives time for +questions to be asked about leadership, and he kept them busy; and if +they wanted to keep up with him at all, they must needs extend +themselves to the full. + +Soon he led them to a clearing running, straight as a railway cutting, +through the forest. Out in the clearing, he dropped his head, howled, +flung half round, and began to follow tracks; but the scent was enough +for him without the tracks. They were the footprints, the +sleigh-trail, and the hoofprints of the beaters, the hunters, and the +pack-horses, loaded with game from the hunt of the day that had just +gone. + +For a moment the pack, even _that_ pack, his pack, the pack of the +White Wolf of the Frozen Wastes, checked a little, shied, and were +dumb. They were used to his leading them upon some hectic +murder-raids, but never one quite so blatant as this. + +Quickly, however, the real pain in their empty stomachs got the better +of them, and they swept round and began to follow--half-a-dozen here +and there--with whimpers. And then, the excitement spreading, they all +rushed in, and breaking out, with a blood-curdling rush, into the +full-throated chorus, "Yi-yi-i-ki-yi!" of the wolf-pack in full cry--an +M.F.H. who had never heard wolves might have mistaken it for the music +of a pack of hounds if he had listened to it from a distance--they +swept on after the vanishing white brush of their leader, like some +great, hurrying, dark cloud-shadow, up the trail. + +Anon, going always at their tireless wolf-lope that no beast in the +world can outdistance in the end, they came to a village. Some of the +beaters lived at this village, and had remained there. The wolves +swept on and round the miserable place--some actually raced through the +snowed-up street--and took up the continued trail on the other side. + +Anon they came to an open plain, where the trail split, many of the +beaters that were left striking away to another village where they +lived; but the white wolf tore straight on along the main trail, the +trail of the hunters, the attendants, and the pack-horses. And the +shadows of the wolves in the moonlight kept pace with them all that +terrible way. + +The plain looked flat, but was gently undulating, like some gigantic +ocean petrified; so that, in due time, the pack, still giving tongue +wildly and terribly, saw before them, far, far ahead, a procession of +dots straggling along over the endless, unbroken white. And instantly +their music shut off as if at the wave of an invisible hand. + +Then, as the quarry ran from scent to view, they raced. All their +long, loose, nickel-steel-limbed, tireless gallop before had been +nothing to their flying speed now. The taint of the blood of the +slaughtered game from the chase was in their sensitive nostrils. It +was like the sight of rare wines to a drunkard. Shift! Say, but the +way those long-legged demons ate up the distance between them and their +prey was awe-inspiring. It was uncanny. It was almost magic. It was +awful. + +Then things happened, as you might say, with some rapidity. + +Three shots rang out in the silence--three shots in quick succession. +They were fired at the wolves by the only man in the group who had an +efficient rifle, but were really meant to recall the sleighs with the +sportsmen _and_ the rifles, which had gone on. + +The wolves spread out into a long line; the ends of the line crept +forward swiftly on either hand, and the whole pack raced to the attack +in the formation of a Zulu impi--in the shape of a pair of horns, that +is. When the points of the horns got on the far side of their "prey," +they rushed together, and turned inwards, still at full gallop. + +At this juncture the sleighs came back--at the gallop, too. +Four .450-caliber Express rifle bullets, one .375-caliber magazine and +one .315-caliber magazine bullet, arriving among the wolves in quick +succession produced no confusion. Not a wolf stopped. Each beast +continued its tireless gallop, swerving and dispersing as it raced, and +without uttering a sound, till, almost before you could realize what +had happened at all, there was a dwindling crescent of gray specks in +the background, and four or five other gray shapes--two kicking--lying +about in the foreground. + +But--and this is where we come in--neither there in the distant +snow-haze nor close in by the crowding hunting-party was the white wolf. + +He had been last on view far in advance of, and heading, the point of +the right-hand horn of the swiftly encircling pack--his usual place, by +the way--but from the moment the returning sleighs hove in sight, and +the bar-like gleam of the moonlight could be seen upon the ready +rifle-barrels--he had seen that, too, and knew its meaning--he had +been--nowhere. + +Now, before the encircling horns of the pack closed round, one of the +pack-horses, maddened with fear, had stampeded and got clear away. +That horse was galloping now madly across the plain, hidden from view +by a gentle swell of ground, and--the white wolf was racing alongside +of it; and away behind--for few could keep up with the tremendous speed +of the white wolf--another, and an ordinary gray wolf was gliding in +their tracks. That was a female wolf, who more than once before had +found it a profitable investment to keep her eye upon the doings of the +great white leader. + +She saw the white wolf leap, beheld his wrenching side-stroke at the +terrified horse's throat, heard the horse scream, and watched it bound +forward. Followed another leap of the relentless giant white shape; +the horse seemed to stumble in full gallop, and next instant came down +headlong. The rest was a whirl of snow, flying hoofs, and a horrible +worrying sound. Then all settled down, and as she tore up she found +the white wolf feeding ravenously against time, bolting his meal as +only the wild members of the dog tribe, hyenas, and vultures can. She +was starving, that she-wolf, but she halted upon her hams, such was the +reputation of the white leader; but when he failed to snarl at her, +she, too, fell to, and bolted her meal like a crazy thing. + +Directly he had fed enough the white wolf flung round upon his heels, +and, with a single quick whimper, was gone, streaking over the plain +away from the hunters, away from the scattered, discomfited pack; away, +away, as he had never galloped before. But, then, before he had always +been the hunter. This time, if he knew anything of "Pack Law" and the +temper of the pack over this bad defeat and heavy loss, coming on top +of the bad bear "break"--this time, I say, it was he who was, or, at +any rate, might be, the hunted. And he had reasons--very sound and +private reasons--why he must not meet even one wolf of the pack in +combat. Wherefore he streaked, stretched flat, and doubled into a bow, +his shadow chasing him, and the she-wolf--afraid to be left +alone--chasing his shadow. + +Very often before the white wolf had caused the pack to run into +dangerous and decimating trouble, but always with a feed at the end. +He had never before sold them a pup, as the saying is, like this one. +Moreover, he felt that his slaying of the horse secretly--and they were +bound to scent out and read that--would not improve matters. Wherefore +he guessed that, after years of restless rule, it was about time to +quit, and he quitted. But unfortunately there is only one thing harder +than becoming leader of a big wolf-pack, and that is, ceasing to be +leader and--live. + +Five miles over the desolate waste of white--and what is five miles, or +ten, or fifteen, to a desperate wolf?--the two beasts ran into a +river--literally into a river. Ice stretched far out from the bank, +yet the river was so wide that they could scarce see the opposite bank. +They could see the grinding, growling ice-blocks floating all round +them which they plunged in, however, and they could feel the icy bite +of the water--water that would stop the action of a man's heart. + +But the white wolf did not attempt to swim to the opposite bank, or +mean to. He made a detour, and landed upon the same side he had +started from. He did that three times, the she-wolf always following +faithfully, because she had now become too frightened to stay alone and +do anything else; and then he started upon another mad gallop of miles, +but this time along the bank of the great river. + +Finally he stopped and stared out over the ice, the thick water, and +the gnashing pack-ice. Far away, it seemed, through the snow-haze, he +could see a wooded height, an immense island, round which the river +looped in two great arms. + +He knew the spot--trust him. + +No beast in its senses would try to swim the long distance across to +that island, but from time to time a hunted deer had made the attempt, +and a few of those that tried it had survived the ordeal and populated +the island. More than once, in heavy snow, the white wolf himself, at +the head of his pack, had hunted a deer down to that very spot, and had +watched its head fade across the water into the distance. Once he had +started to follow; but the pack had turned back, and he at length after +them, snarling at their heels. Now he knew how long the swim looked +from the deer's point of view. + +It was an ugly proposition. But--he turned his head in the stillness, +broken only by the multitudinous voices of the ice, and heard a far, +far distant multitudinous murmur, and that was no ice, and it settled +him. It was the united voice of the pack _on his trail_! + +He paused, ran up and down, gave an odd, little, deeply expressive +whine, like a puppy afraid to take its first bath, plunged in with a +rush, and struck out. Soon he was out upon a piece of drift ice, +shaking himself, and began leaping from one lump of floating ice to +another. It was tricky, slippery, slidy work, and a fall might mean a +broken leg or a crushed skull; but anything was better than dissolving +like mincemeat in the jaws of the slavering pack. + +Once, when a long way out, he looked back, and beheld the she-wolf, +whining piteously as if she were being thrashed--and wolves are dumb +beasts when "up against it"--following him. + +She, too, had heard that wild, terrifying, implacable music of the +wolf-pack following them; and although I, personally, doubt if they +would have touched her--unless it was the other she-wolves that did +it--she seemed to have been smitten by panic, and to prefer the deep +sea, or the river, rather, to that pack of maddened devils. + +And so, slipping, sliding, splashing, swimming, scrambling, the white +wolf, after the most appalling struggle of his life, managed somehow, +blindly in the end, with sobbing breath and pounding sides, to make +that terrible passage, and collapse as he landed in a stiff white heap, +the water frozen in icicles upon his body as he landed. + +For a long time he did not move, and it began to seem as if he had +burst his heart. But at last he dragged himself to his feet and turned +drunkenly--to find the she-wolf lying at his side. + +Thoughts came back slowly; but at length he shook himself, and stood +erect at his full, immense height. He had given the wolf-pack +something tricky in the way of trails to unravel, but he knew what he +had taught them too well to build too much on that. And he was right, +for presently, from far, far across the water, came the unutterably +terrible baying clamor of the pack, moving swiftly along--then it +stopped. + +For a long while he waited after that, straining ears and eyes out over +the moving ice, and the water, and the night that was there; but +nothing could he see, and nothing more he heard except at last, far +away, one last, long, lonely, ghastlily lonesome howl--the howl of +defeat. + +Then it seemed--but truly it may only have been a trick of the +moonlight as he snarled, revealing his white fangs under his +wickedly-curled-back lip--it seemed, I say, that the White Wolf of the +Frozen Waste grinned. And good reason had he to grin, for the life of +the white wolf had been nothing more nor less than one long, bad, bold, +blustering, bullying _bluff_! What's that? Yes, sirs--bluff! And in +this wise. + +Firstly, his extraordinarily long legs gave him a height out of all +proportion to his real hulk; secondly, his abnormally long and woolly +coat gave him an apparent bulk which was out of all proportion to fact; +thirdly, his actual bulk was really scarcely larger than that of any +very large wolf; and, fourthly--but this concerned him only now--he was +really quite an old wolf; one long past his prime, one quite unable to +face any really full-grown fine young wolf, one retaining only his +matchless speed by reason of his abnormally long legs, and his +leadership by terrific and cleverly acted ferocity on the strength of +his apparent giant dimensions. That was all, but it was enough; wasn't +it, boys? Would you care to have changed places with the old rascal, +and played that bluff out against _those_ odds, in _that_ company, for +years as he had done? I _don't_ think. No, nor I, either. It was +some gamble, that. What? + +At last the White Wolf of the Frozen Waste turned, with an insolent +flourish of his brush, and trotted up the bank on the heels of the +she-wolf, who had come to life again and preceded him into the dense +tangle of the woods, which swallowed him up, him and his darned bluff, +utterly. + + + + +XV + +FATE AND THE FEARFUL + + We are the little folks--we! + Too little to love or to hate.--RUDYABD KIPLING. + +No one ever accused him of not being all there. The job was to see +what was there. + +A tiny alderman of the red bank-vole people, whose tunnels marched with +the road through the wood, taking the afternoon sun--a slanting copper +net, it was--at his own front-door under the root of the Scots fir, was +aware of a flicker at a hole's mouth. He looked again, and saw the +mouth of that hole was empty. He blinked his star-bright eyes in his +fat, furry, little square head, after the manner of one who thought he +had been dreaming. But catch a bank-vole dreaming! Besides, how about +the squirrel overhead? He was hanging over a branch where the flicker +had been, swearing fit to slit his lungs, and old squirrel wasn't much +given to make mistakes, as a rule. + +The bank vole turned back into his hole, knowing the law against taking +chances in the wild, and the first stride fetched him up short in +violent collision with another bank-vole--otherwise red-backed +field-mouse, if you like--coming the other way. + +The blow, full on the forehead, did not break his neck; but it ought to +have done. It cast him clean over backwards out of his own front-door, +where he fell down the bank, and was received, all his little short +paws scrambling for a hold, by a thistle, and would have told all the +world, with a thin, high squeak, what he had sat on, if the squeak had +not frozen between his chisel teeth. + +There had shot out of the hole, and back, a Thing. It might have been +the thick end of a whip-lash or a spring, and, like a spring, as it +recoiled it coiled, and was still. + +The bank-vole saw. Most entirely did he see, and felt no joy in the +seeing, either. Indeed, there was no room for mistake in the zigzag +black chain down the back, in the unspeakably cruel, fixed stare of the +glassy, lidless eyes, in the short head and flat cranium of the true +viper--viper, adder, or whatever you like to call the calamity without +legs, whose other name is death. + +Now, bank-voles know all about vipers. They have to; they die, else. +They die anyway; but no matter, for they are small and very many. +Also, vipers know all about voles, field and bank; they specialize in +'em! + +But our bank-vole knew all about the "freezing" game, too, and he +"froze." My word, how that little beggar was still, so utterly bereft +of movement that a fly settled upon him--about the first and the last +that would, I should judge! And if a learned native had come along the +road at that moment--on tiptoe, of course--he would have said the viper +had hypnotized friend vole with fear. Hypnotize your grandmother! But +you may take it from me that serpent thing was playing his game, too. +He was "freezing" to induce the quarry to move and give himself away, +because, since the vole was motionless, he had no idea where the little +fellow was, although he seemed to be looking straight at him--in that +execrable way snakes have of seeming to look straight at everything. + +You think it was a battle of patience? W-e-ll, maybe. Maybe, too, it +was a battle of nerves. I like to think so, anyway, for that +snake-servant of the Devil had none, and the bank-vole had; and the +bank-voices broke under the awful tension--or seemed to--and the +bank-vole broke the terrifying spell. Also, he broke the silence. + +Away down the ditch he went, bouncing like a tiny ball of dark +thistle-down, all in and out among the vegetation, which, worse luck +for him, the ditch being under the accursed shadow of the firs, was +scanty. And as he galloped he squeaked three times--like a little +needle stabbing the late afternoon silence, it was. + +His removal was one kind of quick dodge in the art of quitting; that of +the viper another, and a very beastly one. The crawling thing was not +much more than one-tenth of a second after the poor bank-vole in +getting under way, and the rest was a--was a--oh, anything you please! +I call it a sliding flicker that you rather "felt" than saw. Also, the +thing rustled horribly, and Fact can say what she likes. I swear it +shot along quite flat, crawling, not undulating; but, ough! what a +lightning, footless, legless crawl! No wonder the poor little devil of +a bank-vole squeaked! The wonder was he didn't faint on the spot, for +he knew what was coming. + +Up the bank he pattered, and into that, to him, great subterranean +highway which seems to be conjointly kept up and used by all the +mysterious little four-footed tribes of the field, and which runs the +length of practically every bank and hedgerow. The place was dark and +cool and echoing, and bare as the palm of your hand, and far cleaner +than many palms. It might have been cleaned out that very day by a +fairy vacuum-cleaner; but it hadn't. It was always like that, clean as +the proverbial new pin. Heaven alone knows who did the "charing" +there, but those little furry tribes might have given lessons on health +in trench warfare, I reckon, at a guinea a time--and cheap at that. +They had found out that dirt meant disease, you bet. + +Down that tunnel drummed the bank-vole, seeking to foul his trail with +just any other creature; and, the highway being, as I have said, a sort +of public affair, he met first a mouse gone astray, then a mole asleep, +then a long-tailed wood-mouse, then a short-tailed field-vole, then a +shrew about as big as your little finger. But they must have heard the +scrape of the snake's scales down that echoing tunnel following hard +behind, for they avoided our bank-vole like the plague, and dived up +one or other of the thousand and one side-tunnels, which opened on to +the main one, too quickly for the viper to catch them. + +Then the poor, little, panting bank-vole found himself once more in the +open. His beady eyes shone like microscopic stars as lie paused in a +copper bar of setting sunlight and looked about for a refuge. It +seemed, by the piston-like throb of the whole body, that his heart +would burst and slay him out of hand before the hated snake could, if +he did not jolly soon find one. + +Then a hedge caught his eye, and he climbed it, being a good acrobat in +his spare time. Beyond, however, bringing down upon himself the pecks +of several birds, he did no good, for it seemed that, whithersoever he +could go, the snake could follow, and--help!