"Speaking," said my uncle James, "of dogs, did I ever tell you about
Egbert, my bull-frog? I class Egbert among the dogs, partly because of
his faithfulness and intelligence, and partly because his deep bay--you
know how those bull-frogs bark--always reminded me of a bloodhound
surprised while on a trail of aniseed. He was my constant companion in
Northern Assam, where I was at that time planting rubber. He finally
died of a surfeit of hard-boiled egg, of which he was passionately fond,
and I was as miserable as if I had lost a brother.
"I think Egbert had been trying to edge into the household for some time
before I really noticed him. Looking back, I can remember meeting him
sometimes in the garden, and, though I did not perceive it at first,
there was a wistful look in his eye when I passed him by without
speaking. It was not till our burglary that I began really to understand
his sterling worth. A couple of natives were breaking in, and would
undoubtedly have succeeded in their designs had it not been for Egbert's
frantic barking, which aroused the house and brought me down with a
revolver. It is almost certain that the devoted animal had made a
practice, night after night, of sleeping near the front-door on the
chance of something of the sort happening. He was always suspicious of
natives.
"After that of course his position in the house was established. He
slept every night at the foot of my bed, and very soothing it was to
hear his deep rhythmical breathing in the darkness.
"In the daytime we were inseparable. We would go for walks together, and
I have frequently spent hours throwing sticks into the pond at the
bottom of the garden for him to retrieve. It was this practice which
saved his life at the greatest crisis of his career.
"I happened to have strained my leg, and I was sitting in the garden,
dozing, Egbert by my side, when I was awakened by a hoarse bark from my
faithful companion, and, looking down, I perceived him hopping rapidly
towards the pond, pursued by an enormous oojoobwa snake, a reptile not
dangerous to man, being non-poisonous, but a great scourge among the
minor fauna of Assam, owing to its habit of pouncing upon them and
swallowing them alive. This snake is particularly addicted to
bull-frogs, and, judging from the earnest manner in which he was making
for the pond, Egbert was not blind to this trait in its character.
"You may imagine my agony of mind. There was I, helpless. My injured leg
made it impossible for me to pursue the snake and administer one where
it would do most good. And meanwhile the unequal race was already
drawing to its inevitable close. Egbert, splendid as were his other
qualities, was not built for speed. He was dignified rather than mobile.
"What could I do? Nothing beyond throwing my stick in the hope of
stunning the oojoobwa. It was a forlorn hope, but I did it; and it saved
Egbert's life, though not in the way I had intended. The stick missed
the snake and fell immediately in front of Egbert. It was enough. His
grand intellect worked with the speed of lightning. Just as the snake
reached him, he reached the stick; and the next moment there was Egbert,
up to his neck in the reptile's throat, but saved from complete
absorption by the stick, which he was holding firmly in his mouth.
"I have seldom seen any living thing so completely nonplussed as was the
oojoobwa. Snakes have very little reasoning power. They cannot weigh
cause and effect. Otherwise of course the oojoobwa would have nipped
Egbert till he was forced to leave go of the stick. Instead of doing
this, he regarded the stick and Egbert as being constructed all in one
piece, and imagined that he had happened upon a new breed--of
unswallowable frog. He ejected Egbert, and lay thinking it over, while
Egbert, full of pluck, continued his journey to the pond.
"Three times in the next two yards did the snake endeavour to swallow
his victim, and each time he gave it up; and after the last experiment
Egbert, evidently finding this constant semi-disappearance into the
other's interior bad for his nervous system, conceived the idea of
backing towards the pond instead of heading in that direction, the
process, though slower, being less liable to sudden interruption."
"Well, to make the story short, the oojoobwa followed Egbert to the very
edge of the pond, the picture of perplexity; and when my little friend
finally dived in he lay there with his head over the edge of the bank,
staring into the water for quite ten minutes. Then he turned, shook his
head despairingly, and wriggled into the bushes, still thinking hard.
And a little while later I saw Egbert's head appear cautiously over the
side of the pond, the stick still in his mouth. He looked round to see
that the coast was clear, and then came hopping up to me and laid the
stick at my feet. And, strong man as I was, I broke down and cried like
a child."
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