"OH! KILL ME QUICK AND PUT ME OUT OF PAIN."
The story of my life? Was that what you asked me for, my little foster
son? I see Warlock pricking one ear. He is going to listen too, is he?
Ah! well, my friends, my life has been a very long and a very eventful
one, for I have travelled very far and seen much, and you all know I am
getting old. Dick is laughing and chuckling to himself. Of course, he
thinks that I am centuries old, but that is only because he himself is
so young.
Chammy, the chameleon, looks down at Shireen with one of his droll eyes,
while he watches a fly on the ceiling with the other. He holds up a
hand, too, opening and shutting it as he remarks--
"Don't give yourself airs about your age, Shireen. Look at me. It is a
hundred years yesterday since I came to life again."
"Came to life again, Chammy," says Warlock, winking to Dick. "Why, what
are you telling us?"
"The truth," said the chameleon. "One thousand one hundred years ago
yesterday--and it doesn't seem very long to look back to--after a good
dinner on butterflies I retired into the hollow of a young banian tree
in an African forest to have a nap. I had dined heartily, and I slept
long, so long that the tree grew up over me. And it grew and grew and
grew for a thousand years till it became the most wonderful tree in all
the forest. But one day it was rent in twain by a lightning flash,
and--I awoke and crawled out and found a moth and swallowed it."
"Tse, tse, tse!" said Dick.
"We can't be expected to swallow your story though, Chammy," said
Warlock.
Chammy did not reply, for the fly had come down from the ceiling, and
settling in front of the chameleon began to wash its face.
Chammy turned both eyes in towards his nose, and focused the fly, then
his mouth slowly opened, and presently out darted a long round tongue,
more like a slug than anything else, and the fly never finished washing
its face.
Well, as I was saying, continued Shireen, when interrupted by our dear
and excessively old friend Chammy, I am getting on! Twenty years, you
know, children, is a long, long life for a cat, if not for a chameleon,
and oh! what ups and downs I have seen in that time!
My very earliest recollections take me back to scenes in beautiful
Persia, "the land of the lion and the sun."
"Some day," said Dick, the starling, making pretence to bathe himself in
tabby's glittering fur--"some day I mean to fly there. None of you
fellows have wings, so you can't do that sort of thing. It would take
poor old dummy yonder fully another thousand years to wriggle that
length. Better he should go to sleep again in an old log of wood!"
"Yes," continued Dick, while Shireen sat thoughtfully washing her face
and gazing at the fire. "I shall go to Persia. I had quite a long talk
the other day with the cuckoo about it. He says that Persia in the
South is no end of a nice place, with flies and things to be found all
throughout the winter. He says he wouldn't come here at all if it
wasn't that there is less danger in this country in summer-time to his
eggs, and the climate is more bracing for the mother and the young. The
Mother Cuckoo, you must remember, is very delicate, and wouldn't think
of rearing her own family, so she employs a nurse, or maybe three or
four nurses; and the more fools they, _I_ say, for accepting the
situation, for they toil away all the best part of the summer, leaving
their own little families to starve and never get a thank-you for their
pains. But Mother Cuckoo is a knowing old bird; she finds a nest nicely
hidden--it may be a robin's, it may be a tit-lark's, or a water
wagtail's--and then a conversation begins at once.
"`Nice little place you've got here,' says Mother Cuckoo to the little
bird, smiling all down both sides of her head as she speaks, for you
know, Warlock, you couldn't make a cuckoo's mouth much bigger without
cutting her head off. `Nice little place!'
"`Yes,' says the little bird, feeling much flattered.
"`And such a cosy warm well-lined nest!'
"`Yes,' says the little bird again, `my husband and I did that.'
"`How clever. And the nest is so well hidden!'
"`Oh, yes, that is the best of it. There are no cats about, and wicked
schoolboys would never think of looking here for a nest.'
"`It isn't a very large nest!'
"`Oh, it is big enough for our little family.'
"`Let me see,' says Mother Cuckoo, `you have three eggs laid already.
How clever of you!'
"`Yes, and I'm going to lay another.'
"`Your husband's from home to-day, isn't he?'
"`He has gone to the woods for a certain kind of beetle that I've set my
heart upon.'
"`Oh, dear!' says sly Mother Cuckoo, `I do feel so faint; all over of a
tremble. Do, like a dear little mite, go and find my husband. He is in
the copse down by the miller's pond. I'll sit here and keep your eggs
warm till you return.'
