Part 8

A most deadly encounter it might have been. The leopard was shot through the lungs, and bleeding to death, inwardly. I thought I had noticed him spit blood, and anyone could see he was badly wounded. But he was only dying, not dead. His eyes flashed in the dark below the brushwood, where he lay, and he raised his head and half sat up, showing his teeth and growling, a very loud, monotonous, continuous growl.

I just was in time to knock our hero down, within five yards of the leopard, and step between him and it, quickly joined by one or two others. There was nothing to do but stand ready. The uplifted head was lowered, slowly; the growl grew less, and was punctuated by pauses, which grew longer and longer. There was a long pause, during which there was nothing to hear but men's breathing; then the dread silence was broken by the voice of a young Burman, creeping past me on all fours and crying, "Just let me pull its tail...."

It was an idle day that followed, which gave them leisure to enjoy themselves. About twenty-nine men spent it dividing the corpse. They quarrelled, and I quoted to them the proverb, "The lot causeth contention to cease." Sure enough, it did so. They cast lots in peace, and told me that eating such a beast made men partake the strength and courage of the dead. I thought of many things, as I listened, such as Marco Polo's story of tribes in Southern China, who were so sure of acquiring fine qualities in this way that, if a traveller seemed uncommonly beautiful or otherwise gifted, they sometimes killed and ate him. It is a strange belief, and, in one form or another, it has appeared in many countries. But all the same, whatever I happened to remember on this occasion, the prevailing feeling was that the next time there was such a job to be done, with such a crowd, it would be alike expedient and gracious to--delegate the leadership.

XX

THE BIG PET CAT

One evening in the nineties I went to dine at the house of a friend in Burma, and was unexpectedly greeted at the entrance by a leopard almost fully grown. He received me with the same restful manner of dignified armed neutrality that may be seen on the features of a domestic cat, or of an old family servant, observing a strange visitor.

"Do the others know?" I asked the host, meaning the other dinner-guests, not yet arrived.

"Yes, they all know him, but none of them like him, or maybe it is that he does not like them, I don't exactly know what is the matter. He seems to feel by instinct that you're a friend. Dear old fellow!" and the big cat laid its head confidentially on his thigh, and rolled its eyes dubiously in the way cats do, while a fat hand caressed its fine fur tenderly, lovingly.

"It'll be rare fun to see the rest arrive." It was indeed a pleasant entertainment to see that bachelor's house being entered as if a very distinguished hostess were receiving the visitors. The sight of "Mr Spots" made the most free-and-easy a little constrained in manner. They kept their eyes upon him; and as he moved about at his ease, they made way for him with an agility of quick politeness more common in Frenchmen than in Englishmen. But though he engrossed their conversation as much as their thoughts, there was a lack of heartiness in their appreciation which seemed to sadden their host. He tried to keep the fine animal beside himself.

"Pets should always be young and growing creatures," he said, as he scratched its head, and with many mingled puffs and sighs went on to say, "They are a nuisance when they grow up.... You lose their affection, you see.... Women are just the same.... This beautiful beast does not heed me now, and at one time no puppy could be fonder.... He would lie on his back to be tickled by a straw, and play with me by the hour.... He hardly ever snarled, even at the servants. Look at him!" The gentle beast was made to show his teeth and opened a capacious mouth.

"Yes, indeed," said one. "I've done nothing but look at him since I came in, and have had my hand on my pistol already, once."

"He won't hurt you. He's _had_ his dinner."

Another visitor sent his dog home, and opportunely remarked that as leopards were fond of eating dogs, they felt at home with humanity as lions or tigers never could. It was hunger only that made these bigger beasts eat men. The normal tiger or lion would run away from a child, or at any rate pass it by. But even a well-fed leopard might take to "long pig," meaning humanity, in simple wantonness, for a change.

"I hope he always has plenty of salt with his food," said one. "Might I tell the boy to fetch some for him now?"

"Why, in all the world?"