--the flat, terrible head +was not a yard from him now. + +Worse was to follow, though. He dropped to earth again, already a +beaten beast; and, to complete the catastrophe, by a miracle he had +landed where there was not a mouse or mole or vole hole, or any other +cover, within reach. Only one big clod of earth there was, and round +that he flung himself, with that stub, scaly snout weaving at his very +tail, and rolled over and over and over--done, too utterly spent even +to squeak. + +Then Fate lifted her finger, and things happened. All that had gone +before didn't count, it seemed. + +The little bank-vole was dimly aware of rolling under a big, warm, live +shape. He was also aware of a funny little fussy grunt in his ear, and +that a set of very white and business-like teeth flashed for an instant +in the sun, as they chopped surprisedly at him going under them, and +missed. Thereafter the shape sat down, nearly stifling him; and in the +same instant the whole air seemed to fill with the sudden, long-drawn, +venomous, terrifying hiss of the viper close at hand. Evidently the +limbless death had come round the corner too quickly, and had all but +rammed the shape that grunted. + +I can give you my word, though, that the vole was not happy one bit. +He appeared to be between the Devil and the deep sea. He had no +confidence in the deep sea, or any other thing that he could think of +in his world. Moreover, the deep sea, besides keeping all the air off, +was most horribly bristly, even on the belly. Wherefore that vole made +haste to quit station, so to speak. But in a second, it seemed, before +he could clear himself, that unspeakable serpent's hiss appeared to +sound in his very ear, and the deep sea, folding upon itself, made the +poor vole yell as if he had touched off a live-wire. He had not, of +course; but it was like being struck with a dozen pins at once. He +would have got out if he could, but to move was to discover more pins, +and he just had to keep where he was, squealing fit to burst. + +And that saved the vole, probably. + +Not that there was any magic or rubbish of that kind, of course. It +was simply that the viper, shooting his every inch round the corner in +the effort to grab the vole's hindlegs then or never, had hit, full +pelt and nose first, the nice little array of pointed arguments carried +on the back of the neck of a hedgehog, snuffing under the clod, +pig-fashion, for spiders. The hedgehog, whose phlegmatic disposition +and special armament allowed him the luxury of never being surprised at +anything, promptly and literally shut up, so that long before the viper +thing had unhooked his nose and was waving his forward part about over +the hedgehog, with murder in his eye and death behind his flickering +tongue, looking for a place to strike home, old hedgehog was rolled up, +and snuffling and snoring away inside there, like an old man chuckling +when he has just cried "Mate!" at chess. + +This trying position continued for perhaps five minutes. It seemed +like five days to the wretched bank-vole. + +Then the slow temper of the funny old hedgepig smoldered gradually +alight. His eyes grew red in the foxy head of him, his snout "worked," +and he snuffled and grunted faster and faster. He made up his mind to +fight. And the extraordinary combat began. Lit by the blood rays of a +setting sun, from a sky all raw and red, backed by the blue-gray haze +of the watching woods, the silence broken only by the ghostly whisper +of the snake's scales and the tiny pig-like grunting of the +hundred-spiked hedgehog, that duel started. + +Peering out of a peep-hole in himself, the hedgehog waited for an +opening. It was no blunderer's game, this. Death was the price of a +slip. He knew, however, and accepted the risks deliberately--a plucky +enough act, when you come to think of it, for a beast no more than a +foot long and one and a half pounds heavy. + +The opening came. Quicker than you could realize, the hedgehog half +unrolled, and side-chopped with his glistening teeth. Quick, too, and +quicker, the venomous, flat serpent head writhed aloft and back-lashed, +swift as a released spring; but the hedgehog had ducked, or tucked if +you like, more than instantly back into himself. Followed an infernal, +ghastly writhing and squirming of the long, unprotected mottled serpent +body as it struck--too late to stop itself--simply spines, spines only, +that tore and lacerated maddeningly. Whip, whip, whip! flashed the +deadly reptilian head, pecking, quicker than light flickers, at the +impassive round _cheval-de-frise_ that was the hedgehog, in a blind +access of fury terrible to see; and each time the soft throat of the +horror only tore and tore worse, in a ghastly manner, on those spines +that showed no life and said no word, and defied all. It was a siege +of the wild, and a terrible one. + +Probably this was the first time in his life that anything had dared to +stand up to that viper. He acted as if it was, anyway. Usually his +malignant hiss, so full of hateful cruelty, was enough of a warning. +And those who ignored that did not generally live to repeat the +omission. He seemed utterly unable to understand that anything could +face his fangs of concentrated death and not go out in contortions. +And there were no contortions about this prickly foe, only an +impassable front, or, if you love exactness, back. + +Wild things, unlike man, are rarely given to lose their tempers. It +isn't healthy--in the wild. But if ever a creature appeared to human +eyes to do so, it was that snake. He struck and he struck and he +struck, impaling himself ghastlily each time, and using up his small +immediate magazineful of venom uselessly on--uncompromising spikes! + +At last he drew back, a horrible affront to the fairy scene, and, in +the snap of a finger, the hedgehog had unpacked himself, run forward--a +funny little patter it was, much faster than you would expect--slashed +with his dagger fangs, and repacked himself again in an instant. + +The snake, writhing afresh under the punishment, threw himself once +more upon the impassive "monkey-puzzle" on four legs, but beyond +tearing himself into an even more ghastly apparition than before, he +accomplished nothing. Finally he broke away, and slid off, a rustling, +half-guessed, fleeting vision, and there was fear at last in those +awful eyes, that could never close, as he went. + +Then it was that the quiet, unobstrusive, retiring, self-effacing +hedgehog threw off the mask, and hoisted his true colors. And yet, if +one came to think of it, there was no cause for surprise, for was he +not a member of the strange, the mysterious, the great Order of +Insectivora, which includes among its members probably the most +pugnacious, the most implacable, the most furiously passionate fighters +in all the wild? He fairly flung himself, unrolled, and running with +an absurdly clock work-toy-like gait, whose speed checked the laugh +that it caused, was after that viper in considerably less than +half-a-second, his eyes red as the sun they glinted in, his fangs bared +for action, his swinish snout uplifted at the tip in a wicked grin. No +beast to bandy words with, this. It was a fight to a finish, with no +surrender save to death. + +The bank-vole had already fled; but it was in the direction that the +fight finally veered that he had gone, and so, peeping from between the +weed-stems at the mouth of a hole, he saw all. He saw the viper, his +head swaying to and fro, come sliding along, making for that very hole; +he heard the sudden quick rustle in the grass behind that followed, +beheld the dusky, squat form that it heralded pounce. He watched the +snake's head whip round, and drive with all its power in one last +desperate stroke; watched it straighten out suddenly, and recoil in an +awful quivering spasm, like a severed telegraph-wire, as the hedgehog's +razor-sharp teeth cut through skin and flesh and backbone; and, +trembling from head to foot, he witnessed, half-fascinated, I think, +the awful last threshing flurry of the viper that followed. + +Later, when the moon peeped out of a hole in the clouds, and the +bank-vole peeped out of one in the bank, together--and his beady eyes +were not much behind the moon for brightness--when the tiny, long-eared +bats were imitating black lightning overhead, and a single owl was +hooting like a lost soul seeking a home, away in the black heart of the +woods, the bank-vole witnessed the burial of that hated viper. It was +not a big affair. Only one person--the hedgehog--took part in it, and +he was singularly unhurried, for he ate that poisonous fiend all up, +beginning at the tail, and thoughtfully chewing on from side to side to +the head--twenty inches of snake--as if he, the hedgehog, had been +inoculated in infancy, and was poison-proof. + +Then, still grunting, he went away, slowly, nosing here and there, +rustling loudly in that stillness, an odd, squat figure in the +moonlight; and the bank-vole thought he had seen the last of him, and +came out to pass about his "lawful occasions," as per custom. + +Now, if you or I had taken our meals after the fashion of that "wee, +timorous beastie," we should probably have departed this life from +indigestion or nervous prostration inside a month. + +He came very cautiously from his hole, and the first thing his fine +long whiskers telegraphed him the presence of was an oak-gall--one of +those round knobs that grow upon twigs like nuts, you know, but have a +fat grub inside instead of a kernel. At the same instant a leaf +rustled, and--flp!--there was no bank-vole. + +Allowing one minute for the passing of whoever rustled that leaf, and a +cloud-shadow, and there he was again, back at the gall, his shining +eyes, that mirrored the moon, being the only visible part of him. He +rolled the gall over and sniffed, and--that was quite enough, thank +you. No nut there, and he knew it--by scent, I fancy. In that moment +something trod softly, ever so softly, somewhere, and a spray of laced +bracken swayed one quarter of an inch, and--the bank-vole was not. + +Again about a minute's pause, and three bank-voles came out together. +Our friend was the last, and another was the first, to discover a +little hoard of seeds that some other tiny beastie--not a +bank-vole--must have collected and forgotten all about, or been killed +in the interval. + +In the wild, it is the law that "they should take who have the power, +and they should keep who can." It isn't a bad law, because it has much +to do with that other law called the "survival of the fittest," but it +is apt to come expensive if persisted in. + +Our vole hopped promptly towards the other vole, and made out that the +seeds were his; but before any kind of ultimatum could be delivered, a +twig fell, as twigs will sometimes, for no special reason that one can +see. The noise it made in that stilly wood was astonishing, and ere +the twig had reached the earth there wasn't a bank-vole above ground. +And yet so astonishingly quick and evasive are these little creatures +that in less than thirty seconds there were the two disputants, each +erect upon his haunches, with little hand-like forepaws held up and +joined under the chin--as if they were actresses having their +photographs taken--fighting, like little blunt-headed furies, for +possession of those seeds--so it seemed. I say "so it seemed" +advisedly, since close by, and almost invisible because sitting quite +still, was another bank-vole, who looked as if she were waiting for +something; which she probably was--a lover. + +It was, however, death that came, and he is a too attentive lover. The +battle had been going on some seconds without apparent result, possibly +because the voles had to bite upwards, shark-fashion, owing to the fact +that their fighting-teeth are wedge-shaped incisors, instead of +stabbing fangs, when there was a hrrr! That is all, just like +that--hrrr! + +Then there were no voles; but there seemed to have been no going of the +voles, either. They just were, fighting and watching the fight--then +they just were not. Instead of them, on the very spot where they had +been, a sheeted ghost, with wings that flapped and flapped, and never +made any noise, with the face of a cat, and big round eyes that +gleamed, and a snore most horrible, had simply been evolved from +nowhere, and under its claws was the little red-backed lady who waited +for a lover. + +Now, the coming of that apparition, whose wings did not say +"Hough-hough!" or "Whew-whew!" like other birds' wings do when they +fly, thus proving itself, or rather herself, to be an owl, and the +fight of Mr. Hedgehog and the poisoned death, had a direct connection +with, and a bearing upon, the little bank-vole's life, although they +may not have seemed to have at first. If the snake had not run amok +against the hedgehog, the latter slow personage would have been well +out in the meadow by that time, reducing the worm population, instead +of hanging about and coming up the ditch at that moment, with the hot +and worried air of one who is late. + +What he saw was the owl on the ground, flapping her great, soft wings +about, within a foot of the nicely, neatly, nattily roofed-in nest +where he and his lifelong wedded wife thought they had hidden cunningly +their four soft-bristled, helpless babies. What he thought he saw was +the owl engaged in turning one of those same babies into nourishing +infant owls' food, or "words to that effect." And the hedgehog, like +most of the order Insectivora, is cursed with the temper of Eblis, too. +Naturally, therefore, things happened, and happened the more +hectically, perhaps, because Mrs. Hedgehog chanced at that moment to be +away--attending to the last rites--shall we say?