The next day was hot and drowsy, and old man Pike simply lazed around,
with his smasher hat tilted over his eyes and his hands in his pockets.
He could not, however, be tempted to roam any distance from the house,
and he showed not the slightest curiosity about that fiend of a black
tiger, which in the night had killed a goat belonging to one of the
"boys." The kill was made out of sheer lust of blood, for he had eaten
nothing, the body being untouched, except for the festering marks about
the throat I had the carcase brought up for Abe's inspection, since he
would not walk down to the kraal, and he held an inquest upon it,
sitting on an upturned "vatje," or small water barrel.
"That goat," he drawled, "were killed!"
"There seems proof of it," I said mildly.
"Yes, killed by a ole tiger."
"Why old?"
"Well, you see, this yer goat died o' a broken shoulder an' shock--
mostly shock. The tiger just patted the shoulder in his spring with the
open paw. I see there are four scratches, an' the hook of the dew claw
over here, a span away from the fore claws. The middle an' end scratch
is shaller. Why? Cas the claws a been worn down. Now take these yer
wounds in the throat. These two deep holes here's where his fangs went
in, but on the top side there's jest the marks o' his small teeth. The
upper fangs is missing or worn down. Consekently, 'tis a ole tiger."
"And you will catch the old tiger?"
"Not me! Bein' ole, he's cunnin', an' bein' black, he's naturelly
fierce; and bein' ole an' black he's more'n a match fer me. See that
big blue fly? I swear there warn't a blue fly around here ten minutes
ago, an' now there's a whole cloud o' 'em followin' the track, an'
buzzin' like a telegraph wire! Little things is like big 'uns. That
there fly is like the first aasvogel sailin' away from the limits o' the
sky on the taint of a dead ox, an' behind him a whole string o'
vultures, with their wings outstretched like the sails of a ship, an'
ther bald heads bent down to spot the dead heap of corruption miles away
below."
I bade the Kaffir take away the dead goat which formed the principal
dish at the feast that night and, getting my double-barrelled gun,
whistled up the dogs, and went off on the spoor of the tiger, leaving
Abe listlessly whittling at a stick.
The scent was good, and the dogs went on it still-mouthed, except for an
occasional growl, and they led me through the large ostrich camp, over a
ridge, across an open strip of veld, to a deep and dark kloof, where the
trees grew so thick that underneath it was twilight in the glare of
mid-day. The dogs went on, with bristling hair, into the heart of the
kloof, when a singular thing happened. The shrill, piercing cry of a
"dassie," or rock coney, arose from out the deep silence, and the dogs
stopping, howled dismally, then suddenly turned and slipped away,
disappearing like shadows among the trees. The noise I knew must have
aroused the tiger, but I pushed on cautiously, hoping to get a shot at
him as he slunk off. I reached the krantz which rimmed in the kloof
without sight of him, and, hunting around, found his lair, still warm in
a small cave. Retracing my steps, I had almost reached the edge of the
trees, when in the way lay the body of one of the dogs, an old and
favourite buffalo dog of the mastiff breed, his throat torn, and the
mark of claws on his shoulder and flank.
"It's lucky for you," said Abe when I reached home, "that it were the
dog he took."
"How do you know he got the dog?"
"You went out with five, an' you come home with four, an' a look on your
face 's if you'd seen a ghost. I'm gwine back in the mornin'."
"You're no friend of mine, Abe Pike, if you don't help destroy that
brute!"
"I seed the ole man baboon makin' tracks for my place this arternoon--
an' mebbe that ther' tiger would be quittin' too."
"Hang you and your baboon!"
"All serene, sonny--all serene. I'd rayther be hanged than 'ave my
wizened open'd out by a blood-sucking four-footed witch. What happened
in your hunt?" I told him curtly enough. "My gum! You believe me:
that dassie cried out to warn the tiger. He were put there to watch
while his master slep'."
"Nonsense! His cry was an accident."
"Soh! Then tell me why the dogs scooted. You don't know! O' course
you don't know. But I know. I've had 'xperience o' the same thing.
Animiles have got a sense which is missin' from folk, or maybe lost for
want of use, I don't know which, tho' myself I think it's lost. What we
call a presentment is the remains o' that missin' sense, an' animiles is
got the full sense. Those dogs knew the meanin' o' that dassie's yell--
that's so."
"And what was your experience?"