"Because it is the salt in human flesh that is said to be the great attraction."

"You don't suppose my leopard spends his time in studying chemistry, do you? I tell you he would not eat you if you offered yourself. His belly's full."

"Mr Spots" yawned and looked round the company with an air of royal indifference. His master continued to scratch his head. In obedience to a gesture, he submitted quietly, when a servant fastened a chain on his neck, and reluctantly but unresistingly he let himself be led away.

"I'm very sorry," said his master, looking after him affectionately, almost as if apologising to the pet. "That's what is hurting his feelings," he explained to us.

"What?"

"The chain--the restriction--the want of confidence is spoiling his fine temper." After a pause he added: "As I was saying, it's the lapse of time. Pets should always be adolescent, and women too."

"Not women," protested one, who quoted "Age cannot whither her nor custom stale her infinite variety."

"It's not variety that _I_ want," cried he. "I hate change. I would like my pets never to grow up. It's the change I object to. It's horrid, these transfers...."

"Hillo! Are you transferred?" we cried, more interested than surprised; for, as readers are probably aware, the Europeans of every kind in the east are at the best respectable vagabonds, globe-trotters by trade, and only a few derelicts, who are settling down to die, can have a fixed abode.

"Transferred? No, no--I don't mean that. I was thinking of transfers of affection," he explained, and he proceeded to discuss the claims of various Zoos, and the chance of poor "Mr Spots" being more happy in one than another, like a mother discussing her daughter's suitors.

Amidst the merriment that arose when all constraint was ended, he was advised to wed, and seemed to take the advice most seriously. He did send away the leopard, and did take a wife, not long afterwards; and as he was a good-hearted man, I believe she is a happy woman; but she little suspects who was her predecessor in her husband's affections.

XXI

THE LEOPARD THAT NEEDED A DENTIST

The excellent American dentist at Madras had me "at discretion" in 1908; and as he worked he began talking, in the kindly way some dentists have, about things in general, and in particular, when encouraged and led to that topic, he spoke about the science of his useful art.

"What spoils the teeth is want of use," said he. "Look at cats! What fine teeth tigers have!"

"When they are young," said I, "are you aware that tigers and leopards often die prematurely of starvation, because their teeth fail them? There is no kind of living creature that needs more than they do the services of a really competent dentist. See!"

He looked over his shoulder with a start, as if half expecting to see some strange customer; but it was only a common messenger....

Resuming his work, he began recalling all he had heard from various patients about cats' teeth; and suddenly ejaculated, "You're right, you're right! I had forgotten what a man told me he saw in the Nilgiris. From a distance, but close enough to see well, he saw a big leopard seize his dog as it played on the road. The dog got loose, in a surprising way. The leopard caught and mouthed him again, and then again; and finally let him go and disappeared as men approached. Three times that dog had been seen in its mouth, and yet there was not a scratch on the body of the dog. The leopard could not have had a tooth in its head."

XXII

THE DEVIL AS A LEOPARD

In 1891, in Shwegyin (pronounced Shwayjeen), then the headquarters of a district in Burma, but now decayed, because the railway went another road, I became aware as I sat in office of an unusual hush in the precincts of the public buildings. My messenger came uncalled into my room, and stood as if struggling to speak but unable to articulate. My head clerk, the excellent Babu Chowdry, followed him, though it was an uncommon time for him to come in. With obvious difficulty and hesitation, almost stammering, the Babu said, "The devil has come to town."

Ah, if I were only a fictioneer, what a brilliant opening this gives for fine writing. It might be indulged in without fear of contradiction; for, if Babu Chowdry read a thing I wrote as an account of our talk, he would not only affirm it to be true, but honestly believe it. All the King's Counsel in London, cross-examining in partnership, could not shake him, or do anything but make everybody, themselves included, believe him the more. His transparent good faith would convince them. This is not ironical, but the simple truth. If I wrote in the Kipling fashion, keeping faithful to what the Babu could recall, he would trust me for the rest, so that the story might be told in this way.