--over the form of an +expiring young rat. + +The little pig's eyes of him went red in his funny, bristle-crowned +head, and just as a clockwork toy charges, so he charged, with a quick, +grunting rustle and far greater speed than any one who knew only his +usual deliberate movements would have given him credit for. + +The owl had only time to turn her cat-like face and--hiss. But though +that hiss would have been good enough as a bluff to frighten creatures +who wouldn't upset a snake for anything, she was out of her reckoning +upon this occasion. The hedgehog, who dealt in snakes as a game-warden +deals in tigers, had no nerves that way. He just sailed in under the +baffling, great, flapping wing, and, ere ever the bird of the night +could spring aloft, had struck. It was a ghastly form of warfare, this +low running in and wrenching snap. It landed right under the armpit, +so to speak, and left a nasty round hole. And it is worth noting, by +the way, that precisely the same sort of hole, and in the same spot +almost, but lower and farther back, was to be seen upon the body of the +deceased young rat that Mrs. Hedgehog was even then attending to--the +trademark of the hedgehogs, that hole. + +All the immediate world of the night wild, watching from grass-tuft and +root and burrow, heard the rasping tap of the owl's beak hammering +helplessly at the spines on the back of the hedgehog, now beside +himself with rage. Not one of them, too, that did not jump with +terror--engrained by the bitter experience of hundreds of +generations--at her fiendish scream. Then, in a flash, that owl was +upon her back, wielding hooked beak and stiletto talons, as only she +knew how to use them; and the hedgehog, who had, in the blindness of +his rage, run in to finish the job, shot up clean on his hind-legs, +taking the clinging, flapping owl with him, while, for the first time +that night, he uttered a cry other than a grunt--an odd, piercing +little cry, vibrant with rage, or fear, or both. This was rather odd, +because ordinarily the hedgehog is a dumb beast, who suffers +"frightfulness" in grim silence. + +The tables were turned now. The shoe was on the other foot, or, to be +precise, the foot was on the underside. That is, the owl had got the +foe where he lived, below water-line, if I may so put it, where, like a +battleship, his armor did not run, and he was soft and vulnerable as +any other beast. Moreover, he had not trained himself in the art of +throwing himself upon his back, as the owl, who was like a cat in this +particular also, had apparently done, and since he could not prance on +his hindlegs, unicorn-fashion, forever, he had to come down again, +belly and throat first, on that infernal battery of talons and beak. + +And he got it all right enough. I give you my word that spiny one got +it; but, save for that one first little cry, he took his punishment in +grim and terrible silence, fighting with a blind fury that was awful to +behold. What happened to him underneath there in those few brief, +terrible seconds no one will ever know--and that, we may guess, is as +well perhaps, for there is no sense in dwelling upon horrors. What he +_did_, in the short time he was given by Fate, is a little more clear. +Butting madly down, oblivious of all things, even that unspeakable +fish-hook beak, grappling like a thing demented--and I think he was +nearly that--he bit deep, deep down, through feathers and skin and +flesh, _home_--once, twice, and again. + +Then, blindly, brokenly, smothered in blood, red-visaged and horrible, +he half-rolled, half blundered free of that frightful clinch, and +instantly rolled up! 'Twas his habit, the one refuge of his life, so +long as he breathed; his last, and usually, but not always, his first, +hope. + +The owl struggled somehow, in a cloud of her own feathers, to her feet. +The beautiful, fan-like, exquisitely soft wings flapped and beat +frantically. There came a peculiar musky sort of smell into the air. +She rose, all lopsidedly, perhaps two yards, flapping, flapping, +flapping with frenzied desperation, before toppling suddenly, +helplessly, pathetically, as the big pinions stopped, and she collapsed +sideways back to earth again, where, blood-smeared and glaring, lit by +the merciless, cynical moon, she crouched and coughed--as I live, +coughed and coughed and coughed, a ghastly cough like a baby's, till it +seemed as if she would cough her heart up. + +Then silence--that wonderful, mysterious, waiting, echoing, listening +silence of the woods at night--shut down, and darkness swept over all. + +When dawn came stealing westward silently over the still canopy of +leaves, both combatants were still there; and they were still here, +too, when the sun, silting in through a rift in the foliage, found and +bathed them. The owl was crouched as she had been when the moon left +her--crouched, and with her wings just a little open, like a bird about +to take flight; but she had already taken wing on the longest flight of +all. The hedgehog was, too, just as the moon had left him, rolled up +in a spiky ball, apparently asleep; but his sleep, also, was the +longest sleep of all. And over them both, in the heavy silence, could +be distinctly heard that horrible "brr-brr-brr" of flies that told its +own story. + +Now, that was in the morning, soon after sunrise; but long before that, +indeed the moment the hedgehog had first attacked the owl and forced +her to turn her attention to him, the little female bank-vole, who by +some mischance or miscalculation, had evaded the first terrible +handshake of the owl which spells death, had rolled clear of the fight, +and dashed for her life to the nearest tussock of grass that offered +shelter; and the first thing she fell over there was our bank-vole, +"frozen" motionless. He was there because the scene of the fight was +between him and the holes in the bank, and for the life of him he could +not muster up courage to run the gauntlet past those dread, struggling +forms. + +In the end, there being scarcely sufficient room in the tussock for +both to hide effectually, and there seeming to be some danger of the +combatants trampling them flat where they lay, he led the way up a +tree, whose gnarled bole took the ground barely six inches away. It +was one of those great-great-great-grandfather oaks, which, if it had +been in a more public spot, would certainly have been raised to the +dignity of one of the few hundred trees that hid Prince Charlie. It +was not, however; but it had another peculiarity, as the voles found +out later on. + +Scared out of their little wits by the fury of their enemies below, and +afraid to go down and bolt across the open, even after the cessation of +hostilities, past those appallingly still, crouched bodies, who, for +all they had guarantee to the contrary, might be in fiendish, alliance +crouched there, waiting for them to descend, the two voles explored +gradually, in their own dainty, little, deprecating, creeping way, +branch after branch of the great spreading patriarch, till suddenly, at +the very tip of the longest and biggest limb of all, they +vanished--into ivy. What had happened was quite simple, however. +There was no trick in it. It was all above-board. It was simply that +the mighty tree at this spot grew close to one of those outcrops of +cliff that formed, as it were, broken-off pieces from the main cliffs +which bordered the river and the valley on one side farther up, and one +of the oak boughs had gradually been annexed by the ivy--itself of +great age--that clothed the face of the cliff. + +Climbing steadily upwards through the network of ivy-stems--he had no +wish to go down now, for he could hear the river talking to itself +directly underneath him, and a false step meant a clean drop into the +swirling black depths thirty feet or so below--the bank-vole, with his +companion in close and trusting attendance, presently came out on top +of the cliff. He found himself upon a space all clothed with +vegetation, bushes, and stunted trees, some hundred yards long. +Beneath him, as he peered over, he could see the roof of the wood, all +laid out like a green tablecloth, and here and there, through gaps, the +river, now shrunk to no more than a stream, by reason of the fact that +men, for their own purposes, had dammed its waters about a mile farther +up the valley, and constructed a reservoir there. + +The voles knew nothing about any dam--then. They were satisfied to +explore the cliff-top and the crevices, to discover the tiny eggs of a +coal-tit, and remark on their flavor; to nose into every crook and +corner that came in their way; to learn the excellent facilities the +place offered for setting up housekeeping; and to discover that no +other bank-voles appeared to have found their way up there. + +This took time, for they naturally had to flirt in between, and so it +happened that the sun had been up some while before they finally set to +improvising a home, in a partially earth-filled rocky cleft, with their +own sturdy forepaws. They had got so far as to dig in out of sight, +turning every few seconds to push out the loose earth, when the dam up +above broke, and a few hundred, or thousand, for all I know, tons of +water dropped into the valley--crash! + +And thus it happened that, when the sun set, those two little, +big-headed, blunt-nosed bank-voles, looking out upon an endless sea of +water, above which the top halves of the trees in the wood rose like +mangroves, were, save for a few that had climbed into trees and would +starve, the only bank-voles left alive, to repopulate that valley with +bank-voles, out of all the teeming thousands whose burrows had +honeycombed every bank in the vicinity. Verily, how strange is Fate, +"who makes, who mars, who ends!" + + + + +XVI + +THE EAGLES OF LOCH ROYAL + + He makes a solitude, and calls it--peace.--BYRON. + + He comes, the false disturber of my quiet. + Now, vengeance, do thy worst.--SHERIDAN. + +The rising sun came striding over the edge of the world, and presented +the mountain with a golden crown; later it turned the rolling, heaving +mystery of the mists below into a sea of pure amber. A tiny falcon--a +merlin--shot up out of the mist, hung for a moment, whilst the sun +transformed his wings to purple bronze, and fell again, vanishing +instantly. Next, a cock-grouse, somewhere below the amber sea, crowed +aloud to proclaim the day, and a raven mocked at him hoarsely. + +Then, and not till then, the Chieftain awoke. The Chieftain showed as a +chocolate, golden-brown, wedge-shaped mass of feathers, perched on a +lonely pinnacle of rock, and, his appalling, razor-edged claws being +hidden under the overhanging feathers of his legs, he was scarcely +striking. Next moment he opened his eyes, and was no longer mean, for he +was a golden eagle, and the eyes of a golden eagle are terrible. In them +are written hauteur, pride, and arrogant fierceness beyond anything on +this earth; there is also contempt that has no expression in speech. He +shot out his neck, clapped his talon-like beak, and gazed out, over the +mist that hid Loch Royal, to the south shore of the loch, where lived his +son. The loch was, as it were, their frontier, the boundary-line that +divided the hunting-grounds of father and son, and it was seldom crossed +by either bird. + +A little wind rose somewhere in a mountain gorge, and went shrieking +down, rending the mist asunder, as a man rends carded wool. And behind +the wind slid Chieftain, who know the value of a hidden descent. He shot +through the rent, racing down with the sun's rays to earth, and surprised +a cock-grouse at his breakfast, nipping off the tender heather-shoots +daintily one by one. So swiftly did Chieftain fall that the grouse never +knew what had killed him; he was dead--in a flash. The great eagle swept +on with the grouse in his claws, and, without stopping, beat upwards +again. + +Suddenly, without any warning, a bullet came singing over the rolling +heather, and passed, with a whine, close to Chieftain's head. Later came +the blasting report of a rifle. As for Chieftain, he gave one amazed +scream of outraged and startled dignity, dropped his grouse, and went; +and when an eagle goes in that way, it is like the passing of a rocket. + +A few minutes later Chieftain was whirling round high up among the crags, +calling imperiously for his wife, as a king might call. And she came, +she came, that huge, fierce bird, with a trickle of blood dripping down +her neck, and a fire in her eye that was unpleasant to behold. She, too, +had been fired upon and grazed by a bullet, and she said so in no +measured tones. Now, the laird of Loch Royal deer forests had never +allowed his eagles to be fired at or killed. They were part of the +family possessions, as it were--always had been for generation upon +generation; and, moreover, they kept down the grouse on the deer +forests--which was useful, since the grouse is the red deer's unpaid +sentinel, and give him warning of the crawling, creeping stalker. + +Wonderfully the two eagles circled round one another in mighty, +still-winged glidings, effortless, majestic, masterly, sometimes +together, sometimes apart, drawing ever away northward with scarcely a +wing-flap, without, it seemed, any visible force to drive them, till they +swam, like specks on the eye-ball, miles away and upwards round the +white-mantled peaks. + +Here, so easily can birds pass from scene to scene, they were in another +world, an Arctic land, silent as the Arctic, bare as the Arctic, cold as +the Arctic, and, at first sight, desolate and uninhabited as the Arctic +appears to be. But this was only an example of Nature's wonderful magic. +Desolate it was. Uninhabited--no. + +So far as the eagles could see, there was only a raven, cursed with a +far-advertising blackness, who sat upon a splintered fang of rock and +mocked them hollowly. But he was not the only creature there. + +Sweeping down with a hissing rush over a giddy slope of shale that looked +perpetually upon the brink of a general slide down _en masse_, with their +immense shadows underrunning them, the eagles startled suddenly by their +unexpectedness a great red beast into motion. There was a clatter of +antlers, a click of hoofs, a little shower of stones, and away went a +superb stag, a "royal," a "twelve-pointer," lordly and supercilious, +picking his way without a slip on that awful incline. But until he +moved, even he had been quite invisible, bang in the open though he was. + +The eagles, following him and swooping at him with imperious savagery, +because they were still angry and upset, though never really coming near +him, bustled him into taking that awful path at a loose hand canter, not +so much, I think, because he, the king of the forest--and this, this +lost, lone scene, was part of the local conception of the word +"forest"--cared the sweep of a "brow-tine" for the eagles, as because he +was startled and uncertain as to what was supposed to be happening. And +the stones spurned by his neat hoofs--he seemed to kick most of them down +behind him as he finished with them, each making for itself its own +miniature avalanche--helped to add to the sudden confusion. + +Then it was as if a shell burst in front of him--right under his haughty +nose--and he moved exactly eight feet one inch without touching the +ground; also, in doing it, he cleared a five-foot-seven-inch bowlder, so +absolutely without the slightest sign of an effort that he seemed to have +been blown upwards. It is worth noting, because twenty seconds before he +had been too lazy to clear a four-foot heather-bush, and had gone +_through_ it. + +The "shell" had been a party of ptarmigan very much flustered and upset +by being all but galloped over; not the white and frozen ptarmigan of the +cheap poultry warehouse, but the "live" proposition of that name in their +gray, or usual, disguise, posing as stones among many thousand that lay +around the summits. + +Wild horses would not have put the ptarmigan on wing in face of those +terrible, sliding, underrunning shadows of death--indeed, one had been +lying within two yards of the Chieftain, as he slid back low to ground +after stooping at the lordly stag--but this crashing avalanche of shale +with the king of the forest atop was too much for them, and they went +down the "hill" into the nothing and the far distance that lay, so to +speak, almost at one's feet, like a spatter of shrapnel. + +At the same instant two gray shadows evolved themselves out of the very +ground, and slid away, swift as scudding clouds, up the slope; and a +third gray form, also apparently sprung from nowhere, rose from before +them, and dropped like a spent projectile into the low-lands. They were +two mountain hares and an old sinner of a gray crow; but the thing that +caught the Chieftain's stabbing eye most was none of these. + +Both eagles had, with half-shut wings, dropped like mighty barbs towards +the dim, blue distance of the vale, after the hurtling ptarmigan; but in +an instant their great vans respread, their big, wedged tails swiftly +fanned, and with every available brake on, as it were, they fetched up +almost short. Then they both described a single, gliding, calm, +lazy-looking half-circle, and settled upon a turret rock that shot +fifteen feet up from the mountain's shoulder. + +Above them, the snow shimmered and glistened blindingly. Below, the warm +mists of the dales steamed off under the beating sun. Loch Royal lay +like a mighty, burnished shield to the southward; and northward, peak +rose behind peak in everlasting grand perspective. + +Near them was only the lonely slope, bare now, it seemed, of all life. +But they thought otherwise. Their unspeakably fierce gaze was focused +upon what looked like a grained slab, like any other grained slab, if it +had not all at once begun to twitch, and so--even then one could only +make out the faint outline of a body--turn gradually into a wild cat +asleep on his side. The twitching was not the result of a fit, but of +dreams. Probably he had not meant to go to sleep at all--in a land of +golden eagles! He had merely meant to bask in the sun, within instant +spring of a handy hole between the stones if anything in the enemy line +turned up. That very sun, however, had conspired with drowsiness to +betray him, and--something in the enemy line _had_ turned up. + +Even so, I doubt if the golden eagles, with all their wonderful prismatic +binocular vision, made out the cat, as man could. Birds have not that +power, as man has. The twitching they were instant to see. The cause of +it they must have, equally instantly, suspected. Certainly, however, was +a long time coming to them. Precisely when it did, no man knoweth. They +remained like carvings or very fine figures cast in bronze, and as +immovable as the same, for the best part of an hour, if you please; and +during that time all the sign of life that either of them gave was to +wink a yellow eyelid, as quickly as an instantaneous shutter winks, +several times. + +At the end of that period a rain-squall came racing and howling round the +summit. It passed in a few seconds, and left mist--cloud, if you +like--damp, dank, and chilly, and a dead calm, in its wake, and--the +Chieftain had vanished (I told you he knew the value of a hidden +descent). But goodness and his own arrogant self alone knew when or +where; in the squall, most likely. But he had certainly vanished. + +The Chieftain's mate sat on, as stolid, and as solid, and as statuesque +as ever. She had not moved when he evaporated, or given any sign +whatever. + +With the coming of the mist, the cat woke up. The cold probably awoke +him. He was not pleased. He had come to get warm, not cold. He arose +and stretched himself, baring all his claws and fangs with lazy +insolence, for any whom it might concern to see. + +Then--he collapsed, falling as if the slab on which he stood had slidden +from under him, and remained--flattened tense, wide-eyed, and dangerous. + +The Chieftain's wife had jerked her head and sneezed. At least, she had +yanked her cranium quick as quick, and made a noise. It seemed like a +sneeze. For the rest, she remained as motionless and expressionless as +bronze Buddha, her wonderful orbs scowling at the wild cat. + +Then that cat got off that slab of rock. I say got off, but it would be +more correct to say that he slid off sideways on his tummy--flat. One +had difficulty in seeing that he moved. His inscrutable, wide, sinister, +yellow-green eyes were fixed upon the Chieftain's wife. The whole of his +attention was fastened, focused, concentrated upon the Chieftain's wife. +And there he made his mistake. He forgot about the Chieftain himself, +but the Chieftain had not forgotten about him. In fact, the Chieftain +was there, on the spot, or over it, rather, exactly above the wild cat's +head, five hundred feet above, and very slowly revolving upon wide, +outstretched pinions, as if hung by invisible, slowly swung wire from +heaven. + +If the cat had looked up! But, then, the cat would not have been a wild +four-footed animal if he had. In all the aeons four-footed wild-folk +never seem to have learnt to look up, and, for the omission, die some +painful deaths that might otherwise be avoided. I do not say that none +of them _ever_ look up--they do, but it is seldom. + +Indeed, finally this wild cat did look up; he could not well help it. +There was a sound like the swift descent of a smiting sword above him. +But he was seconds too late. + +Seconds before, the Chieftain had vanished again. Nay, he had changed. +His wings had shut, and--he had turned into a line, a dark streak drawn, +almost as lightning draws itself, from heaven to earth, +thus--wh-r-r-r-ssss-sh! + +It was then that the cat looked up--just in time to receive the +Chieftain's black tiger-talons, upon brilliant yellow claws, clashing +against his own ivory fangs, and--well, in his eyes. + +The Chieftain's wife flung from her strange self her immobility, flung +out a scream, flung open her pinions, and--shifted. She could not have +arrived upon the scene more than three seconds after her lord--but not by +any means master. She was certainly not half that time getting to work. + +I am not going to describe the struggle that followed, in deference to +certain good, kind, and well-meaning people who are unable to face the +stern realities of life, or--to save their country. Such things, +however, must be; and they would not happen if it were not for a hard, +though very sound, purpose, among beasts as among men. Nature is +far-seeing and very wise. Moreover, she hates hypocrisy, and--well, we +may not all be butchers, but most of us eat meat. + +It was certainly a very great confloption, for, of course, that wild cat +fought like a--like a wild cat, which is like a Welshman, and I cannot +say more than that. And in the end the whole inferno, being upon a very +sharp slope, began to slide, and slid, dragging a welter of dust and raw +earth and feathers and fur after it, in an avalanche of its own, till it +fetched up in a tangle of mountain-ash roots and furze two hundred feet +below, where it furiously and fearfully, in one wild, awful, whirling +flurry, ended. + +After that the Chieftain dragged what was left of that wild cat out of +the bushes, where he had tried to jamb and crawl and burrow himself, out +into the open--well into the open--so that the eagles could look all +round, which they like to do, being birds of high degree--also vermin, or +counted as such by gamekeepers of low degree. + +The pair--Heaven and the laird alone know how long they had been good and +faithful partners in life--thereupon set to hooking at one another with +their horny, dragon-like beaks, gripping with black-taloned yellow claws +that even a Hercules would shake hands with just once, beating with +monster wings that would knock you or me silly, snapping horny, +resounding snaps, and generally "not 'arf a-carryin' on" in the approved +and correct modern matrimonial manner. So it appeared, at least; but +among eagles--within the royal circle, that is to say--such things might +be their way of paying compliments, for you cannot expect feathered +couples of the royal blood to behave like a pair of mere love-birds. + +Then came the bullet. + +It was a neat, long, nickel-jacketed, lead-nosed bullet of some +.300-caliber, and its own report was chasing it. It sang a high-pitched, +plaintive little song all alone to itself as it traveled along through +the fine, champagne-like mountain air, at about thirteen hundred feet per +second, and it was aimed to hit the Chieftain exactly in the full of the +chest. That was why, I suppose, it hit the wild cat smack in the +backbone, and killed that poor beast all over again. But you can never +tell with bullets. + +It might be mentioned here that just as turtle-soup is to their worships, +so is wild cat to golden eagles--a _bonne bouche par excellence_, so to +say. They do not get it every day, or every month, for the matter of +that--at least, not in these islands of enlightenment, for the wild cat +shares with them the honor of being a martyr of Fate, and it is on the +_index expurgatorius_ of the gamekeeper also. + +But, I give you my word, those two mighty birds left that wild cat +uneaten. I say "left" him advisedly, for it was rather a matter that +they had left him than that they did leave him. Anyway, they were not +near him, not anywhere near him, and I suppose they went. There had +arisen a noise as if all Regent Street had at that moment rustled its +combined "silk foundations," and--there were our eagles far, far away, +and in opposite directions, melting quicker than real sugar-knobs in hot +grog into the haze of the distant sky. + +And after that the Chieftain and his wife glided up into the setting sun +till it swallowed them in a red glory, and when the sun had burnt itself +out, swam--swam stupendously and wonderfully--through ether down to bed. +Bed with them that night consisted in sitting, regally enthroned among +clouds, upon a black, rock bastion exactly above a clean drop of not much +more than six hundred feet, and rocked by "the wracked wind-eddies" of +the mountain-tops. The good God who made all things--even the animal +that had fired at them--alone knows what they dreamt about, that superb, +intolerant, fierce, haughty, implacable couple. + + * * * * * * + +Now, the man, the--er--lord of creation, who had fired that shot--in +fact, all those shots that day--was Pig Head, the back-to-the-lander from +the South. Pig Head argued that deer forests are farms lying idle. And +the laird had offered to rent him a farm at one-and-nothing-three the +acre to disprove it. Pig Head had taken the offer. He disapproved of +lairds as unrevolutionaries. He hated red deer because they were too +smart for him to kill wholesale, and he loathed golden eagles because +they were the pride of the "hills." But he kept his opinions to himself, +because he valued his neck. The People of the Hills would have stretched +it very much longer than his own long tongue if he hadn't. In his heart +he also hated the "oppressed" People of the Hills for that they loved +their laird, regarded deer-stalking as a religious rite, and--wore kilts! + +As a matter of fact, Pig Head's farm never grew anything more than some +clinging heather, a little cross-leaved heath, patches of furze, a clump +of storm-bent Scotch firs or so, and rock--mostly rock. + +Pig Head had only been able to get what he thought was his own back upon +that day by firing at the eagles, because the laird and the stalkers, the +gillies, the keepers, and the People of the Hills, were away, all away, +at a sheep-dog trial, or a clan meeting, or something. After that he had +to work in silence, and he did. + +There are always people who will buy a golden eagle "British caught," and +those who don't want live ones will take 'em dead, and have them stuffed. +They like to be able to set 'em up in the hall among other stuffed birds, +and boast that they shot 'em. Other people of it like decayed mind come +and look at them, and offer money for them at sales out of jealousy. +That's collecting. + +Now, somewhere, somehow, sometime during his checkered career, Pig Head +had heard, or read, of a way of catching golden eagles. He proceeded. + +Upon an unholy and cold shaly slope well up among the clouds, the mist, +and the ptarmigan, Pig Head had hollowed him out a hollow, roomy enough +for himself to crouch in. He was the sort of man that crouched--and +"grouched." Over the top he put a nice big slab; the walls were of piled +stones, and at one end was an aperture eight inches or so long by about +one foot. Being made of its surroundings, the hiding-place did not look +at all suspicious--from a bird's point of view. + +Finally, upon the morning after the unsuccessful shooting, and before it +was light--this was necessary, for there is no knowing how far the eyes +of eagles can see--Pig Head ensconced himself in this hiding-place. It +was perishing cold, and Pig Head, who did not smoke, and never drank +whisky--only gin--was blue of nose and numb of hand. A good plaid would +have helped him, but he abhorred plaids. + + * * * * * * + +The dawn came up over the mountains, the mists sank down to the vales, +and the dawn wind, lean and searching, went whispering over the hills. + +Then a speck grew out of the heights, out of the west and the dark, and +growing and growing momentarily, became a rustling, sinister, untidy, +heavy shape, which anon settled upon a rock, and croaked, "Glock! glock!" +twice, almost like a bark, in a deep and sepulchral voice. To it was +added another sable form, coming down from the lonely stony heights, and +the two sat together, remarking, as they looked--but their wonderful eyes +must have seen it very far away--at the bait. It was the wild cat turned +inside-out, and other things, on a slab outside the aperture before +mentioned, that was at one end of Pig Head's hiding-place. And the black +specters were ravens. + +"Ou!" they said; then "Aw!" then again "Ou!" One remarked "Augh!" and +the other agreed--or, it may have been, disagreed--with an "Au!" + +Evidently the wild cat, in a disguise in which he would not have known +even his own self, looked very enticing, and he and the situation +generally were being discussed from all points of view. + +I say from all points of view advisedly, because, although the ravens +discoursed much over their council of war, they would not come within a +hundred yards, and it was a voice from the semi-dark, or western, side +which finally stayed them in the very act of unfolding their big, rounded +wings to fly away. + +"Krar-krar-krar!" rasped the voice; and the ravens folded their wings +again to wait and see! + +It was a gray crow, and the ravens knew that never was gray crow an +innocent lost in the wilderness. + +If the gray, or hoodie, crow--always remembering that crows, gray or +black, are servants of the Devil, just as ravens are, and very +cunning--if the crow, I say, thought that here was food without some +horrible form of hidden death lurking behind it, then the chances were +the gray crow was right. They knew "hoodie," you see. Anyway, if they +let him go first, and he was wrong, then it would be _his_ funeral, not +theirs. + +Wherefore the gray crow went first to the bait, and Pig Head, half-dead +with cold and peering out of a tiny peep-hole, called down blessings of a +weak and watery nature upon his black head. And well he might, for if +the gray crow had shied at the bait, then everybody else would have taken +his tip. + +They took his tip now, for in a few minutes there was a "hurrr-hrrr-hrrr" +of wings, and, one after the other, down came the ravens. + +Anon the ravens were joined by a third, volplaning from some +cloud-covered peak, where he must have been watching all the time; and +the crow was joined by four accomplices, who just drifted up from nowhere +special, as gray crows have a habit of doing when there is carrion afoot. + +But Pig Head had not come there to entertain ravens, nor was he at that +moment laying up a store of lumbago for the purpose of gratuitously +feeding disreputable gray crows. He had other quarry in view. The gray +crows, however, were his best asset. They quarreled, and were +loquacious, and, in fact, they made a most infernal noise; and he had +stated that the noise was necessary to his success. This would seem as +if eagles hunt by sound as well as by sight. Pig Head was the first +person I ever heard that suggested so. But, be that as it may, the +racket increased as the sun, robed in purple, gold, and crimson splendor, +rose over the mountain-tops; and with the sun came the only bird, so the +ancients tell us, who can look the sun full in the face without +blinking--_Aquila_, the eagle. + +But--make no mistake about this point--he who came then, grandly, proudly +sweeping over the blue, dim ridges, was not the Chieftain himself, for +this was not the Chieftain's territory, but the Chieftain's son; he who +lived, as you will remember, upon the other, or south, side of Loch Royal. + +Haughtily, statelily, as a king might go to his throne, so did the +Chieftain's son let himself down, in stupendous hundred-foot spirals, to +a pinnacle of rock, jagged, saw-edged, and perpendicular, about two +hundred yards away; and the ravens and the gray crows, who saw him +coming, made great and sudden hostile outcry at first, and then, as he +folded, foot by foot, his immense pinions about him, and sat there erect, +with his piercing, scowling gaze bent upon _them_, they were dumb. + +And Pig Head, aching with cramp and cold in his hiding-place, knew that +_the_ quarry was at hand. But if you think, because the eagle was at +hand, that the time was at hand too, you don't know eagles. They may be, +upon occasion, as quick as the spring of death, but they can also be as +slow as the wrath of Heaven. And that bird there, the great, grand, +haughty, unbending _Aquila chrysoetus_, that golden eagle, sat. I say, +he sat. And there, so far as he was concerned, appeared to be an end of +it. He might have been a carven copestone of the very granite fang he +sat upon, for all the appearance of life he gave, except that +occasionally--say at fifteen-minute intervals--he winked a yellow-lidded +wink. And the wink was almost as unlifelike and uncanny as the bird. + +And the gray crows and the ravens gulped and quarreled, with one eye upon +the eagle and one upon their job; and Pig Head--Pig Head sat and cursed +that eagle, from his horny beak to his barred tail, through +chattering--and aching--teeth. But the eagle never moved a feather. + + * * * * * * + +We are told that Alexander sighed for other worlds to conquer. So it was +with the Chieftain, who was not Alexander. + +After his wife had gone a-hunting eastward--a wonderful and gigantic +silhouette floating and dwindling into the furnace of the rising sun--the +Chieftain sat upon his ledge of rock, staring across the gleaming, +painted, glassy expanse of Loch Royal, southward, to the dominions of his +son. + +He had seen his son, a speck in the dawnlight, invisible to our eyes, +sailing from peak to upflung peak. He had seen him suddenly check and +circle downwards. And then--he had not seen him. + +He had waited two hours, with that patience which birds and reptiles +have, and still he had not seen him. Yet, if during that time he had +risen, the Chieftain must have seen him. And the Chieftain