"But the little bird never finds Father Cuckoo, and when she comes back,
lo! old Mother Cuckoo has gone, but the sly bird has left an egg bigger
and different from any in the nest. And that egg seems to throw a
glamour over the little bird; she feels compelled to hatch it, and to
rear the little one when it comes out to the neglect of her own family,
for the young cuckoo is such a powerful eater that it takes both the
little bird and her husband all their time to gather insects for it and
stuff them down its gaping throat, and--"
"Now, Dick," cried Warlock, "if you're quite done we would like to hear
Shireen's story; you may fly to Persia with the cuckoos in August if you
like, and--"
"And perhaps never come home again," said Tabby; "don't you go, Dick,
don't you go."
From all I can recollect of Persia, said Shireen, it is a very beautiful
country in summer-time, although away high up in the mountain fastnesses
of the North, terrible snowstorms sometimes blow, and here dwell tribes
and clans of wild Persian Highlanders that are at war with all the
world.
Yet, strange to say, these wild men are kind to their cats, and pussy in
these regions is looked upon as quite one of the family.
But it was not in these wilds that I first saw the light of day, or any
other light, children, but far away in what my mother called the sunny
South.
"Much game there, mother?" asked Warlock, pricking both his ears.
"I'll come to that presently, Warlock, you mustn't interrupt, you know."
My very earliest recollections then, you must know, are all centred in
my mother. This is only natural. Besides, my mother was very beautiful
indeed. My little brother and I--we were both born at the same time--
disagreed about many matters connected with domestic life and family
arrangements, but we were both of the same opinion concerning mother's
beauty. I was very young when I first opened my eyes, but I have only
to close them again now, and mother rises up before me in all her
loveliness. White were the snows that capped the jagged hills of the
Zarda Koo, no snows could be whiter, but more spotless still, I thought,
was the coat of my dam. Blue were the rifts between the clouds in the
autumn, but bluer and brighter my mother's eyes. Then every movement
she made was graceful and easy. Was it any wonder that brother and I
loved her, or that we sometimes fought for the best place in her arms?
Looking back through the long vista of years, I cannot help thinking
that perhaps my mother loved my brother better than me. I am sure she
spent more time in licking him, but then I may be wrong, for I was
restless, and would at any time rather have romped with mother's tail
than submitted to her caresses when they took the shape of licking my
face and ears with her tongue. Besides, brother had a black spot on his
brow, which mother thought she would succeed in licking off. So she
would lick and lick and lick until she fell back tired and exhausted on
the cushion of crimson silk that formed our bed.
I did not know then the value that human beings attached to a cushion
like this. Nor the value of anything around me.
Everything, brother and I believed, belonged to mother, the whole
universe, as far as we had yet seen it, belonged to her, and the slaves
that came softly stealing across the thick carpets and placed mother's
food before her in dishes of solid gold and silver, were, in our
opinion, if we thought about the matter at all, only creatures of common
clay that lived and moved and had their beings merely to minister to
mother's wants and needs.
I am much wiser now, children, and I can tell you that the splendid
apartments where mother lived when we were very young, were furnished
with splendour and elegance, unknown to this land of cloudy skies and
misty rain.
That silk cushion, children, on which mother lay, was richly embroidered
with threads of gold, and tasselled with pearls and precious stones.
The room itself was lofty, and hung everywhere with curtains of rarest
value. Great punkahs, moved by invisible hands, depended from the roof,
and, waving to and fro, kept us cool. Costly vases and musical
instruments stood here and there, and couches of pale-blue silk and
silver were ranged along the walls. There was a dim religious light
throughout, and from an arched window we could catch glimpses of gardens
filled with lovely flowers and fruit, and watered by cool fountains that
threw their snow-white spray far up against the blue of the sky. And
everywhere the air was laden with the rich and rare odour of orange and
citron blooms.
Then on the soft Persian carpets, I was afterwards told, my brother and
I used to play with rubies as large as marbles.
"Something to eat?" said Dick, thoughtfully.
"No, Dick, a ruby is nothing to eat, but it is something held so sacred
by human beings, that one such precious stone would buy all the fine
things a man could use in a long, long lifetime."
Now, some weeks after brother and I opened our eyes, we learned to lap
milk. It was difficult to do this at first, though we wanted to,
because our eyes were not yet strong enough to judge distances, and
sometimes when we thought we were licking the milk we were only lapping
the air; then when we put our heads further down our noses went into the
silver saucer up to the eyes, and we thought we were drowned, and sprang
up and sneezed.
While trying one day to lap some milk, we noticed that mother was
singing to a very pretty human being, who sat cross-legged upon a low
ottoman. Mother was singing, and she was also rubbing her head
backwards and forwards against this lovely human creature's bare arm.
Brother and I sat back and looked up in astonishment, although looking
up made our heads so light that we nearly tumbled.