"The Devil has come to town," said the Babu.

"Show him in."

"But he is not here. He's in the town."

"Send for him then."

"But he won't come. He ..."

"Tell the police to fetch him."

"How? He ..."

"You should know perfectly that no warrant is required. He can be arrested without a warrant if he won't come quietly, were it only for being without a visible and respectable means of subsistence. Send a note to the superintendent."

"But it isn't a man. It's a Devil, and a leopard."

"A leopard?"

"A leopard, but a Devil."

"Shoot it."

"But it's a Devil."

"Shoot it, all the same."

"But it's a Devil, and so the rifles won't go off."

Instead of all which, to tell the downright truth, instead of any invention, I looked in silence awhile at my excited clerk as he repeated, half mechanically, "The Devil has come to town," and guessing that perhaps a tiger, which had been flurrying the place for some weeks, had paid a mid-day visit, I stepped outside to the verandah to see what the matter was, probably telling somebody to go for a rifle. I looked in all directions, but saw no stampeding, such as might be expected if a tiger were strolling anywhere near. There were many marks of general consternation. Everybody seemed to have stopped suddenly whatever he had been doing. The one detail capricious memory supplies is the sight of a man at a refreshment-stall, who had paused with a spoonful of food half-way to his lips, and stood as if petrified as long as I saw him, gaping and listening. Next I noticed the District Superintendent of Police, Mr W.G. Snadden, a sensible, first-rate man, coming from his office, which was in a building adjacent to mine. Without waiting to be asked, he shouted to me, "Don't you bother. It's only a leopard frightening people at my house, and I'll go and see what the row is and come and let you know."

"Anybody hurt?"

"I believe not."

I felt Babu Chowdry watching me to see if I was satisfied. He drew a deep breath. "That'll be all right," we said to each other, and both returned to work. He came into my room a minute later, and said impressively, "The people do say it must be a Devil, as the rifles won't go off." He waited to see the effect of the announcement, but getting only, "That'll be all right," he returned to business.

In an hour or so Snadden reappeared, looking tired with laughing. This was what he had to tell:

"My wife had a fright yesterday. A leopard had been seen prowling round the house. A servant said it came upon the verandah, and stood on its hind legs and looked into the nursery, where the baby was, and also a dog." (Mr Snadden intimated in some way that he had doubted the story.) He continued: "I told my wife it would prefer dog, but naturally she did not wish it to have a choice. So I set her mind at rest by leaving a military policeman with a rifle to hold the fort when I came to office, explaining to him what to do if the leopard returned. It came all right, about the same time as yesterday. They say the cook was in the act of showing the policeman where it issued yesterday from the jungle, when they saw it reappear.

"The man loaded, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The cartridge did not go off. He slipped in another noiselessly, and aimed again. There was no hurry. The leopard did not see him. It was standing still, apparently taking a deliberate view of the house and servants' quarters; looking for a dog, I do believe. No man could want an easier target. After aiming carefully he pulled the trigger, and for the second time the shot did not go off.

"This seems to have flustered him, so that he made an audible click as he put in a third cartridge, and the leopard heard it and looked round and saw him, and turned to go away. He took aim at it. It turned its head round for a parting glance at him just as he pulled the trigger again. For the third time the rifle failed to act. The shot did not go off. The man was left standing, half distracted. He said that as it disappeared the leopard swelled to the size of a tiger, and the glare of its eyes as it looked at him made his heart stand still. It could be no common leopard that bewitched his rifle so.

"Everybody in the house gathered round him to hear his story. That was when my wife sent a man running to me. The policeman half-walked, half-staggered to the lines" (the huts where sepoys lived, near Mr Snadden's house), "and there he was when I went up. They had had a glorious scare. By George, how quickly the panic spread!" reflected Mr Snadden. "They were shivering with funk all round the court before the man, who was running from my house, arrived there. I had noticed something was amiss, and was making inquiries to find out what it was before he came."

