AN OLD ROUÉ
In a time incredibly short I heard sounds growing fainter where the
great brute stiffened out in the grass. The poison, I knew, had gotten
in its work at last. When the final convulsion had shivered itself out,
what a death-silence settled on the jungle! It seemed as if for miles
about, the lesser beasts had held their breath and fled from that
theatre of throes and roars of the master-murderer.
The hush affected me deeply. I felt so alone with the dead, and yet not
confident of my safety. My imagination pictured a ring of leopards, cats
and other creatures stealing silently up, like the curious women who
enjoy to look upon a corpse, these all half afraid that the king was not
really lifeless after all. Probably no creature was then within half a
mile of the spot, for the noise had been sufficient to frighten away
even the snakes, it seemed to me, yet I never for a moment entertained a
thought of climbing down from where I was.
The wait, through the midnight and the long chilly hours of morning was
the harder to bear because of the weakness I felt, after all the
over-wrought emotions I had undergone. It was difficult, moreover, to
cast off the dread of the still brute below me, not to mention the
sounds which recommenced in the animal-haunted jungle. I was exhausted,
for the strain had been as hard to bear as severe physical labour. In
addition to this, I had performed a good day’s work, before I came to my
tryst with the tiger. How long seemed the time since I left the friendly
Links, on my quest of vengeance and retribution!
I may have dozed, as I half lay against the woven creepers, and although
it could not have been for long, dawn had come when I started awake. In
the forest the shadows were still too deep to be fathomed, yet at last I
made out the rigid form on the ground. My enemy was almost directly
under the place where I was sitting. I could see no arrows at all; and
my mind had pictured him bristling with the shafts.
Slowly the light increased. What a gaunt, unhandsome form it was in the
grass! Then the sunlight struck on the tree-tops and bird-notes, not
particularly musical, began to make more cheerful that dark abode. With
a new impulse of courage, I dropped myself down, laid hold of my bow and
a leg of the tiger, and dragged with all my strength to get him out of
the place.
Then I got a good look at the carcass. He was old, wretchedly thin,
scarred about his bleary, dead eyes, nearly toothless and as
worn-looking as an old hearth-rug. I saw where my first shot had struck
him above the shoulder. The arrow, which was broken off in the wound,
had jabbed in and plowed along under the skin for six or eight inches.
The second had ripped through the flesh of his right fore leg, leaving a
gash which the brute had widened when he broke the shaft out, sidewise,
in his thrashing. The last shot had sent the envenomed flint tearing
into his breast, an inch below the throat, where it had penetrated to a
considerable depth. It also was broken, but a tough shred of the wood
still held the feathered portion dangling from the wound.
As I looked on the thin, old reprobate I was silly enough to feel a
little pity, so tragic seemed the “poverty” which he had known, as
testified by his miserable condition. My fears too had been wholly
dissipated by the sun; I wondered why I had been in such a plight of
dread throughout the night.
A final tug brought the roué of the jungle clear of the undergrowth. The
second I emerged to the edge of the hill clearing, a chorus of cries
came down from the camp. I turned to see the whole drove of Links coming
madly down the slope from which they had been watching for more than an
hour.
Such a commotion the simple creatures made, as, crazy with joy and awe,
and still dreading the foe they knew so well, they pressed about me and
chattered and made me a hero and struck at the ground all about the
tiger with their clubs! Fatty went through a sort of blubbering welcome
and got down and licked at my shoes until I felt obliged to give him a
trifle of a kick. The chief made no effort to conceal his admiration for
my feat, but he was dignified, after the manner of a great Newfoundland
dog among the lesser canines. His albino mate, however, gazed upon me
from her round, pink eyes with a look of worshipping to which I very
much objected. At her side the carping Grin was doing his best to
belittle the tiger and to sneer through his expression of amazement. On
the whole, one would have thought the tiger a monster and a prince among
his kind. I began to feel my glory to be somewhat tawdry.
After half an hour of tribute, both to the brute and myself, on the part
of the tribe, I rolled the beast over to look for a decent bit of hide.
He was not worth the skinning, and that is the truth. However, I had my
plan and therefore I whipped out my knife and skinned a part of the
shoulders and back. After this I took off the head, for I meant to have
the skull for a trophy. Then I directed the Links to dig a grave.
They were loth to consign even this partially stripped carcass to
oblivion, yet they complied with my wish. Eventually all withdrew to the
camp above. I immediately set Fatty to work at skinning the head for
boiling,—to rid it of flesh—while I placed my piece of the pelt in the
stream of brine, in order to prepare it for tanning.