"Oh! aren't they funny, funny, funny?" cried a voice. It was that of
the beautiful human being.
The words only sounded to us like rippling music then, music such as the
birds in their golden cages made, and the spray of the fountain
splashing down and falling into its marble basin. But mother afterwards
translated the language to us.
Day after day now this human being sat there cross-legged on the
ottoman, and we soon began to like her as much as mother did.
She was very young and very beautiful, her little mouth was a rosebud,
her eyes were very large, but jetty black, not blue like mother's. She
was dressed in robes of flowing silk of many colours, and when she
walked, glittering chains of gold and precious stones jangled and rang.
Beside her often stood a tall and powerful man-human, as dark as night,
with fierce red eyes, white flashing teeth, and a girdle around his
waist, from which hung an ugly half-moon knife. Brother and I were much
afraid of this man-human. He was an ogre, and we ran backwards, raised
our hair, and spat aloud at him when he came near us. But the young and
lovely lady was not at all afraid of the ogre, but used to play with his
knife and tease him.
Mother told us then that we must love the beautiful girl. She was our
mistress and our queen.
Well, this would not have made brother and me love the queen one little
bit, for we did not want any queen but mother. But the queen was so
fond and so gentle, and used to smooth us so tenderly with her white and
taper fingers, which were all bedecked with rings and sparkling stones,
that we came to love her as much in time as mother seemed to do.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
One day we had an adventure that I shall never forget.
Far, in through the open window, sprang a splendid lion-looking cat,
just like mother, only bigger and bolder. He advanced to where we all
lay with a fond and loving cry; but mother sprang up in a rage. All her
hair was raised from end to end, her back was arched, and her eyes
flashed like glowing lights.
Brother and I got up and tried to follow her example, but we both
tumbled over on the cushion and lay there in most inglorious attitudes.
"Mrrrak, mrr--mrr--mrrk!" That is what father said. Yes, Warlock, I
must tell you at once this lion-like cat was our father.
At first mother advanced to meet him growling like a volcano, but he
threw himself on his back and behaved in a fashion altogether so
ridiculous, and with so many droll attitudes of blandishment, that
mother finally softened, all her hair flowed backwards again, and she
began to sing. Then she ran back to the cushion and picked my brother
up, and, throwing herself on her back, held him high in her arms for
father to admire.
"Mrr--wrr--wrr--wurruk!" cried father, and gently tapped brother on the
back.
This so pleased mother that she jumped up and ran round and round the
room. Then she came back and slapped father with a gloved hand. Then
father slapped her and sent her flying half-way across the room. In a
moment she sprang up and leapt on top of him, and the two rolled over
and over on the carpet in mimic warfare, but so like a real battle was
it, that for some time brother and I were very much afraid indeed.
Well, father came nearly every day after this, and he nearly always
brought a little bird, warm but dead, and perhaps, with a little spot of
blood on its breast. I'm afraid it was sometimes a bulbul, or
nightingale, and more than once it was a canary.
But it did not matter to mother one whit. She ate it, feathers and all,
except the tail and the wings, growling awfully all the time she was
devouring it. Meanwhile father stood aside and seemed so pleased that
he did not know what to do with himself.
When she had finished the bird, brother and I had the wings and tail to
play with, and we pretended to be mother, and growled like little wild
beasts. Then mother would sit down and wash her face. As soon as she
had done so she jumped merrily off the cushion and slapped father, and
then the fun began.
One day father came into the room looking much more like a lion than
ever, and he had something in his mouth.
He was growling, too, and I think mother was half afraid of him. But he
came right up to the spot where brother and I were playing with our
ruby, and placed a strange and weird-looking creature down right in
front of us.
We had never seen such a little animal before. It wasn't a bird, for it
had no wings, only feet, and fur as soft as mother's, but dark in
colour. It lay on its side, and, dreadfully frightened though we were,
brother and I both put up our backs and spat and growled most bravely.
The little vision in fur, which I now know to have been a harmless
mouse, lay on its side quite paralysed with fear, but father stretched
out his gloved hand and pushed it. Then it jumped up and ran away.
Oh, what a fright brother and I got when we saw that the wild mouse was
alive! And how brave we thought father was when he sprang after it and
brought it back.
But we soon regained our courage, and father and mother stood aside to
see us play with it. Whenever it escaped they brought it back.
At last the poor little morsel, all wet and bedraggled, stood up on its
hind legs in front of father, and wagged its two wee naked hands in
front of its nose. Mother told me afterwards what it was saying.
"Oh, kill me please," it pleaded. "Kill me quick and put me out of
pain."