"Had the man loitered on the way?"

"No, I think he came straight. The panic round here was not his doing, whatever it was. It came up from the bazaar. I've made sure of that. It seems a miracle. I've been round pacifying the town. The bazaar was upside down, business was stopped, women were shrieking and running after their children a mile away from my house, within a few minutes after the leopard disappeared into the bushes. I cannot understand it."

"Was the beast seen elsewhere?"

"No. The panic was all about what had happened and the rifle not going off."

Neither of us ever knew how the panic spread, though Mr Snadden had a fine scientific curiosity about it, which made him take much trouble inquiring. He concluded his report on this occasion, thus:

"It did not last long at the lines. The man had hardly told his story more than five times when the Subadar (the principal native officer) pushed his way into the middle of the crowd to hear him, and, listening to him, took the rifle out of his hands to examine it. He lifted the hammer, and pointing to the leather on the nipple, asked him, 'Did you remove _that?_' The man looked stupefied, shook his head, and relapsed into silence, and the excitement ended. The men were very good about it, laughing only a little and not unkindly. They did not jeer at the poor fellow, but rather pitied him, for the accidental oversight that had made him look so foolish, and given him such a fright," and made him miss the reward of twenty rupees, more than a month's pay, which he would have got for killing the leopard.

When the truth was known it was easy to pacify the town.

XXIII

THE GALLANT LEOPARD

The lions and tigers and leopards cannot bring libel suits or arrange duels. So men can call them cowards with impunity, and often do; but it is not fair, and surely all who have been long enough in the woods to know better should do justice to the beasts that are dumb. Besides, there is a real joy in telling the downright truth. It is apt to have the merit of novelty, for one thing. That is why it seems right to tell in 1909 an adventure that befell three gallant officers in Upper Burma, a little more than a dozen years ago.

Three real ornaments of the British army, and one of them so highly placed that in confidential moments after dinner he spoke to me not of his debts, but of his savings and investments, were riding abreast together through a forest. Three finer specimens of "Britishers abroad" the army could not have furnished. They combined all its best qualities--the wild daring of the Irish scallawag, the steadiness of the Englishman, and the cunning of the Jew. If they had all been of one kind, whether scallawags, Englishmen, or Jews, they might have come out of this adventure less perfectly. Great is the advantage of a judicious mixture!

What happened was that a leopard was looking for a meal as they came along. He was not hunting men. He was crouching among the bushes beside the road and watching, as a cat watches sparrows, a crowd of monkeys gambolling among the trees, and unconsciously coming near him. He is at home in the trees, and very fond of monkeys; but they are too nimble for him, if they have a chance. So he was biding his time, till one of them would be within reach of a sudden spring; and none of them had noticed him, when the three officers came riding past.

Now, whatever the attraction was, probably curiosity, what is certain is that the advent of our gallant three caused a sensation in the little world aloft; and, as the miniature men and women of the woods crowded to see the very latest samples of British officers, they saw the leopard too! And with wild hullabaloo they hurried far away.

The leopard was angry. Had he not cause? Who were these men to come and spoil his sport? They, on their noisy iron-shod horses, prancing along, with their orderlies clattering behind them, coming as if the world belonged to them? He felt like another Jonah, who could answer the Lord inquiring, "Doest thou well to be angry?" with a heart-whole emphasis, saying, "I do well!"

So he came boldly upon the road on which they were galloping and stood upon it, facing them. He took no pains to hide himself. He was no longer in the mood for crouching. He waited for them; but he did not lie in wait. His lips were ajar, and every muscle tight--a pretty picture!

"Good God! There's a leopard!" cried the son of Jacob. See how deeply rooted is piety in the Semitic soul! Men have known that man for nearly twenty years, and never heard him mention God at any other time.

They all drew bridle and dismounted. Even the scallawag consented to do that. The Englishman called for his gun. An orderly handed it to him.

"By all that's holy, you're not going to provoke him by peppering him with snipe-shot?"