knew that. +He knew also that a golden eagle very rarely makes a "kill" so big that +he has to remain with it two hours. The alternative, therefore, would +seem to be death or carrion; and the way in which he had circled down +would seem to suggest carrion. And it is written among the laws of the +king of birds that when carrion is about, the strict rules and +regulations as to the inviolability of the frontiers may be, in some +degree, broken. + +Therefore the king unfurled his overshadowing vans, and launched himself +down the lake with mighty, slow, powerful strokes, like the steady thrust +of marine engines. He would go and see. + +Five minutes later the Chieftain was as motionless as his son, perched, +like him, too, upon a rock, watching the highwaymen and footpads of the +moors squabbling over the bait--they had no eyes to see what they were +doing, for they had to keep one eye upon each eagle--and about two +hundred yards away on the other side. + +This may have hurried matters somewhat, for within only about another +half-hour the Chieftain's son rose, and, with heavy wing-flaps, flew down +to the bait, sending the ravens and the crows up in a cloud, like blown +bits of burnt paper, as he came to anchor. And it was curious that, in +stooping to meanness, the royal bird's aspect was no longer grand. He +flew heavily and clumsily to the spot. He settled without grace, and +almost overbalanced on to his Grecian nose. He clutched, and tore, and +gulped, and gorged like a vulture. Thus Nature always dresses her actors +for their parts. You may have noticed it. + +[Illustration: "He clutched, and tore, and gulped, and gorged"] + +But Pig Head--Pig Head was chuckling. He had silently and softly removed +the clod of peat that blocked the aperture before mentioned. Running +through this aperture he had a cord whose other end was fastened to the +bait, and every time the great eagle wrenched and tore at the flesh, he +very, very gently pulled the bait towards him. He did not move when the +mighty bird had his head up, gulping, you will note; for even Pig Head +knew that an eagle nearly standing on his head and tugging, and not +feeling the difference between his own tugs and the tugs on a cord, is +not the same as an eagle with his head up and eyes stabbing everywhere at +once. + +At last the victim had been drawn, upon the bait, within reach, and Pig +Head, slipping his hand through the opening, grabbed the thick, powerful +legs of the bird, and pulled. There was one mighty upheaval of vast +vans, and--no eagle! What happened down inside the hiding-place was more +or less private. There were sounds as if a young earthquake were getting +ready to be born in that place; but in the end the Chieftain's son had +his legs tied, and suffered the indignity of being ignominiously thrust +into a filthy sack. He said nothing during that argument, but his looks +were enough to kill anything with a thinner hide than Pig Head. + +Immediately Pig Head got ready for the Chieftain. What's that? Yes, the +Chieftain is right. That great, haughty bird had not moved. You see, +eagles are not educated up to seeing their full-grown sons disappear into +the bowels of the earth without explanation or warning given. There is +nothing in their experience to meet the phenomenon. Consequently they +don't tumble, as a rule, and--well, listen for yourself. + +In a short time--a short time for an eagle; not less than half-an-hour, +really--the Chieftain flapped heavily to the bait, and fed--beastily, if +the truth must be told. + +He was bigger than his son, and heavier, and knew more about the world, +and Pig Head was longer in seeing a fair chance to make a grab at the +royal legs. At last, however, the chance came, and Pig Head grabbed. +The Chieftain naturally lost his balance, and before he knew what had +happened he was inside Pig Head's "booby-hutch." + +The Chieftain, however, was not an ordinary bird, not even an ordinary +eagle. Moreover, he must have been a great age, older even than Pig +Head. Be that as it may, the Chieftain believed mightily in the wild +maxim which says, "They should take who have the power, and they should +keep who can." + +And upon that he acted. + +It all happened in a flash. Like lightning his right wing came round +with a terrific flail-stroke, and hit Pig Head in the face at the precise +instant that the surgical instrument he carried as his beak sank deep +into one of Pig Head's calves. The Chieftain was upside-down at the +moment, and his legs were tied together, but that made no difference to +the savagery of the blow. + +Pig Head uttered one howl of agony, and tumbled backwards, and his devil +saw to it that he should tumble backwards upon the very sack wherein lay +the Chieftain's son, squirming with rage. The Chieftain's son was a son +of his father, and hearing the young hurricane of his father's wings, and +feeling the intolerable weight of Pig Head sitting involuntarily down +upon him, struck for the cause like a good un--struck, with his cruel, +hooked bill, through sack, through trousers, through pants, and home +through flesh, and Pig Head rebounded into the air considerably quicker +than he had gone down, hitting his head against the roof, a resounding +whack, and yelling fit to awake all the devils in cinders. And he did +not go alone. Upon one calf, and upon--another portion of him, the +Chieftain and the Chieftain's son went with him. + +Very few men have ever left a powder-magazine on fire in quicker time +than did Pig Head leave his hiding-place, and none could have made more +noise in the process. The Chieftain stuck to him lovingly, and the +Chieftain's son, sack and all, seemed determined never to leave him; and +Pig Head was nearly demented with pain as he leapt out, caracoling +wildly, into the light of day, and into the arms of--only the laird, the +head stalker, four gillies, and two collies. + +They had come to find him, these stern-faced, long, lean men, on account +of "information received." And they had found him. But they did not +speak. They were Scotch. Nor did they screw out a smile among them. +They were Jocks! They acted--being Highlanders. + +Four hands like iron claws seized Pig Head, and tipped him on end, even +as he had tipped the eagles. Two knives went "snick" as they opened, +then "wheep-wheep" as they cut. Several pieces of cord and bits of +sacking flew into the air. There was one colossal upheaval of wings, a +feathered whirlwind hurling everybody every way--and the Chieftain and +his son, released and scandalized, offended and enraged beyond the rage +of kings, rose swiftly into the air with mighty, threshing strokes that +simply hurled them aloft like powerful projectiles--into the heavens, as +it were terrible avenging spirits of the tempest. A chaos, a rush, a +mighty blast of air, and--they were gone! + +Then the laird turned to Pig Head, and, "Mon, ye dinna ken th' laird. If +ye did--w-e-e-l, Ah'm thinkin' ye'd understand." + + + + +XVII + +RATEL, V.C. + +Between the clumps of the stunted acacias the sun beat down with the +pitilessness of a battleship's furnace, and it was not much better in the +acacias themselves. Save for a lizard here and there, motionless as a +bronze fibula, or a snake asleep with eyes wide open, or the flash of a +"pinging" fly, all Nature seemed to have fled from that intolerable +white-hot glare and gone to sleep. + +But the hour of emancipation was at hand, and the dim caverns of +shade--what there was of it--stirred strangely. A hundred yards away a +blotch of shadow beneath a group of stunted trees swayed and broke up +into several zebra moving off to water. Fifty yards distant the inky +shade that carpeted the earth under a bare outcrop of rock gave up a +single gnu antelope bull and a Grant's gazelle whose lyrate horns were as +wonderful as his consummate grace. + +Thereafter came sound. Till then there had been only heat, the first +hints at movement, and the terrifying silence of the wilderness. Even +the birds had been dumb. Now came "a feathered denizen of the grove" +with a peculiarly arresting, grating chatter, a noise no one could +overlook, and few could help investigating. And finally, brazenly, +impudently, excitedly flitting from branch to branch, the chatterer +evolved slowly out of the ragged bush-choked landscape, a dusky little +bird, seemingly a bird of no importance, scarce larger than a lark. + +Putting personal appearance aside, however, this feathered one, who dared +to shatter the slumber of the everlasting wilderness, seemed to be under +the impression that he was of vast importance. Moreover, his business +appeared to be pressing and urgent, so that he could neither brook delay +nor take "No" for an answer. It was as though he was under a desperate +need to take you somewhere or show you something, and YOU must follow +him--_must_; there was nothing else for it. + +But nobody cared. The zebra trooped off without turning their striped +heads; the gazelle, weighted under his horns, and the gnu bull stalked +away unattending; the lizards remained fixed in a permanent attitude of +attention; and the snakes continued to stare at nothing. No one took the +slightest notice. + +Then came the reply. + +It was as if a person or a thing, deep down in the bowels of the earth, +hearing the bird, stirred in its sleep, and shouted up, "I come." And it +came. + +Heralded by a peculiar, quaint, little, chatty, sibilant, hissing, +whistling chuckle, there emerged from a regular cave that he, or an +ant-bear, or some other burrower had constructed under an ancient bush, a +beast--a most remarkable beast. + +It was long--about three feet. It was low; it was stumpy, clumpy, +sturdy, bear-like, and altogether odd. It had no ears that any one could +find, and it rattled the most murderous armament of claws that you ever +guessed at. But that was not all; not by any means. It, or, rather, he, +had really been colored grayish white in the first place; but Nature had +thoughtlessly dropped him into a vat of black paint on his "tummy," flat, +and left him there to swim about, so that by the time he got out he was +one half, including chin, black, and the other and upper half, including +top of head and back and top of tail, grayish white. And then, for a +joke, it seemed, Nature had painted a white band round where black and +grayish white met, a sort of water-line, so to speak, and let the poor +little beggar go--go, mark you, into a wild where self-advertisement is +something more than unhealthful for the smaller folks. Afterwards, +however, Nature--who is all a woman--had repented, seemingly, and being +unable to undo her own jest, had given to the little, slow, conspicuous +beast, as compensation, a courage surpassing the courage of any other +beast on earth. The result was rather curious--it was also the ratel, or +honey-badger, who had nothing at all to do with rats, but everything to +do with honey, and was self-evidently more than three-parts badger. + +"Kru-tshee! Kru-tshee-chlk! Krue-tshee-chlk-chlk, whee-tshee-tse-tse, +tse-i-who-o-o!" he whistled, and chuckled, and muttered, and fairly sang +to himself as he came trotting along towards the cheeky little bird, like +a dog that answers a whistle. His gait was all his own, as he, too, was +all his own original self, being unlike anything else, although he bore +the stamp of the badger people upon him. + +With a calm, rolling trot, head down, tail up, back a fraction arched, +with something like the slouch of his distant relation, the wolverine, he +proceeded, preceded always by that dusky phantom bird that flitted and +perched ahead of him, like a yellow-hammer down a country lane--calling, +calling, calling. And he, lifting his odd, flat, "earless," sleek head +to it, would whistle and chuckle in reply. They had, it seemed, arrived +at a perfect understanding, these two, during the centuries. "Lead on, +Macduff!" he seemed to say. + +They passed antelopes anchored in the shade; hartebeest, impala, and roan +after their kind. They heard the click of horn and the stamp of hoof, +but troubled not. They passed the place where a leopard lay asleep up a +tree, and saw a devil's whip of a ten-foot mamba snake--and the bite of +that same is a sixty-second short cut to the grave--flee before them as +if they, and not it, were death incarnate. Once a serval cat, all legs +and ears and agility, stood in their path to listen to the funny +chuckling, whistling noises, but fled when it saw the little, low ratel +as if it had seen a ghost. + +But always undeterred by anything in the way, engrossed utterly on the +task in view, the dusky bird flew ahead, calling the ratel on with its +harsh cry; and always the ratel, unhurried and cool, jogged along in its +wake, answering, and whistling, and chuckling away to it, as if convulsed +with inward merriment. Perhaps he was. It was a strange procession, +anyway, and one you don't look for every day in the week, even in Africa, +the land of mysteries and surprises. + +Finally, the bird stopped; and the ratel looked, and saw that it was +flitting round the base of a big mimosa. Enough! He hurried a little at +last. Next moment he was nearly hidden under a continuous stream of +earth and dust flying back from his amazing foreclaws, and a whirling, +whirring vortex of perfectly demented bees, whose nest, that had been +weeks in the building, was dissolving in seconds under the trowel-like +scoopings of those fearful claws. + +Honey! Honey! Honey! + +That was it. That was the magic word the bird, who was a honey-guide by +name, had shouted to the ratel, who was a honey-badger, you remember; and +honey-bees they were that made the air delirious. + +The bird, with the quick eye of a detective, had located the hole of the +nest, but having no trowel, forthwith fetched the ratel, who had, and +together they fed, the beast on honey, and the bird on the grubs in the +combs. + +And the bees? Oh, they don't count! At least, they might have been +house-flies for all the notice the ratel took of them, save now and then +to bunch a dozen or so off his cowled head carelessly. Yet they would +probably have nearly killed _us_. + +It was about this time that the bull-gnu appeared, tramping steadily +towards them; a rugged, rough renegade of the wilderness; a ruffian +kicked--or, rather, horned--out of some herd forever, and, for his sins, +doomed always to face the risks of life alone, or in the companionship of +other male outlaws of soured temper like himself--almost always male; the +female wild seems guiltless of law-breaking, or is under a banner of +protection if it is not. Such "rogues," as men call them, are not +gentlemanly, as a rule. And, by the way, you know the gnu, of course, +_alias_ wildebeest? The head of a very shaggy buffalo, the horsy mane, +the delicate, strong, sloping antelope body, the long, mustang-like tail, +and the strange, twisted, unconventional character, half-fierce, +half-inquisitive. + +He--that lonely one--was going to drink, and he may have been doing it +early because he had only his two eyes and ears, and his one nose, to +warn him of the dozen or two forms of death that awaited him at the +drinking-place, instead of the eyes and ears and noses of all the herd. + +The gnu saw neither honey-bird nor badger till he was within a yard of +them. Then he stopped as instantly still as if he had been electrocuted. + +The ratel, who had himself to feed, and a wounded wife and two young whom +he would lead to that honey-feast anon, looked calmly over his shoulder +at the form of the antelope towering above him. There was no sign of +fear in his straight stare at the shaggy, ferocious-looking horned head. +He had no business with it, and would thank it to mind its own affairs. +And the honey-bird didn't care much, either, she having no young to feed, +because, cuckoo-like, she left other birds--woodpeckers, for choice--to +see to that. + +Wherefore, for as long as a man would take to select a cigarette with +care and light it, there was dead silence and stillness, broken only by +the distant, deep "Hoo-hoo, hoo! hoo-hoo, hoo!" of a party of ground +hornbills. + +Then that devil of meddlesome curiosity which is the curse of the +wildebeests fell upon that gnu, and sanity left him. + +"Kwank!" neighed he. And again, "Kwank!" + +Next instant he had spun, top-fashion, on all four feet at once, and +jumped in the same manner, and was gone, whirling round them, with great +shaggy head down, and in a halo of his own swishing tail, at the rate of +knots. + +It was nothing to be wondered at in that strange antelope that he should +then sink from wild motion to absolute, fixed rigidity, broken only by +the restless, horse-like swishing of the long tail, staring hard at the +ratel. + +Perhaps it was the bees that did it, or perhaps the ratel stood in the +gnu's very own path, or in the way of his private dusting-hole. I know +not; neither did the ratel--nor care much, for the matter of that. But +when the gnu went off again, circling with hoarse snorts, and shying and +swerving furiously and wonderfully at top speed, he sat up on his +hindlegs, the better to get a view of the strange sight. Perhaps he +thought a lion was lying somewhere near that he could not see from his +lowly, natural position. + +Again the gnu stopped as utterly instantly as if he had run into a brick +wall, pawed, stamped, snorted, and went off once more into furiously +insane caperings--a new set--all the time circling, with the little, +black-and-gray, erect figure of the surprised ratel as a pivot. + +And then, in a flash, before any one had a second's warning to grasp the +truth or prepare, with head down, eyes burning in the down-dropped, +shaggy head, and upcurved horn-points gleaming in the afternoon sun, he +charged, hurling himself, a living, reckless, furious battering-ram, +straight at the little ratel. + +Did that ratel quit quick? Do ratels ever quit an unbeaten foe? I don't +know. They may, once in the proverbial blue moon; but I haven't seen +'em. This one didn't. He seemed to know that it is held to be a sound +military maxim to meet an attack by counter-attack, and he did, though he +had only the fifth of a second to do it in. Ah, but it was good to see +that odd little beast trotting out coolly, head low, tail high, singing +his war-song as he rolled along to meet the charging foe so many, many +times his own size. + +Next moment there was a thud--somewhat as if some one had punched a +pillow--and the ratel was flying through the air, high and fine, in a +graceful and generous curve. A thorn-bush--what matter the precise name? +there are so many in those parts, all execrable--acknowledged receipt of +his carcass with a crash, and for a few seconds he hung, like a sack on a +nail, spitted cleanly by at least one thorn, far thornier than anything +we know here, before the thing gave way, and he fell, still limply, this +way and that, hesitatingly, as it were, as each point lovingly sought to +retain him, to a fork near the bottom, where he stayed. + +At last he picked himself out of the fork, and--oh my!