Bitterly cold grew the night. The body froze under me. The cry of the
wolves came nearer; I heard their feet soft-padding on the rocky ground;
their quick panting filled the air. Through the darkness I saw the many
glowing eyes; their half-circle contracted around me. My time was come!
I sprang to my feet.--Alas, I had not even a stick!
They came in a rush, their eyes flashing with fury of greed, their black
throats agape to devour me. I stood hopelessly waiting them. One moment
they halted over the horse--then came at me.
With a sound of swiftness all but silence, a cloud of green eyes came
down on their flank. The heads that bore them flew at the wolves with a
cry feebler yet fiercer than their howling snarl, and by the cry I knew
them: they were cats, led by a huge gray one. I could see nothing of
him but his eyes, yet I knew him--and so knew his colour and bigness. A
terrific battle followed, whose tale alone came to me through the night.
I would have fled, for surely it was but a fight which should have
me!--only where was the use? my first step would be a fall! and my foes
of either kind could both see and scent me in the dark!
All at once I missed the howling, and the caterwauling grew wilder. Then
came the soft padding, and I knew it meant flight: the cats had defeated
the wolves! In a moment the sharpest of sharp teeth were in my legs;
a moment more and the cats were all over me in a live cataract,
biting wherever they could bite, furiously scratching me anywhere and
everywhere. A multitude clung to my body; I could not flee. Madly I fell
on the hateful swarm, every finger instinct with destruction. I tore
them off me, I throttled at them in vain: when I would have flung them
from me, they clung to my hands like limpets. I trampled them under my
feet, thrust my fingers in their eyes, caught them in jaws stronger
than theirs, but could not rid myself of one. Without cease they kept
discovering upon me space for fresh mouthfuls; they hauled at my skin
with the widespread, horribly curved pincers of clutching claws; they
hissed and spat in my face--but never touched it until, in my despair, I
threw myself on the ground, when they forsook my body, and darted at
my face. I rose, and immediately they left it, the more to occupy
themselves with my legs. In an agony I broke from them and ran, careless
whither, cleaving the solid dark. They accompanied me in a surrounding
torrent, now rubbing, now leaping up against me, but tormenting me no
more. When I fell, which was often, they gave me time to rise; when from
fear of falling I slackened my pace, they flew afresh at my legs.
All that miserable night they kept me running--but they drove me by a
comparatively smooth path, for I tumbled into no gully, and passing the
Evil Wood without seeing it, left it behind in the dark. When at length
the morning appeared, I was beyond the channels, and on the verge of the
orchard valley. In my joy I would have made friends with my persecutors,
but not a cat was to be seen. I threw myself on the moss, and fell fast
asleep.
I was waked by a kick, to find myself bound hand and foot, once more the
thrall of the giants!
“What fitter?” I said to myself; “to whom else should I belong?” and I
laughed in the triumph of self-disgust. A second kick stopped my false
merriment; and thus recurrently assisted by my captors, I succeeded at
length in rising to my feet.
Six of them were about me. They undid the rope that tied my legs
together, attached a rope to each of them, and dragged me away. I walked
as well as I could, but, as they frequently pulled both ropes at once,
I fell repeatedly, whereupon they always kicked me up again. Straight to
my old labour they took me, tied my leg-ropes to a tree, undid my arms,
and put the hateful flint in my left hand. Then they lay down and pelted
me with fallen fruit and stones, but seldom hit me. If I could have
freed my legs, and got hold of a stick I spied a couple of yards from
me, I would have fallen upon all six of them! “But the Little Ones will
come at night!” I said to myself, and was comforted.
All day I worked hard. When the darkness came, they tied my hands, and
left me fast to the tree. I slept a good deal, but woke often, and every
time from a dream of lying in the heart of a heap of children. With the
morning my enemies reappeared, bringing their kicks and their bestial
company.
It was about noon, and I was nearly failing from fatigue and hunger,
when I heard a sudden commotion in the brushwood, followed by a burst of
the bell-like laughter so dear to my heart. I gave a loud cry of delight
and welcome. Immediately rose a trumpeting as of baby-elephants, a
neighing as of foals, and a bellowing as of calves, and through the
bushes came a crowd of Little Ones, on diminutive horses, on small
elephants, on little bears; but the noises came from the riders, not the
animals. Mingled with the mounted ones walked the bigger of the boys
and girls, among the latter a woman with a baby crowing in her arms. The
giants sprang to their lumbering feet, but were instantly saluted with a
storm of sharp stones; the horses charged their legs; the bears rose and
hugged them at the waist; the elephants threw their trunks round their
necks, pulled them down, and gave them such a trampling as they had
sometimes given, but never received before. In a moment my ropes were
undone, and I was in the arms, seemingly innumerable, of the Little
Ones. For some time I saw no more of the giants.