"It were all along o' a spring hare hopping along in the night--without
enough solid body to put a shot in. It were away back in the sixties,
when I were younger nor I am now, an' a sailor chap, knockin' around
doin' odd jobs, happened across my house. He were a good-hearted
critter, tho' terrible lazy, 'xcept it were shootin' spring hares at
night by lamp-light, which came 'xpensive by reason of his usin' up the
oil an' powder. Well, one night the wind came off the seas, bringing up
a great stack of clouds, makin' it that dark you couldn't tell which
were solid yearth an' which were sky; but this sailor chap he would go
out, an' I had to go along to hold the lamp, he not bein' keerful enough
to carry it in the strap of his hat. Well, soon's I got outer the door
I knew there were somethin' wrong. The black night were full o' the
roar o' the surf breakin' six miles away, an' yet there were the same
sort of shivery stillness you find in a great cave while the echoes are
tossin' about the sound of a dying shout. In the stillness behind the
holler growl o' the sea I could tell there were somethin' watchful an'
bad. I wanted to turn back, but he yelled out he yeard the spring hare
gruntin', an' I were obliged to foller him inter the black, with a
sickly sort o' fan-shaped light streaming from the lamp. `Hist!' says
he. I histed, an' peering ahead seed a big bright eye glancing out o'
the dark, not mor'n twenty paces off--fer the lantern couldn't throw a
reflection farther than that. `Take him an inch below the eye,' says I,
an' he let rip. We went forrard to pick the hare up, but he warn't
there--not a hair o' him. The grunt o' him come jest ahead agin--an'
steadyin' the lamp, we caught his eye full an' bright. `I'll blow his
head off,' said the sailor chap, and taking a long aim, he banged off.
There warn't no dead spring hare. No, sonny; but while we gazed around
his grunt come to us onct more. I took the ole gun an' loaded her up.
`You take the lantern,' says I, `an' lets stop this 'ere foolishness.'
A step or two we took, an' sure enough that eye blazed out onct more. I
jes' knelt down under his arms, an' taking full aim at the eye, was dead
sure I had the long-tailed crittur, fer he sat still as a rock, an' as
onsuspicious as a tree trunk. An' I missed him. His body warn't there,
but his grunt came jest as lively as ever. The sailor chap were
laughing at me fer missin', but Abe Pike warn't doing no giggling. He
smelt somethin' onnatural."
"You had been taking grog, perhaps, that evening?"
"Not a sup nor a sip. We stood there, he laughin' and me listenin' to
the moan in the air, an' lookin' roun' at the black wall o' night `Blow
me!' says the sailor chap, `if the swab ain't come back,' an' with that
he took out his jack knife an' flung it at the flamin' eye, which had
moved back inter the light from the lantern. That eye never winked, an'
it made me shiver. `Come on,' says the sailor, `I'll foller him to the
devil,' says he. `Foller him,' says I, `but I'm goin' back;' and back I
went; and he, not havin' the lantern, had to come along too, which he
did cheekin' me the ole time. Well, before we'd gone a hundred paces,
ther' were that eye ahead, an' he says, `Let us get nearer.' We went
closer, when all on a sudden that eye went out like a burnt match. Jes'
then I yeard a rustlin' noise behind, an' whipping roun', saw there were
a pair o' sparkles shining green. He seed 'em too. `Don't shoot,' says
I, `it's a shadder.' `Shadder be blowed,' says he, `yer a ole fool.'
He were gettin' ready to fire, when I gripped him by the arm, while the
hair riz on my head, for I saw what was behind those green eyes. `Let
me go,' he says, hissin' through his teeth. `If you fire,' I says
speakin' solumn, `yere a dead man.' `You're silly,' he says, pulling
hard. `How can a little hare hurt me?'
"`That hare,' says I, `is a tiger.'"
"Was it?"
"You wait. You know's well as I do a hare, by reason of his eyes bein'
wide apart, only shows one eye to the light, an', moreover, he sits with
his head sideways. Well, these two eyes, when I looked ag'in, were
close together, an' they gave a green light. `A tiger,' says I, an'
with my hand on his arm we went back to the house. As I shut the door I
yeared that grunt ag'in--an' ag'in as we sat down listenin'. Well, that
sailor chap, he warn't satisfied. He must open the door an' look out.
`Come here,' he says, an' looking out over his shoulder there I seed
that hare sitting up, an' the light shining thro' his body, `'Tis a
white hare,' he says. `It's a sperrit,' says I. `Sperrit or no
sperrit,' he says, snatchin' the gun, `I lay him out!' With that he
stepped out into the darkness, an' the lantern went out. Then it
happened."
"What happened?"
"Something 'twixt the sailor lad and the tiger. As I searched aroun'
fer a match I yeard the gun, there were a roar and a shriek, an' when I
got the light started an' went out there were only his old hat an' the
gun. I'm not fooling with any o' yer tigers that's got sperrits
watchin' over 'em. I'm going home in the mornin'."