--with a whistling +grunt of rage, coolly, calmly, clumsily if you like, but grandly all the +same, trotted forth into the open to look for that bull-gnu again. And +that, sirs, was the sort, of animal _he_ was. + +The bull-gnu, however, who was not previously acquainted with small +beasts that would face his charge--and an aerial journey, _and_ the +thorns--and come back for more, had fetched a curve at full gallop, and +loped off into the landscape. For the first time since the herds +outlawed him, I fancy, he seemed to be quite pleased with himself, and +soon, antelope-like, put the ratel from him placidly, and forgot. But he +was reckoning without his host. If he had done with the ratel, the ratel +had not done with him. No, by thunder--not by a good bit! + +Finding no bull-gnu, the slow little black and grayish-white fighter from +Fightersville returned at a walk, still whistling with rage, to the +unearthed bees'-nest, which looked like a town after a bad air-raid. And +the first thing he did was to patter almost on top of a cobra, a +five-footer, who, having narrowly escaped death by the gnu's flying +hoofs, was what one might call considerably "het" up, or "off the +handle," so to say. + +The servant of the Devil sat up, blew out its beastly hood, and shot +forth a hiss that seemed to run all up and down one's spine, like +lightning on an elm-tree. + +The robber of honey sat up, said "Tchik!" and turned a somersault. +What's that? Yes, somersault is right. + +Followed instantly two thin jets of liquid, as much as anything I can +think of like those lines called "trajectory curves" which ballisticians +do so love to draw in books on rifle-shooting; only, these curved lines +began at the hollow point of Mr. Cobra's poison-fangs, and were meant to +end in Mr. Ratel's eyes. They didn't. Old man ratel, he was standing on +his hind-legs, with his sturdy paws in front of his eyes--like a man who +looks across a sunny land--and seemed just about to turn a somersault +again. He changed his mind, though, when the poison, that would have +blinded him for life--and that life wouldn't have been long in that wild +_then_, I want to tell you--stopped, and he went in at that black-necked, +legless, soulless servant of Satan, utterly and amazingly unafraid. It +was fine. + +Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you that when Nature repented, and gave +the ratel a courage surpassing the courage of any other beast on earth, +she also gave him a skin tough as a pachyderm's, and loose, as if it were +two sizes too large; and that is why that black-necked cobra died quite +quickly, and the ratel didn't, even slowly. Even if the snake's fangs +had got through, which was not in the least likely, that did not mean to +say they would touch Mr. Ratel's person inside. This, by the way, may +explain why being spitted on thorns, like a beetle on a pin, when the +bull-gnu charged, did not seem to worry him much, either. + +The moon was up when the wounded mother ratel, on guard at the mouth of +her burrow, looked up sharply. A side-striped jackal, who kidded himself +she had not seen him lying in wait to find out, when she went hunting, +what she hid in that den, suddenly bolted with a yap; and a hyena, +represented by two burning eyes, who appeared, by some magic of his own, +to guess she was wounded, jumped up and made way for something that +approached. It was her husband and the cobra, the latter trailing along +limply behind, who came that way; and even the hyena had retired, with an +audible sigh--at least, it wasn't a moan quite--when he claimed the path. +After all, there is no sense, if you are the most cowardly beast for your +power on earth, in getting up against the pluckiest thing in creation in +full possession of life and liberty. + +Later our ratel sallied forth to "face the world" again. His wife had +recovered from her wounds--the result, these, of refusing to believe she +was not so good as a twelve-foot python, and a bit better--sufficiently +to walk slowly; but that was not enough to face that wild where +die-quicks, from lions, down through leopards, hyenas, wild-dogs, +jackals, and the rest, are forever hiding, on the lookout for unfortunate +ones flying an S.O.S. signal. No, he must go and do the provisioning +alone, and alone he went. + +For a peaceful beast, one only too pleased to mind his own business and +thank other folks to mind theirs, his subsequent doings were rather +astonishing. This was because he cared for neither man nor beast nor +devil, in the first place, and because the night produced all three, in +the second. + +He got man in the form of the smell of meat--well-seasoned meat, even for +Africa!--what time he was testing a native village, by scent and on the +downwind side of him--and that showed his pluck, my word!--for honey or +fowl. He detected neither out of the few dozen unspeakable stenches, but +struck meat, and following it up-wind, arrived at a piece--a good big +piece--on the ground among grass. + +A civet cat--who is more civet than cat, by the way--a small spotted +genet--who looked like an exaggerated ferret in the uncertain gloom--and +the inevitable black-backed jackal--who must not be confused with him of +the side-stripes--faded out at his approach like steam in a dry +atmosphere. He might have felt proud of this silent respect, if it were +not a fact that these gentry, these village frontier haunters, scenting +danger, thought it a fine "kink" to let the brave one test it first. + +And he did. + +To be exact, that ratel touched off the tooth-jawed trap that was the +reason for that free meal of high and valuable meat in that place, and +when he jumped he didn't get anywhere. Also, it hurt his leg abominably. + +Then the others reincarnated themselves out of the shadows--especially +the jackal, who shouted "Yaaaa-ya-ya-ya!" and called a friend--and waited +for things to happen. They were confident things would happen, for +Africa is not a good place wherein to get caught in a trap--_there is too +much likelihood of being mistaken for the bait_! + +But they might as well have seen a thunder "portent" captured by the tail +as this ratel by the leg; for, instead of instantly and foolishly +abandoning himself to the frenzy of unthinkable fear--the fear of being +trapped is the greatest of all to a free, wild thing--as practically all +others would have done, he said nothing at all; he failed to lose his +head; and, to crown all, he instantly, coolly, slowly, viciously, and +doggedly set himself to struggle, with a grim persistence that was +amazing. And, moreover, from that instant he never left off. + +A striped hyena, seemingly in lifelong terror of his own shadow, turned +up by magic--or perhaps he heard the snap of the trap. Seven times he +bolted, for no earthly reason that one could see, before finally gaining +courage to snap at the ratel at the very end of his reach. It was the +kind of snap that would take half a man's face away, and not nice to meet +when you are trapped. The ratel, however, came calmly at the hyena, trap +and all, and so nearly got his own trap-jaws locked home on the unclean +one that the hyena was glad to go away. + +In the end, thanks to the amazing toughness of his skin, and its +looseness, the ratel managed to, as it were, slide the bone of his leg +between the jaws of the trap, leaving the skin and fur in, and the rest +was mainly determined tugging and strong fang-work. + +Then he coolly ate the real bait, and--the onlookers remembered +appointments elsewhere. None of them, it seemed, was tickled to meet the +ratel when he had finished. He was sure to be crusty; and, anyway, he +had bitterly disappointed them all--he had achieved the apparently +impossible, and, worst part of the lot, was not dead. + +Now, a ratel will do almost as much for honey as a bear for pork, a +leopard for little "bow-wows," or a man for diamonds. This will explain +why he was foolish enough to follow, some hours later, the trail of some +natives who had been out collecting honey from a camp the day before; or +perhaps he knew nothing about the honey till, not too scientifically, he +got into the camp. Anyway, the honey was very good. + +There are, however, from a wilding's point of view, camps and camps. +Most of the inhabitants of the wild, including the lion, who are not born +with a pluck considerably above proof, can discriminate the difference. +The ratel either could not or would not. + +Then the knowledge was driven home. Driven home in the shape of a big, +loose-limbed, deep-jowled brute of a dog, as unlike the ordinary native +curs as it well could be. It did not come silently, or suddenly, for it +growled full warning in a terrible bass; but the ratel showed contempt, +and teeth that glistened beautifully in the red light of the dying fire +the sleeping sentry ought to have seen to, but had not. Moreover, it did +not come alone, for the camp was a white hunter's camp. The dog gave a +thunderous baying rally-call, and almost before that sentry had leapt to +his feet, the ratel vanished tumultuously and suddenly from the public +gaze, under a perfect cloud of dogs. He was, ere any one knew what the +riot might be, literally smothered under dogs--dogs, too, most of 'em who +held up the deadly leopard, and hounded the tyrannical lion, habitually +and for a pastime, mark you. + +Then his devil prompted one of the black sentries to rush up and fire his +rifle. Probably he did not know what was under those dogs; certainly he +thought it would keep there. In any case, he nearly killed a dog, and +the cause of the trouble did not keep there. He came out, miraculously +alive, still more miraculously cool and unhurried. He broke away from +the dogs as if they were little puppies, and, still quite coolly and +slowly, he charged that man. + +The yell that followed could have been heard quite a long distance +through the cloaked night. And, in truth, one cannot wonder, for you may +take it from me that the jaws of a ratel fast home on the calf of your +leg, as our ratel's jaws were on that native's leg, form something to +remember in dreams. + +But it was that very native who saved our ratel's life, all the same; for +his gymnastic display during the few seconds that followed was so +energetic that the pink pyjamas and a revolver, that represented the +white hunter fresh from sleep, had no chance at all of doing any damage +except to the dancing native--which they nearly did; and the dogs, once +more piling themselves on to the ratel, broke his hold, and the whole +fight rolled and raged away into the darkness and the thorn-scrub, out of +sight. + +Later, one by one, those dogs came back, dead-beat most of them, with +tongues lolling and sides pumping. Some limped, and some turned away +every few yards feverishly to lick a wound. All were blood-stained, but +not a drop of it--not one drop--belonged to friend ratel. He, that +superb warrior, was at that moment trotting along, quite unconcernedly, +through the bush about a quarter of a mile away. There was blood upon +him, too--not his, the dogs'--and no other mark; and though he was pretty +sore and sick from internal bruising, his skin, his wonderful loose skin, +was whole, and unpierced by a single fang. He had, however, the decency +to go home and fling himself into a stupor-like sleep, just to prove that +he was a real, live beast of this earth, and not merely a phantom from +other worlds. + +The next afternoon was closing in dull and cloudy, and there were signs +of a dark and bad night to come--just the sort of day wild hunters come +out early in. This was why the grunt sounded then that heralded the +appearance of our ratel above-ground, and he himself appeared, emerging +at his very own slow trot from his hole. For a moment he paused, looking +round, with his funny, "earless," flat head in the air, as if he +expected, or listened for, the honey-guide; but the honeyguide was half a +mile away, leading some natives--who, by the way, were endeavoring to +copy the crooning, whistling replies of a ratel--to honey. + +No honey-guide? Then he must go and search for himself. And he did, +returning, in fifty minutes, for his wife, who, now much recovered--as +only a ratel can recover from the very jaws of death--followed him with +her young to the hole he had torn in a rotten tree-trunk where the bees +were nesting. + +They had proceeded perhaps three hundred yards, when, turning a bush +carelessly, as no other creature would dare to do, the ratel fell almost +on to the back of the bull-gnu. + +There is no need to be surprised that they should meet. The wild is not +an aimless mix-up in that way. Each creature has its beat, temporarily +or permanently, nor seeks to deviate. You may look for the same herd of +antelope, feeding near the same place, about the same hour each day; the +same lion stumping the same beat, as regular as a policeman, most nights; +the same hyena uttering horrible nothings within hearing of the same +hills, any time after the setting of each sun, just as surely as the same +cock-robin asks you for crumbs, the same blackbird awakens you with +inimitable fluting, and the same black cat seeks for both in the same +vicinity each dusk. + +The surprise was in what followed. Perhaps the bull-gnu kicked our ratel +badly as he lurched to his feet, jerked from half-sleep into violent +collision with he knew not what. Perhaps the ratel had a memory. +Perhaps the presence of his family weighed with him. Whatever the cause, +the result was decided enough. He reared and hit deep, and fixed home a +very living vise, where he bit. + +Then things happened, but that which immediately followed was not a +fight; it was not even a spar. The ratel never moved, although he was +moved--astoundingly. The gnu bull did the moving, and produced the most +amazing bit of violent activity one could dream of. It was quite +indescribable. A buck-jumping mustang of the most hustling kind would +have been as a gentle lamb to it. The ground all about looked as if +herds had jumped upon it--bushes, grass, flowers, and all were trampled +down flat. But it did not do what it was designed to do--it did not +break the ratel's hold. Bruised, assuredly, shaken so that he ought to +have fallen to hits, dizzy and blind, he did not let go, and in the +position he held he could not be hammered off. He just glued where he +was, saying nothing at all, till the end--till that grand old bull sank +and was still, exhausted, by loss of blood, and with one great hopeless +sigh his life departed from him, and he died. + +The ratel did not leave go for some little time. He seemed to suspect +that the gnu bull was bluffing, or perhaps he was himself half-stunned. + +It was the sudden and peculiar growling hiss from his wife--sounding all +a-magnified in that wilderness silence after the battle--that made him +look up, at her first, and then almost instantly at _something else_. +His wife was backing slowly towards the "bush," every hair on her body +sticking straight out at right angles, her eyes fixed strangely upon that +something else. His young had taken to cover, not, it seemed, too +readily, but by their parent's order. + +A lion was standing, still as a carved beast, at the far end of that +little clearing--_he_ was the something else. Goodness and his kingly +self alone knew how long he had been there, that great, heavy-jowled, +deep-bellied, haughty-eyed brute. He may have been present