The day following that on which we set out from King Jambai's village,
as narrated in the last chapter, Jack, Peterkin, Makarooroo, Njamie's
little boy, and I embarked in a small canoe, and bidding adieu to our
hospitable friends, set out on our return journey to the coast.
We determined to proceed thither by another branch of the river which
would take us through a totally new, and in some respects different,
country from that in which we had already travelled, and which, in the
course of a few weeks, would carry us again into the neighbourhood of
the gorilla country.
One beautiful afternoon, about a week after parting from our friends, we
met with an adventure in which the serious and the comic were strangely
mingled. Feeling somewhat fatigued after a long spell at our paddles,
and being anxious to procure a monkey or a deer, as we had run short of
food, we put ashore, and made our encampment on the banks of the river.
This done, we each sallied out in different directions, leaving
Makarooroo in charge of the camp.
For some time I wandered about the woods in quest of game, but although
I fired at many animals that were good for food, I missed them all, and
was unwillingly compelled to return empty-handed. On my way back, and
while yet several miles distant from the camp, I met Jack, who had
several fat birds of the grouse species hanging at his girdle.
"I am glad to see that you have been more successful than I, Jack," said
I, as we met.
"Yet I have not much to boast of," he replied. "It is to be hoped that
Peterkin has had better luck. Have you seen him?"
"No; I have not even heard him fire a shot."
"Well, let us go on. Doubtless he will make his appearance in good
time. What say you to following the course of this brook? I have no
doubt it will guide us to the vicinity of our camp, and the ground
immediately to the left of it seems pretty clear of jungle."
"Agreed," said I; and for the next ten minutes or so we walked beside
each other in silence. Suddenly our footsteps were arrested by a low
peculiar noise.
"Hark! is that a human voice?" whispered Jack, as he cocked his rifle.
"It sounds like it," said I.
At the same moment we heard some branches in an opposite direction
crack, as if they had been broken by a heavy tread. Immediately after,
the first sound became louder and more distinct. Jack looked at me in
surprise, and gradually a peculiar smile overspread his face.
"It's Peterkin," said I, in a low whisper.
My companion nodded, and half-cocking our pieces, we advanced with slow
and cautious steps towards the spot whence the sound had come. The
gurgling noise of the brook prevented us from hearing as well as usual,
so it was not until we were close upon the bushes that fringed the banks
of the streamlet that we clearly discerned the tones of Peterkin's voice
in conversation with some one, who, however, seemed to make no reply to
his remarks. At first I thought he must be talking to himself, but in
this I was mistaken.
"Let's listen for a minute or two," whispered my companion, with a broad
grin.
I nodded assent, and advancing cautiously, we peeped over the bushes.
The sight that met our eyes was so irresistibly comic that we could
scarcely restrain our laughter.
On a soft grassy spot, close to the warbling stream, lay our friend
Peterkin, on his breast, resting on his elbows, and the forefinger of
his right hand raised. Before him, not more than six inches from his
nose, sat the most gigantic frog I ever beheld, looking inordinately fat
and intensely stupid. My memory instantly flew back to the scene on the
coral island where Jack and I had caught our friend holding a quiet
conversation with the old cat, and I laughed internally as I thought on
the proverb, "The boy is the father of the man."
"Frog," said Peterkin, in a low, earnest voice, at the same time shaking
his finger slowly and fixing his eyes on the plethoric creature before
him--"frog, you may believe it or not as you please, but I do solemnly
assure you that I never did behold such a great, big, fat monster as you
are in all--my--life! What do you mean by it?"
As the frog made no reply to this question, but merely kept up an
incessant puffing motion in its throat, Peterkin continued--
"Now, frog, answer me this one question--and mind that you don't tell
lies--you may not be aware of it, but you can't plead ignorance, for I
now tell you that it is exceedingly wicked to tell lies, whether you be
a frog or only a boy. Now, tell me, did you ever read `Aesop's
Fables?'"
The frog continued to puff, but otherwise took no notice of its
questioner. I could not help fancying that it was beginning to look
sulky at being thus catechised.
"What, you won't speak! Well, I'll answer for you: you have _not_ read
`Aesop's Fables;' if you had you would not go on blowing yourself up in
that way. I'm only a little man, it's true--more's the pity--but if you
imagine that by blowing and puffing like that you can ever come to blow
up as big as me, you'll find yourself mistaken. You can't do it, so you
needn't try. You'll only give yourself rheumatism. Now, _will_ you
stop? If you won't stop you'll burst--there."