The Englishman agreed not to fire, as they had no ball-cartridges. But the leopard was not aware of that. The road was along the side of a slope. The ground went steeply up on one side of it; steeply down on the other. So the leopard, "lightly and without apparent effort," like a cat leaping upon a chair, sprang upwards, and sat behind a bush, 15 or 20 feet above the level of the road.

"Slight as the cover for him was, it would have been ample, if we had not seen him go behind it," said one of the men to me afterwards. "We remarked how well he knew to hide himself. Till he went behind that bush we would not have believed it could have covered anything. Once he was there, it was only because we had seen him go that we knew he was there. But for that, we would have seen nothing. The ground being above us was a help to us, and, knowing where to look, we could see the outline of the leopard plainly through the leaves. He had not allowed for that."

No; he had not reckoned on the watchfulness of three men resolute that the _élite_ of the British army should not be made into cat's-meat. They held each other back, so to speak, without any difficulty. They could see that where the enemy sat was like a magnificent spring-board. If he had selected the eldest of them, and leapt with his usual accuracy, he and his chosen one would have been a hundred yards down the glen together in a few seconds; and the excitement in army circles would have been very great. Half a dozen men would have "got steps."

But these three were too wary. They--felt their value to the Commonwealth. They _would_ not pass in front of him. Nothing would induce them. It was, "You first, sir," for a long time, till the leopard was tired of it, and saw the game was up. He leapt down lightly and crossed the road before their faces, with a deliberate swinging stride, looking round at them as he passed.

"There really seemed to me to be something of a swagger in his walk," said one of the officers, naturally imputing to the leopard the feelings of a man and an officer; but in truth the leopard had no swagger in his mind. He looked at them in passing, as at creatures he had to keep an eye upon; but, far from thinking of impressing them, he was as indifferent to their feelings as the rocks. In Hamlet's phrase, they were less than Hecuba to him. They were merely passing animals, that had disturbed his hunting, and he was now quitting them as he would a herd of deer that had got wind of him and held aloof.

What seemed his swagger was the unconscious dignity of his gait. I have seen it in a tiger, crossing a road in the moonlight, when he thought he was unobserved. Many men have remarked it. It may be seen in the common cat occasionally, and has been explained in various ways. The swift movement by long strides and the silent footfalls are easily noticed; but there is more than that. The dignity of cats is one of Nature's effects, which we can see and admire, but not reproduce. How could we, standing up on our hind legs and to that manner born, ever do more than mimic it? The most puissant of potentates may call himself the son of the sun, the cousin of the moon, and the father or grandfather of all the stars; he may be named in sheepskins and figure in sheeps' heads as the King of kings and Lord of lords, the Emperor of emperors and Czar of czars; but he is first cousin to the monkey all the time. His gold lace and purple cloaks, his tinsel hats and thrones maybe as high as pyramids, cannot make him cease to be funny when he swaggers; and, at the best, you half expect a wink. Nothing can give us the born dignity of the feline fellows. But we need not envy them. Soon, very soon, in a century or, at the latest, a millennium or two, there will be none of them left, except perhaps the household toms and tabbies. "So runs the world away."

Thus it was without any thought about the officers, who were standing abashed, that the leopard moved down the steep slope into the depths of the glen, abandoning all hope of well-fed British beef, and perhaps deciding to try once more for the monkeys.

"Hope springs eternal in a hungry heart."

It is only needful to add that this adventure was told me by one of the three. I have not been able to get leave to give the names; but that does not matter, for the leopard did not know the names himself. It was enough for him, and must be enough for us, to know that they were strong and healthy men, and their orderlies the same; and to the leopard the iron-shod horses may have appeared to be equally formidable. Yet, with just cause of offence and an empty stomach to stimulate him, he faced them all, and departed only because he saw it was useless to wait for them to pass. They _would_ not go in front of him. Was ever leopard so honoured before? These men would not have deferred so much to a British lord, much less to an Italian pope or common emperor.