from the +first, or the middle, or only at that moment. Being a lion, he was just +there, suddenly, without any visible effect of having got there, a +presence of dread, created apparently out of thin air at the moment, in +that spot, and with less sound than a blown leaf. + +This power of being, without seeming to come, of evolving from nowhere, +is one of the lion's most highly perfected tricks; for King Leo believes +in all the ritual of his craft, and is great on effects, even down to the +minor details. Power, grim and terrible, he has, without shadow of +doubt; but he never forgets to impress that fact--and more--upon the +world, and every action is carefully studied to advertise, not himself, +but his "frightfulness." A very fine play-actor is the king of all the +beasts. + +But the ratel did not move. He had met his Napoleon, and was not--so far +as the watcher could see--afraid. + +Motionless, scowling, with head down, and shrewd, proud eyes smoldering, +the lion stood there like an apparition of doom. He was, I fully +suspect, letting the effect sink in deliberately. He knew his game. +Also, he had a reason. Surely a great poker-player was lost in the lion. + +But the little ratel met that regal stare squarely and unmoved. He whose +proud boast it was that he feared nothing that walked or crawled, or swam +or flew, could not be frightened now. And he who came to terrify was +perhaps all but ten feet long, and he whom he sought to terrify was +barely three feet. It was a comparison to make you gasp. + +Now, that lion did not want the ratel at all, or his wife, or his family, +or anything that was his. He wanted the gnu, and would be very pleased +if the ratel would go away and leave it to him. + +The ratel, moreover, did not want the gnu, being an eater of honey, +locusts, and generally badger-like fare for the most part; and if the +lion had only had the sense to wait a few minutes longer behind the +scenes, the ratel would have gone away and left the gnu. But he would +not be driven; _that_ was the rub. Attacking nobody unprovoked, he was a +grim beast to attack, and gave way before none. Hence the trouble. + +Finding that the bluff of the impressive tableau did not work, the lion +tried a fresh one. Still staring at the ratel, he sank his head to the +ground, so that his great mane hung to the earth all about him. His +forelegs and his shoulders crouched, but his hindlegs and his back were +held at their highest, and his tail began to lash behind. Then he began +to growl tremendously and nerve-shatteringly, and as he did so he curled +his upper lips up and back, till the whole ghastly array of his teeth was +laid bare to view. In this position he looked like a gigantic grinning +mask, with blind eye-sockets where the wrinkles were on the sloping +forehead, his eyes nearly invisible below, and a tail lashing far up +atop. It was a horrible sight, and one calculated to stampede the +pluckiest animal. + +It was, of course, also a deliberate piece of mesmeric bluff, the reason +for which was not made clear till one noticed, what the ratel probably +could not, that the great leonine tusks, the terrible fangs, were yellow +and worn, as were the rest of the teeth. This was an old lion, a king on +a throne already tottering, a monarch of yesterday. + +That lion, however, might have turned into Satan himself, for all the +ratel cared. He was threatened, attacked, bullied, forced. His blood +was up, and had not all who ever fought him allowed that he was the +pluckiest beast on earth? Enough! Come lion! come devil! he would give +ground to none. + +[Illustration: "All allowed that he was the pluckiest beast on earth"] + +Lions are not too patient. Also, they have fine spirit of their own. +They are among the very few beasts who will hunt and attack animals as +strong as, or stronger than, themselves. And this lion's patience +snapped suddenly. All at once he seemed to remember that he was still a +king, though a king already within the shadow of abdication. The +terrible bass rumble of his growl grew, and changed tone; his tail lashed +faster and faster; and then, all suddenly heralded by a couple of wicked, +rasping, coughing grunts, he--charged. + +The ratel moved to meet him--to meet him--and at a cool jog-trot! + +What happened then was hard to follow. It looked as if the worn fangs of +the lion failed to make his hold on the wonderful, leathern, loose armor +of the little honey-badger, and that he bungled the stroke of his +terrible paw. Be that as it may, the honey-badger certainly went +straight in, right under the lion's guard, right under the lion, and +rearing, he bit home, and hung like a living spanner. + +And here, perhaps, it is best to draw a curtain. For one reason, I +cannot describe it, and frankly confess the fact. For several other +reasons, it is best not to try. The ratel died in about ten minutes, +crushed, battered, smashed to death; but the chaos lasted longer than +that, because, even after death, he was not done with--the passing of +life had locked his amazing jaws shut forever, and _they were shut on the +lion_. + +The end found the little ratel lying crumpled up and crimson on the +trampled grass, and the lion running about like some great injured dog, +squatting down every few seconds to lick furiously at his wound. Fear +was in the eyes of the king of beasts, for the first, probably, and +certainly for the last, time in his life, and his blood reddened the +grass wherever he made his way; but the internal hemorrhage was the worst. + +Then the vultures came, and that, my friends, is a signal for us humans +to go. The vultures get the last word always, even in a story, and the +name of that word is--FINIS. + + + + +XVIII + +THE DAY + +Now, if you wore a helmet and neck armor of purple, green, and blue in +metallic reflections, with scarlet cheek and eye pieces, if your +uniform were of purple, brown, yellow, orange-red, green, and black, +"either positive or reflected," with a long, rakish, dashing +rapier-scabbard cocked jauntily out behind, wouldn't _you_ feel proud? +So did he; pride and the "grand air" were written all over him. True, +though, the rapier-scabbard was not a rapier-scabbard exactly--only a +tail; but it looked like one, in a way. His full title was _Phasianus +colchicus_, but ordinary people called him just plain pheasant for +short. + +You would have thought, after all this, that even in the first pale +light of a cold dawn he would have been easy to see. As a matter of +fact, Gaiters, the head gamekeeper, one of his underlings, three dogs, +and a gun passed right under his bed without seeing him. Rather, they +may have unconsciously seen him, and put him down as a bundle of dead +twigs and leaves caught up in a branch. This is not very +complimentary, perhaps, to a gentleman attired in a gorgeous uniform as +heretofore set out, but true; and lucky for him, too, to have at once a +uniform of unquestioned splendor and one which would melt into its +surroundings. + +They, the men, did not see him; but he, the old cock-pheasant, saw them +right enough. He opened one eye, and stared at them through that. +Then he opened the other eye, and stared at them through that. Neither +stare seemed to please him. + +It was not Gaiters's way to march through the wood at that hour in the +morning. What meant this unseemly disturbance of _Phasianus's_ domain? +His suspicions, never long at rest, woke up. Moreover, somewhere at +the back of his brain rose a memory, a little, tiny speck of a memory, +which grew. + +Then he stood right up. + +Everywhere, here and there, in the gray cloak of the dawn-mist, he +could hear the sharp "Chawk-chawk!" and the quick, flustered whir as +pheasant after pheasant came down from its roosting-perch to clean and +breakfast. But his suspicions held him for a few minutes longer, +stretching his neck and peering about at the still-shrouded mystery of +the ground below; and it was as well, perhaps. + +Suddenly his head was still; a spray of a brier-bush was swaying +gently. There was nothing in that, of course, if there had been any +breath of wind to move it; but there wasn't. Wherefore our gallant +friend did not come down to preen and breakfast like the rest, but sat +motionless as a statue, while the sun rose and touched him to a winking +golden and bronze wonder, and the mists began to be torn asunder. He +wanted to know what moved that brier-branch, and he wasn't taking +chances till he did. + +Day came on apace, and all the night hunters who had remained so late +had already hurried off to bed save one. _He_ appeared, evidently +empty, certainly very angry indeed at having waited for a cock-pheasant +who refused to do what he was supposed to do and come down to +breakfast. Out of the brier-bush he came, a lean dog-fox, snarling +horribly up at the pheasant, who calmly returned the gaze, conscious of +his safety, of course, and said "Chuck it!" in a loud, harsh voice, and +quite distinctly, twice. + +The fox, knowing it was no good to wait any longer in the daylight, +went, like a floating red shadow. The pheasant watched him go, but did +not move for some time. Foxes had been known to come back again more +suddenly than they went. + +At last he flew to the earth, but even then he did so as silently as +his noisy wings would let him; and he did not announce the fact with a +half-crow, as the others had done. Very circumspectly he slipped off +through the undergrowth, by a series of little crouching runs, stopping +every now and then to freeze and listen. + +Soon he came to one of those open, beautiful, grass-covered "rides" +with which keepers intersect pheasant-coverts. He stopped dead on the +edge of it, himself invisible among the drooping, leaning, old-gold +bracken. The "ride" was full of wood-people, for here had been +scattered that corn which Gaiters intended the pheasants to feed upon. +Indeed, there were about ten pheasants, hens and young cocks of the +year, doing exactly what they were intended to do. Also, there were +some half-dozen softly-tinged, blue-gray wood-pigeons, and one cheeky +jay--whose wing-patches rivaled the perfection of the blue sky +above--doing their best in a quiet sort of way to help the pheasants, +which they were not intended to do, by any manner of means. + +The old cock-pheasant slid across the "ride" after a bit, low as a +crouching rat. He had no business there this day. His mind was still +alert with suspicion. Moreover, his father had been a cunning old cock +who had managed, by ways that were dark, to keep out of the game-bag +for years, too. The taint, as Gaiters would have called it, had been +passed on to him. + +He made for the open edge of the covert, and he was mighty careful +about doing that even. He felt that air and plenty of horizon were +necessary to his well-being, after the disturbing vision of Gaiters and +Co., so unnaturally busy, hurrying through the dawn. + +Now, it is quite remarkable how much you can see from the edge of a +pheasant-covert without being seen yourself. Keepers know that, but do +not give the fact away. The ground sloped away in two open grass +fields, a hedge dividing them, and it was within about the longitude +and the latitude of where that hedge met the covert that our old friend +maneuvered. + +The climate about there seemed to suit him admirably. True, good food +was not strewn in plenty just where he could most easily see it. He +had to look for his acorns or his beechmast by the good old +domestic-fowl plan of scratching among the leaves; roots also he was +forced to scratch for; and the noisy mistle-thrushes with the tempers +of Eblis had to be driven off the berries he would look after in the +ditch. + +Also, there was a stoat. That stoat, however, tackled him just once. +In the process it discovered (_a_) that he wore spurs not meant to be +ornaments, and (_b_) that no one could teach him much about using those +same spurs. The stoat, plus a new carmine decoration for gallantry, +remembered an urgent appointment down a rat-hole, and kept it. Perhaps +it was a young stoat, and had not learnt that there are at least four +degrees of cock-pheasant, namely, young and brainless, adult and brave, +old and brave and cunning, and old and decrepit; but the last stage is +a rare bird. There is nothing of any use to the stoat in the second +and third degrees of cock-pheasant--no health to the stoat, you +understand. + +The dawning of the morning had passed by now in gold and crimson and +purple splendor; the mist-curtain had been drawn back by the fingers of +the wind, the utter darkness upon everything at ground-level had begun +to give way before the sun, and to leeward of most trees and bushes +there was a balmy luxuriance of golden light that held one lingering. + +Gnats were dancing under the low-hung boughs in still corners, as they +will dance on the coldest day; song-thrushes were beginning to take +life for one more day, and tack hither and yon, as if they were busy +pegging the field down with an invisible "cats' cradle"; and the black +rooks, shining like burnished steel shields, flashed and flashed again +as they began to gather beneath the trees, where the ground thawed most +and first. Though they alone seemed to have discovered it, the pigeons +very quickly found that the rooks had hit something good, and you can +bet one jay, at any rate, must be there, to make profit out of somebody. + +It was the jester of a jay, whom, in spite of his painted plumage, no +one seemed to have noticed, that first gave the alarm that carried the +cock-pheasant's suspicious temperament a step farther upon the path of +independent action. Up till then you will note that, though he had +left the vicinity of his own people, he had not yet left the realm that +was peculiarly their own--the woods. + +"W-a--r-k, w-a-a-r-k!" gasped out the jay suddenly, and fled, a +half-seen vision of pinkish, of black and white, upon uncertain, almost +fluttering, wings. + +It was like striking a gong. Instantly all motion was suspended, and +dotted thrushes, clustered rooks, and deprecating pigeons remained at +rigid attention. The old cock-pheasant, too, erect as an armored +warrior, unseen just within the covert, stood promptly at gaze. + +Then, in no more time than one would take to inhale one puff from a +cigarette, the fields were empty--stark, cold, and deserted in the eye +of the morning sun. The birds had not so much gone, exactly, as simply +faded out--dissolved, as a picture may at a cinema-show. The +cock-pheasant did not go. He was in cover, and had a good view, a +strategic position of some moment. + +Followed a pause. Then a man in tweeds entered one of the fields by +the gate. Followed him two more, then a fourth, then two not in +tweeds, then dogs, black and big, to the number of three, not to +mention the bar-like gleam given off by the barrels of the guns that +the first four carried. The whole procession passed silently, as they +thought--but to the waiting, watching, wild-folk unpardonably +noisily--diagonally across the field, and out of sight round a bend of +the wood. They had an air about them. I don't know what it was +exactly, but you could feel they were going to do something serious +that had not been done there for a long time. Perhaps the old +cock-pheasant felt it too, but--well, there now! Where had the old +"varmint" gone? + +Half-way down the hedge, very low and long, the cock-pheasant was +sneaking. He seemed suddenly anxious to mind his own business, and +that everybody else should mind theirs. He was going away from the +wood, which the books tell us is the realm, the sanctuary, the all, to +a pheasant, and he had no desire to answer questions by the way. For +this reason, then, and a few others, he felt no special delight in +sighting, about two hundred yards farther on--at a place where two +stacks surrounded by rails stood and sheltered a fowlhouse--a baker's +dozen of fowls sunning themselves on the hedge-bank. He held for fowls +all the wild creatures' contempt for the tame or domestic. All the +same, he saw no health in risking the open just then, and would not +turn back, so there was nothing for it but the fowls. + +Low as low he crouched, and ran very quickly, and hoped for the best; +and there is no bird that can wish itself out of sight in this fashion +better than friend pheasant. But he forgot the odd cockerel out. He +shot right on to the wretched thing--a gawky red youth--messing about +all alone in a nettle-clump, and it dashed into the field, racing on +long yellow legs, and squawking fit to wake the dead. + +Down clapped the pheasant as if the noise had pierced his heart, and +remained stiller than the crawling roots around him, and not half so +easy to see. But it was no good. Up shot the dozen heads above the +herbage, and two dozen vacuous eyes regarded his vicinity with +empty-headed inquisitiveness. + +He almost melted into the ground, but it was useless. An old, old +hen--who perhaps was ignored by the lord of the harem, and hoped for an +adventure--waddled up, stood within a yard of his crouched, rounded +shape without seeing him, saw him, shot straight up in the air at least +one foot, screaming for help, and promptly charged blindly into the +hedge, where she as promptly