On the opposite side of the room, with his brave old back against the
wall, stood my dear father, his arms tightly bound to his sides, and a
cummerbund tied firmly over that mouth which had never, save in
moments of thoughtless, but pardonable anger, spoken any but words of
kindness to his son. In front of him was couched a huge man-eating
tiger--I recognised his hominivorous propensities at once by the
peculiar striping of his left shoulder, an infallible sign to a
sportsman's eye--licking his chops in joyous anticipation of the
unresisting feast which Providence had thus thrown in his way. I could
see the great red tongue darting out now on one side of his mouth, now
on the other, while his immense tail lashed the floor in dazzling
curves. This spectacle would have been sufficient to shake the nerves
of an ordinarily courageous man--but this was not all. On one side of
the gigantic cat lay coiled an immense python, of the deadliest kind,
and on the other one of the tallest and most powerful elephants I have
ever seen was squatting on its haunches, blinking at my poor father
with its wicked little eyes. I knew at once what had happened. My
father's only weakness was a fondness amounting to mania for conjuring
tricks of all kinds. The latest mail had brought us some English
papers containing descriptions of the Cabinet Trick of the DAVENPORT
Brothers, who were at that time (this may help to fix the date, a
point on which I have never cared to trouble myself) astounding all
London by their dexterity in untying themselves from ropes lashed
securely round them. As soon as he had read the accounts my father
determined that he would practise the trick, and for a week past he
had spent hours in our little room with coils of rope wound round
every part of his body in the effort, which had hitherto proved vain,
to release himself. Every day the heroic old fellow, still panting
from his intolerable exertions, had murmured "I am all but undone,"
but never--if the expression may be pardoned--had he been so near his
utter undoing as he was at this awful moment. Of course I knew what
had happened. The dastardly Chamberlain, whose discomfiture I have
already narrated, must have got wind of my father's daily practice,
and, taking advantage of his state of bondage, must have introduced
into our room its present horrible occupants. The room was not a large
one, and the stairs leading to it were steep, and I have never yet
been able to explain to myself satisfactorily by what masterpiece of
diabolical ingenuity the scoundrel was able to carry out his
stratagem.
[Illustration]
However, this was no moment for discovering explanations. The
situation required instant action. Fortunately, my father's eyes were
unbandaged, and for the space of half-an-hour, as it afterwards turned
out, he had been able to control his zoological invaders by the mere
magnetism of his unwavering glance. One wink, however, was bound to
prove fatal, and I saw from the beads of perspiration standing upon
the old man's rugged forehead that he must be very near the limit of
his power of keeping both eyes open. If a drop of perspiration should
happen to roll into one of his eyes there could be, I knew, but one
end to the business.
As good luck would have it, the animals had not noticed my entrance. I
immediately decided what to do. Addressing my father silently in the
deaf and dumb language, of which I am a master, I adjured him to stand
firm for another moment or two. I could see from the expression of
trustful thankfulness, which stealing over his face, robbed it of
every vestige of anxiety, that he had understood my appeal. Then
creeping cautiously to a cupboard, I opened it without the slightest
noise and found, as I expected, a small coil of rope and a dish of
Sallûns, a very tasty kind of native cake. Taking two of these, I tied
one to each end of the rope, and threw it deftly so that one cake
dropped under the elephant's trunk, while the other, by a stroke of
good fortune, fell right into the wide open jaws of the python. The
slack, as I intended, alighted gently in a running noose round the
tiger's throat. What I anticipated happened. The snake, without
troubling itself to discover whence the gift had come, swallowed the
Sallûn with which fate had so unexpectedly provided it. In doing so it
pulled the dainty at the other end slightly away from the mammoth,
who, seeing it moving from him, lost no time in seizing it with his
trunk and placing it, as is the wont of these animals, in his mouth.
The rope was immediately pulled taut, and began to choke the tiger.
His roars were awful but unavailing. Neither elephant nor python would
release his hold, and in just seventy-four seconds--I took the time by
my stop-watch--the beautiful striped brute was a corpse. This,
however, was not all. So hard did the two living beasts struggle in
their fearful tug of war that the tiger's head gradually became
detached from his body and rolled away to my immoveable father's feet.
What would be the result of the contest? The agony of watching was
frightful. In my suspense I tried to breathe a prayer, but at the time
all I could remember was the fifth proposition of the first book of
Euclid, which I repeated twice over without a single mistake.
Meanwhile, the two combatants, as the Sallûns went further and further
down their throats and into their stomachs, approached closer and
closer to one another. At last only a yard, then a foot, then six
inches, then an inch separated them, until at last--Great heaven! my
hair, even as I write, stands on end with unutterable horror--I saw
the python open its enormous jaws to their fullest extent and swallow,
yes, literally swallow the trunk, the tusks, and the vast head of the
elephant. Slowly the immense pachyderm disappeared. I heard his great
bones crack and shiver as inch after inch of him was remorselessly
engulfed until, after three minutes and fourteen seconds, all that
visibly remained of him was a little tail, which for a space waggled
feebly out of the snake's mouth. Then this, too, was still. Another
gulp and it was gone, and all was over.
To dispatch the python in its distended condition was the work of a
moment. I at once released the old man who had been the delighted
spectator of my successful cunning. His joy, as may be imagined, was
great, but his pride in his son was even greater than his joy. I
exacted from him a promise (which, I regret to say, he broke only a
few days afterwards) never again to practise the Cabinet Trick. Then,
having rung the bell and ordered my servant to carry away the remains
of the three beasts, I proceeded to make my preparations for starting
without delay in quest of the Pink Hippopotamus.
(_To be continued._)
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