Peterkin paused here, and for some time continued to gaze intently in
the face of his new friend. Presently he began again--
"Frog, what are you thinking of? Do you ever think? I don't believe
you do. Tightened up as you seem to be with wind or fat or conceit, if
you were to attempt to think the effort would crack your skin, so you'd
better not try. But, after all, you've some good points about you. If
it were not that you would become vain I would tell you that you've got
a very good pair of bright eyes, and a pretty mottled skin, and that
you're at least the size of a big chicken--not a plucked but a
full-fledged chicken. But, O frog, you've got a horribly ugly big
mouth, and you're too fat--a great deal too fat for elegance; though I
have no doubt it's comfortable. Most fat people are comfortable. Oh!
you would, would you?"
This last exclamation was caused by the frog making a lazy leap to one
side, tumbling heavily over on its back, and rolling clumsily on to its
legs again, as if it wished to escape from its tormentor, but had
scarcely vigour enough to make the effort. Peterkin quietly lifted it
up and placed it deliberately before him again in the same attitude as
before.
"Don't try that again, old boy," said he, shaking his finger
threateningly and frowning severely, "else I'll be obliged to give you a
poke in the nose. I wonder, now, Frog, if you ever had a mother, or if
you only grew out of the earth like a plant. Tell me, were you ever
dandled in a mother's arms? Do you know anything of maternal affection,
eh? Humph! I suspect not. You would not look so besottedly stupid if
you did. I tell you what it is, old fellow: you're uncommonly bad
company, and I've a good mind to ram my knife through you, and carry you
into camp to my friend Ralph Rover, who'll skin and stuff you to such an
extent that your own mother wouldn't know you, and carry you to England,
and place you in a museum under a glass case, to be gazed at by nurses,
and stared at by children, and philosophised about by learned
professors. Hollo! none o' that now. Come, poor beast; I didn't mean
to frighten you. There, sit still, and don't oblige me to stick you up
again, and I'll not take you to Ralph."
The poor frog, which had made another attempt to escape, gazed vacantly
at Peterkin again without moving, except in regard to the puffing before
referred to.
"Now, frog, I'll have to bid you good afternoon. I'm sorry that time
and circumstance necessitate our separation, but I'm glad that I have
had the pleasure of meeting with you. Glad and sorry, frog, in the same
breath! Did you ever philosophise on that point, eh? Is it possible,
think you, to be glad and sorry at one and the same moment? No doubt a
creature like you, with such a very small intellect, if indeed you have
any at all, will say that it is not possible. But I know better. Why,
what do you call hysterics? Ain't that laughing and crying at once--
sorrow and joy mixed? I don't believe you understand a word that I say.
You great puffing blockhead, what are you staring at?"
The frog, as before, refused to make any reply; so our friend lay for
some time chuckling and making faces at it. While thus engaged he
happened to look up, and to our surprise as well as alarm we observed
that he suddenly turned as pale as death.
To cock our rifles, and take a step forward so as to obtain a view in
the direction in which he was gazing with a fixed and horrified stare,
was our immediate impulse. The object that met our eyes on clearing the
bushes was indeed well calculated to strike terror into the stoutest
heart; for there, not three yards distant from the spot on which our
friend lay, and partially concealed by foliage, stood a large black
rhinoceros. It seemed to have just approached at that moment, and had
been suddenly arrested, if not surprised, by the vision of Peterkin and
the frog. There was something inexpressibly horrible in the sight of
the great block of a head, with its mischievous-looking eyes, ungainly
snout, and ponderous horn, in such close proximity to our friend. How
it had got so near without its heavy tread being heard I cannot tell,
unless it were that the noise of the turbulent brook had drowned the
sound.
But we had no time either for speculation or contemplation. Both Jack
and I instantly took aim--he at the shoulder, as he afterwards told me;
I at the monster's eye, into which, with, I am bound to confess, my
usual precipitancy, I discharged both barrels.
The report seemed to have the effect of arousing Peterkin out of his
state of fascination, for he sprang up and darted towards us. At the
same instant the wounded rhinoceros crossed the spot which he had left
with a terrific rush, and bursting through the bushes as if it had been
a great rock falling from a mountain cliff, went headlong into the
rivulet.
Without moving from the spot on which we stood, we recharged our pieces
with a degree of celerity that, I am persuaded, we never before
equalled. Peterkin at the same time caught up his rifle, which leaned
against a tree hard by, and only a few seconds elapsed after the fall of
the monster into the river ere we were upon its banks ready for another
shot.