got held up among roots and twigs. + +The old pheasant got to his feet just as the rooster who owned the +outfit came racing up, panting and red. He had heard a wife scream for +help. Perhaps it was the odd bird out; or, anyway, some one who had to +be abolished. And he never waited to think. He saw what might have +been a small cockerel (if it had been large he might have thought +twice) crouching, and--he just sailed right in. + +Then something happened. The two met, going up breast to breast. For +a moment or two the cock-pheasant showed on or about that big rooster. +Some feathers hung in the air. The rooster sat on his heels, met by a +blow in the chest that seemed to take all the wind from his sails, so +to speak, and would have drawn off to reconsider things if he had not +promptly become more busy than ever before in his life. + +It was over ere any one knew quite what was happening. The old +cock-pheasant had passed through the crowd and vanished at the double +down the hedge, and the big rooster was slowly subsiding into a pool of +his own blood, from which he was destined never to rise again. + +But those who make, instead of following, their own destiny do not get +let off thus lightly in the wild. The pheasant had not gone a hundred +yards, when a most intolerable blast, an almost unbearable blast, of +shrill, nerve-racking noise throbbed through his head. The bird fell +in his tracks where he ran, as if some one had jerked his legs from +under him, and he peered out. + +What he beheld was an under-keeper standing close by and blowing upon a +two-note pea-whistle till there seemed some danger that he would burst +his cheeks, or a blood-vessel, on the spot, and far up the field three +wandering pheasants racing back to the covert, as they thought, for +very life; but, as a matter of fact--and you shall see--it was to very +death. The blower of whistles was stationed there to drive back into +the covert any pheasants who were so misguided as to wish to roam +thence into the fields and away. + +Now, that old reprobate of a pheasant of ours was a pretty confirmed +runner, anyway. He had trained himself to it. Yet never in all his +checkered life was he conscious of a more awful desire to flee by means +of the wings that God had given him. The weakness was over in a few +seconds, and he crept on; but it was a near thing while it lasted. He +passed, however, away from the danger zone, resisting temptation, and +it was as well. + +As he went there burst forth, at the opposite end of the big covert to +that at which he had come out, a sudden, quick shot. It echoed away +and away back among the woods, clattering and banging like great doors +shutting. The old cock-pheasant stopped to listen; he cocked his green +head on one side; he stood with one foot daintily uplifted: and in the +same instant there burst upon the air a rending, crashing succession of +shots, worse than ragged volley-firing, which almost made him jump. It +had begun--the big shoot over _his_ covert, the largest, the best, the +richest in pheasants, which had been saved for this--"the day" had +begun. When it ended very few pheasants would be left alive, for word +had gone forth that it was to be thinned down, almost shot out, and +that not a cock must escape. + +He, our own cock-pheasant, might have chuckled--as a cock-pheasant can, +and will, very low and softly to himself, if you are close enough to +hear him--if something had not very suddenly and very mysteriously said +"phtt!" just like that, close beside him. The old bird's head snicked +round, right round, almost hindpart before; but he made no other +movement. The sound was new to him, and of a strangely sinister +import. Also, there was a little splayed hole in the ground, as if a +walking-stick had been poked in there, close beside him, which had not +been there before. + +He was still staring when something, singing a little, high-pitched +song in a minor key to itself, came romping through the silent air, +and, with an oddly emphasized and emphatic "phtt!" landed between his +feet. It bored a hole just like the first thing, and it spat dirt up +into his face. + +The third mystery thing clipped three feathers from his back as he ran, +bolted for dear life, crouching low--even then he would not rise--for +the hedge. He got there alive, if not quite whole; while a fourth +nameless object cut twigs off above him. Then he kept on running, +always hugging the hedges, till he was two fields away. He was upset +and overstrained, for Fate had given him plenty of deaths to circumvent +as it was, in the ordinary course of business, and this addition was a +bit too much. + +There are other forms of shooting pheasants than the orthodox one, +which begins with smoking a cigarette on a comfortable shooting-seat, +and ends with a wild and furious fusillade, using three guns as fast as +you can. So thought the farmer's son, who took the chance to test his +new American .22-bore repeating-rifle, now that all the keepers were +well out of the way. And he had come mighty close to bagging the old +cock-bird, too. "As near as made no odds," he said, which was true, +but only the old bird himself knew quite the closeness of the call. + +In the far field the bronze king of the woods found peace for a bit. +The stunning reports in the covert not far away, and the thought that +his companions of yesterday, his lady-loves of last spring, were even +then being butchered by the hundred, made no difference to his +digestion. He fed on with that imperturbability that must have come to +him straight through his ancestors from the East--Kismet! It was +sufficient. + +He ought, of course, to have been in the covert. He was, however, +here--knowingly here, cunningly here, safely--No, by Jove! Not that, +by any means. + +A head, clean and neat and sharp, had poked out of the long, pale grass +at the edge of the hedge-ditch, and stared at him. He couldn't very +well miss seeing it because of the unforgettable brightness of its +beady eyes, and the absolutely spotless purity of its white +shirt-front. Besides, he knew the owner--and its reputation. + +He was helping the farmer to clear an oat-stubble of charlock-seeds at +the moment, and bending down. That is to say, he was doing inestimable +good, for which he got no credit. The next moment, and the next, and +for many more, he was still bending down. In fact, from the instant he +got sight of that head, it was as if a Hand had come down and turned +him by magic into a big model of a bird cast in bronze. All life in +him appeared to have dried up and fled. He looked as if you could have +picked him up and put him upon a bracket in your drawing-room without +his ever moving again. But that was only because of the head he had +seen--and its reputation. Moreover, the head was not alone. At least, +it had multiplied itself half-a-dozen times in less than half-a-dozen +seconds, and even a stoat, which the head belonged to, cannot be in two +places at once--though for sheer quickness of movement it, and far more +its cousin the weasel, comes very near to it. + +Just at this moment it seemed that about the roost unhealthful thing he +could do would be to be seen in the air. Wherefore did this innocent +and guileless old bird affect not to see the stoats, but made out that +he was feeding his way along, quite and absolutely intent upon that +yellow devil of a weed whose other name is charlock. He did not even +hurry, and each deliberate step was taken with almost a proud +daintiness. The only thing was, he never lifted his head; he was +almost too obviously unwary--for him. And he gave the impression that +every step would be his last out into the field; that he was always +going to turn back next instant or the next, as he had done before when +the stoats were not there. + +On and on he kept till he had crossed the field, going faster and +faster, till he ended at the far hedge with a run. And there, so far +as he was concerned, was an end of the stoats. He put them aside. He +forgot all about them. + +They, however, had not forgotten about him. + +It was half-an-hour later, and he was patiently gleaning such food as +the rooks and the sparrows and the larks had left behind them, when +something, he could not tell what, caused him to straighten up, with +that beautiful, proud bearing that seems part of the pheasant's +heritage from the gorgeous East. + +And he was only just in time. + +The stoat that had come up behind him, unseen, turned on its heels as +it charged, changing its mind at the last moment, as if it saw he saw, +and was gone again before you could click a finger, diving superbly +back into long grass. + +They were following him, then, those little hounds of death; tracking +him; running him down. And why? He did not know, perhaps, yet--maybe +he did. Blood is a dangerous thing to have on you in the wild--a +flaming signal of distress for eye and nose to detect--and they are not +often rescuers who hurry to the scene. He had blood on his back, that +cock-pheasant, and just every now and then a single bright drop fell by +the way. The .22-bore bullet had only grazed him. 'Twas nothing--but +it bled more than you would expect. And that explained it. The +tracking stoats thought he was wounded. + +But even then the old cock-pheasant would not rise. + +The firing in the covert had risen suddenly to a fierce crescendo, +breaking out afresh from another quarter. Here, however, was +silence--the absolute, deadly silence in which all the weasel tribe +hunt. But they were there, though he could not see them. He knew +that, invisible even in the sunlight--they were closing in, tracking +him fast, those stoats. + +Then he ran. He ran not so much for his life, but for the right to +keep on the ground. If the worst came to the worst, he could always +fly; but he would do anything rather than that. + +He turned and ran away from the woods--raced like a fowl, but quicker, +lower, much harder to see. A sudden gleam of bright-chestnut fur dead +ahead, however, stopped him, and he turned back, keeping always to the +hedge--towards the covert. He could hear no sound around him, only the +burst and the bang of the guns in the woods, and he might have been +alone; but directly he came to another hedge, and swung down to it at +right angles, a furry tail with a paint-brush tip, vanishing round a +holly-stem, fetching him up all standing. They were there, too, those +stoats. He seemed to be surrounded on all sides save one, and that the +one towards the woods. So he swung back into his original path. + +Then, very soon, as he ran up the hedge-ditch, it seemed to him as if +the dead leaves collected there were beginning to whisper behind him. +But there was no wind to move them. Moreover, it grew closer, till it +seemed at his very tail, that whisper of dead leaves. + +Then, in a flash, he had stopped, spun about like a top, and struck +with his spurs twice--whack, whack--more than instantly, and a long, +low, brown body--close behind him, that had risen as he turned, so that +its spotlessly clean shirt-front offered him a fine mark, went over +sideways--with a grunt and all the wind knocked out of it, as well as +an inch-and-a-half gash to remember friend pheasant by. That was one +stoat; but it was not alone. He had a vision of chestnut forms sliding +and rippling in and out of the shadows and the long copper gleams of +the westering sun. + +As he turned again, and the whispering began once more behind, the +firing in front broke out afresh, and much nearer. Still he would not +rise, however. It was this fact, probably, which kept the stoat-pack +at his heels. They seemed convinced that he was badly wounded and +unable to fly. + +Then came the road. He was on it before he knew. There was the +wedge-shaped, low-browed head of a stoat racing up along one side of +him, with murder plainly written in the gleam of its beady eyes; there +was the hot breath of another beating on his opposite flank; there was +one with feet out and all brakes on, trying its best to pull out one of +the feathers of his long and beautiful tail; and--there was the road +dead ahead. + +It was one of three--the road, the air, or death where he was. He +chose the road, and crossed, like a hunted cat crossing a back-yard. +His feet seemed scarcely to touch the dust as he negotiated the open, +yet he had time to take in a fact or two. One was that the stoats had +stopped--a little bunch of peering heads on a group of craning necks on +the edge of the ditch behind him. Another was that several people and +a motor-car were standing still in the road quite close, watching the +shooting. I don't think any of them saw him, but he felt as if all of +them did. + +Arrived in the hedge on the far side of the road, he clapped down, +panting. The hedge ran along the road. On the other side of it was +the grass of the park-land, stretching away two hundred yards or so to +the edge of the covert, which came down to a point here. He could hear +the tapping of sticks in the covert--beaters' sticks. He could hear an +occasional shout. Men in tweeds stood motionless on the edge of the +covert, and suddenly moved. + +Then came the infernal crash of the guns again, and he saw a +hen-pheasant pitch sickeningly on her head from a height, and a +cock-pheasant, flaming like a rocket in the sinking sun, run the +gauntlet of four shots, only to turn over and slide down at a fifth. + +Then--and then, he jumped. + +Something had pushed past him. In the din he had not heard it. He +turned as he crouched, and saw that it was a hen-pheasant, with blood +on her breast and one wing trailing alongside. And in the same instant +he was aware of a man--an under-keeper--crackling about in the hedge +only ten yards away, looking for that hen-pheasant. + +And the unwounded old cock, crouching almost till he looked like a +tortoise, followed the blundering, staggering, wounded hen. It was the +only thing he dared do. + +It was a strange creep, and an erratic one, with many stops, those two +hunted ones took together, meeting, so strangely, too--not for the +first time, since she had been one of his wives in the dim peaceful +past--with the guns thundering away so close, and their sons and their +daughters being slain almost all around them. They had, however, +little time to think about it, for they came, after about twenty yards, +to a gap spanned by barbed wire, and they stopped, the cock about a +foot behind the hen's tail, in cover scarcely enough to hide them. + +But that was not all. Two men in fawn overcoats stood in the road by +the gap, looking through it at the shooting; and a boy with a bicycle +stood close to them, interested in the same thing. + +It was the boy with the bicycle that did it; or, rather, it was the +unhappy hen-pheasant that made him. She, being _in extremis_, had made +some noise among the stiff dead leaves. It was not much of a noise, +but it caught the boy's young ear, and he bent forward to peer at the +hedge. + +One of the men saw him, said something, to which the boy nodded, jumped +down into the ditch, and thrusting in a long arm, began to feel with a +purposeful hand. The hen-pheasant, whose nerves were already shattered +to little pieces, struggled to get out of reach, and in a second had +given the whole show away. + +But I like to think of what our cunning old cock-pheasant did then. He +did nothing--absolutely nothing at all. Crouching as flat as an +overturned saucer, just, behind the hen-pheasant's tail, he remained +stiller than a bunch of dead leaves, and far more silent. And this, +mark you, when the hen-pheasant was pulled out, frantically fluttering +and helpless, and there and then had her neck wrung in front of his +very eyes. That, my masters, needed a nerve, after all that he had +gone through. What? + +The two men, seeming to think that they had got enough for one quiet +walk, departed, not quickly, but without unnecessary delay. The man +who had been looking for the hen-pheasant, and had seen nothing of what +took place at the gap, gave it up, and went away over the grass to the +shooters. The shooting ended with one last double shot, at one last +old cock-pheasant driven reluctantly from the last hush of the covert; +the dogs were out, galloping all over the ground for the wounded and +the slain; the watchers in the road departed; the shooters gradually +merged into groups, and drew farther and farther away up the park; and +the boy, who was shy, mounted his bicycle and rode off into the sad +blue-gray of the gathering dusk. + +The big day was over, and the old cock-pheasant was alone with the +melancholy song of a single robin, and a chaffinch calling "Chink!" +And the cold breath of the sunset wind, shuddering and sighing all to +itself across the face of the empty scene, touched the feathers that +were left by the hen-pheasant attached to thorns and twigs in her last +struggle, so that they danced and wavered and flickered before the old +cock's eyes, as a reminder of all that had been for them in the +past--the past, which for him, but never for her, might be again. + +That night he roosted in the covert, as usual. + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Way of the Wild, by F. 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