And Marielihou? Ah, Marielihou was a black mystery. Sometimes she was
there, and sometimes she wasn't, and if at such times you asked
Johnnie where she was, he would reply mysteriously, "Aw, she's busy."
And busy Marielihou was, always and at all times. If Graeme found her
in the hedge with Johnnie, she was busy licking her lips with vicious
enjoyment as though she had just finished eating something that had
screamed as it died. Or she was licking them snarlishly and
surreptitiously, and sharpening her claws, as though just about
starting out after something to eat--something which he knew would
certainly scream as it died. For Marielihou was a mighty hunter, and
her long black body could be seen about the cliffs at any time of
night or day, creeping and worming along, then, of a sudden, pointing
and stiffening, and flashing on to her prey like the black death she
was.
Six full-grown rabbits had Marielihou been known to bring home in a
single day, to say nothing of all the others that had gone to the
satisfaction of her own inappeasable lust for rabbit-flesh and
slaughter.
As to the strange tales the neighbours whispered about her, Graeme
could make neither head nor tail of them. But when old Tom Hamon put
it to him direct, he had to confess that he never had seen old Mother
Vautrin and Marielihou together, nor both at the same time.
"B'en!" said old Tom, as if that ended the matter. "An' I tell you, if
I had a silver bullet I'd soon try what that Marrlyou's made of."
"And why a silver bullet?" asked Graeme.
"'Cause--Lead bullets an't no good 'gainst the likes o' Marrlyou.
Many's the wan I've sent after her, ay, an' through her, and she none
the worse. Guyablle!" and old Tom spat viciously.
"Perhaps you missed her," suggested Graeme, not unreasonably as he
thought.
"Missed her!" with immense scorn. "I tell ee bullets goes clean
through her, in one side an' out t'other, an' she never a bit the
worse. I've foun' 'em myself spatted on rock just where she sat."
"Well, why don't you get a silver bullet and try again?"
"Ah! Teks some getting does silver bullets."
"How much?"
"A shill'n would mek a little wan," and Graeme gave him a shilling to
try his luck, because Marielihou's unsportsmanlike behaviour did not
commend itself to him.
But it took many shillings to obtain anything definite in the way of
results, and Graeme had his own humorous suspicions as to the billets
some of them found, and gently chaffed old Tom on the subject whenever
they met.
"You wait," said Tom, with mysterious nods.