The portion of the bank of the stream at this spot happened to be rather
steep, so that the rhinoceros, on regaining his feet, experienced
considerable difficulty in the attempts to clamber out, which he made
repeatedly and violently on seeing us emerge from among the bushes.
"Let us separate," said Jack; "it will distract his attention."
"Stay; you have blown out his eye, Ralph, I do believe," said Peterkin.
On drawing near to the struggling monster we observed that this was
really the case. Blood streamed from the eye into which I had fired,
and poured down his hideous jaws, dyeing the water in which he
floundered.
"Look out!" cried Jack, springing to the right, in order to get on the
animal's blind side as it succeeded in effecting a landing.
Peterkin instantly sprang in the same direction, while I bounded to the
opposite side. I have never been able satisfactorily to decide in my
own mind whether this act on my part was performed in consequence of a
sudden, almost involuntary, idea that by so doing I should help to
distract the creature's attention, or was the result merely of an
accidental impulse. But whatever the cause, the effect was most
fortunate; for the rhinoceros at once turned towards me, and thus, being
blind in the other eye, lost sight of Jack and Peterkin, who with the
rapidity almost of thought leaped close up to its side, and took close
aim at the most vulnerable parts of its body. As they were directly
opposite to me, I felt that I ran some risk of receiving their fire.
But before I had time either to reflect that they could not possibly
miss so large an object at so short a distance, or to get out of the
way, the report of both their heavy rifles rang through the forest, and
the rhinoceros fell dead almost at my feet.
"Hurrah!" shouted Peterkin, throwing his cap into the air at this happy
consummation, and sitting down on the haunch of our victim.
"Shame on you, Peterkin," said I, as I reloaded his rifle for
him--"shame on you to crow thus over a fallen foe!"
"Ha, boy! it's all very well for you to say that now, but you know well
enough that you would rather have lost your ears than have missed such a
chance as this. But, I say, it'll puzzle you to stuff that fellow,
won't it?"
"No doubt of it," answered Jack, as he drew a percussion cap from his
pouch, and placed it carefully on the nipple of his rifle. "Ralph will
not find it easy; and it's a pity, too, not to take it home with us, for
under a glass case it would make such a pretty and appropriate
_pendant_, in his museum, to that interesting frog with which you--"
"Oh, you sneaking eavesdropper!" cried Peterkin, laughing. "It is
really too bad that a fellow can't have a little _tete-a-tete_ with a
friend but you and Ralph must be thrusting your impertinent noses in the
way."
"Not to mention the rhinoceros," observed Jack.
"Ah! to be sure--the rhinoceros; yes, I might have expected to find you
in such low company, for `birds of a feather,' you know, are said to
`flock together.'"
"If there be any truth in that," said I, "you are bound, on the same
ground, to identify yourself with the frog."
"By the way," cried Peterkin, starting up and looking around the spot on
which his interesting _tete-a-tete_ had taken place, "where is the frog?
It was just here that--Ah!--oh!--oh! poor, poor frog!
"`Your course is run, your days are o'er;
We'll never have a chat no more,'
"As Shakespeare has it. Well, well, who would have thought that so
conversable and intelligent a creature should have come to such a
melancholy end?"
The poor frog had indeed come to a sad and sudden end, and I felt quite
sorry for it, although I could not help smiling at my companion's quaint
manner of announcing the fact.
Not being gifted with the activity of Peterkin, it had stood its ground
when the rhinoceros charged, and had received an accidental kick from
the great foot of that animal which had broken its back and killed it
outright.
"There's one comfort, however," observed Jack, as we stood over the
frog's body: "you have been saved the disagreeable necessity of killing
it yourself, Ralph."
This was true, and I was not sorry that the rhinoceros had done me this
service; for, to say truth, I have ever felt the necessity of killing
animals in cold blood to be one of the few disagreeable points in the
otherwise delightful life of a naturalist. To shoot animals in the heat
and excitement of the chase I have never felt to be particularly
repulsive or difficult; but the spearing of an insect, or the deliberate
killing of an unresisting frog, are duties which I have ever performed
with a feeling of deep self-abhorrence.
Carefully packing my frog in leaves, and placing it in my pouch, I
turned with my companions to quit the scene of our late encounter and
return to our camp, on arriving at which we purposed sending back
Makarooroo to cut off the horn of the rhinoceros; for we agreed that, as
it was impossible to carry away the entire carcass, we ought at least to
secure the horn as a memorial of our adventure.