They made me sit down, and my Lona came, and without a word began to
feed me with the loveliest red and yellow fruits. I sat and ate, the
whole colony mounting guard until I had done. Then they brought up two
of the largest of their elephants, and having placed them side by side,
hooked their trunks and tied their tails together. The docile creatures
could have untied their tails with a single shake, and unhooked their
trunks by forgetting them; but tails and trunks remained as their little
masters had arranged them, and it was clear the elephants understood
that they must keep their bodies parallel. I got up, and laid myself in
the hollow between their two backs; when the wise animals, counteracting
the weight that pushed them apart, leaned against each other, and made
for me a most comfortable litter. My feet, it is true, projected beyond
their tails, but my head lay pillowed on an ear of each. Then some of
the smaller children, mounting for a bodyguard, ranged themselves in
a row along the back of each of my bearers; the whole assembly formed
itself in train; and the procession began to move.
Whither they were carrying me, I did not try to conjecture; I yielded
myself to their pleasure, almost as happy as they. Chattering and
laughing and playing glad tricks innumerable at first, the moment they
saw I was going to sleep, they became still as judges.
I woke: a sudden musical uproar greeted the opening of my eyes.
We were travelling through the forest in which they found the babies,
and which, as I had suspected, stretched all the way from the valley to
the hot stream.
A tiny girl sat with her little feet close to my face, and looked down
at me coaxingly for a while, then spoke, the rest seeming to hang on her
words.
“We make a petisson to king,” she said.
“What is it, my darling?” I asked.
“Shut eyes one minute,” she answered.
“Certainly I will! Here goes!” I replied, and shut my eyes close.
“No, no! not fore I tell oo!” she cried.
I opened them again, and we talked and laughed together for quite
another hour.
“Close eyes!” she said suddenly.
I closed my eyes, and kept them close. The elephants stood still. I
heard a soft scurry, a little rustle, and then a silence--for in that
world SOME silences ARE heard.
“Open eyes!” twenty voices a little way off shouted at once; but when I
obeyed, not a creature was visible except the elephants that bore me.
I knew the children marvellously quick in getting out of the way--the
giants had taught them that; but when I raised myself, and looking about
in the open shrubless forest, could descry neither hand nor heel, I
stared in “blank astonishment.”
The sun was set, and it was fast getting dark, yet presently a multitude
of birds began to sing. I lay down to listen, pretty sure that, if I
left them alone, the hiders would soon come out again.
The singing grew to a little storm of bird-voices. “Surely the children
must have something to do with it!--And yet how could they set the
birds singing?” I said to myself as I lay and listened. Soon, however,
happening to look up into the tree under which my elephants stood,
I thought I spied a little motion among the leaves, and looked more
keenly. Sudden white spots appeared in the dark foliage, the music died
down, a gale of childish laughter rippled the air, and white spots came
out in every direction: the trees were full of children! In the wildest
merriment they began to descend, some dropping from bough to bough
so rapidly that I could scarce believe they had not fallen. I left my
litter, and was instantly surrounded--a mark for all the artillery of
their jubilant fun. With stately composure the elephants walked away to
bed.
“But,” said I, when their uproarious gladness had had scope for a while,
“how is it that I never before heard you sing like the birds? Even when
I thought it must be you, I could hardly believe it!”
“Ah,” said one of the wildest, “but we were not birds then! We were
run-creatures, not fly-creatures! We had our hide-places in the bushes
then; but when we came to no-bushes, only trees, we had to build nests!
When we built nests, we grew birds, and when we were birds, we had to do
birds! We asked them to teach us their noises, and they taught us, and
now we are real birds!--Come and see my nest. It’s not big enough for
king, but it’s big enough for king to see me in it!”
I told him I could not get up a tree without the sun to show me the way;
when he came, I would try.
“Kings seldom have wings!” I added.
“King! king!” cried one, “oo knows none of us hasn’t no wings--foolis
feddery tings! Arms and legs is better.”
“That is true. I can get up without wings--and carry straws in my mouth
too, to build my nest with!”
“Oo knows!” he answered, and went away sucking his thumb.
A moment after, I heard him calling out of his nest, a great way up a
walnut tree of enormous size,
“Up adain, king! Dood night! I seepy!”
And I heard no more of him till he woke me in the morning.