THE BLACK BEAST
"Pant," said Johnny the next evening, as they sat upon the beach in the
moonlight, with the tom, tom, tom of the circus drum sounding from the
distance, "there's one thing that puzzles me about this crimson flash."
"Let's hear." There was a smile lurking about the corners of Pant's
mouth.
"That big yellow cat last night was scared stiff, just frozen in his
tracks by the crimson flash," said Johnny. "They tell me that all the big
cats act that way, except one."
"Uh!" grunted Pant. "The black panther."
"He leaps right at it, wants to eat someone up every time it's flashed on
his cage. How's that?" asked Johnny.
Pant smiled, as he drank in a deep breath of cool, night air. "That,
Johnny, is a rather long story, a story I've never told. But, because
you've been a good pal, because, though I've doubtless seemed mighty
queer at times, you've never asked a leading question, I've a strong
notion to tell it to you."
Johnny waited in silence. The tom tom of the drum ceased. By that he knew
that Gwen, Queen of the circus, was just entering the ring for her part.
He had intended to see that act again, but if Pant spoke--
"I think I will," mused Pant. "You see," he went on, "ever since I was a
small child I have had a great interest in cats. Even before I could
walk, so they tell me, I would turn up missing, and they'd find me at
last creeping through the grass in the meadows, following an old tomato
colored cat that was hunting for moles.
"As I grew older I came to know that a cat could see in the dark, and
that he did most of his hunting at night. These things interested me.
Night after night I would slip from my bed, steal out into the night and
follow the cats in their nightly wanderings. I guess I learned things
about cats that no one else knows; some of their secrets, I mean. I've
never told them, and I'm not going to tell them to you. Knowledge is of
very little use to people unless they go to the places where it can be
applied, and very few are willing to go all that way.
"When I was thrown out into the world to shift for myself I still wanted
to know more about cats. Little by little I came to know that house cats
were but the pygmies among cats; that there were large, fierce, dangerous
cats--wild cats, mountain lions, tigers, and the like. It was just when
my curiosity about these big cats was at its height that I happened to
wander into a zoo. There I found tigers, panthers, leopards and mountain
lions. I was wild with joy. I watched these big cats for hours. I asked
so many questions of the attendant that he threatened to throw me out.
When night came he did force me to go away. For a week I did nothing but
haunt that zoo.
"At last it came to me suddenly one day that I could learn nothing really
worth while about these wonderful cats unless I could watch them, as I
had watched house cats, in their native haunts, as they rested, fed,
played and wandered about or stalked their prey. I asked the keeper where
their native homes were. He showed me on a map. I was astonished. They
were from all over the world, India, Africa, South America, everywhere.
"There were two cats that had caught my eye, the great tawny beast, the
Bengal tiger, and the smaller black cat with the shifting eye, the black
leopard.
"When I was told that both these came from the jungles of India I was
overjoyed. I would go there and follow them day after day, until I knew
all their secrets.
"When I told the attendant of my resolve, he laughed at me; said I'd be
killed and eaten before I had been in the jungle a day.
"I took to thinking about that; then I tried to study out some way to
make the great cats of the jungle afraid of me. I returned again to the
zoo and studied the great animals. When the keeper was not looking I
tried many things. At last I found one thing that would make them
afraid--all but one, the black cat with the shifting eyes; he was not
afraid. He leaped at his bars snarling, but I said to myself, 'He is only
one, all other black leopards will be afraid.'"
"Of the crimson flash?" whispered Johnny.
Pant gave him a look of warning, then glanced away at the lake.
"I was only a boy and not very far in my teens at that, but I went to the
jungles of India. I don't remember much how I went. I was a stowaway on a
big steamer, then in a smaller one. I helped pole long, heavy barges up
an endless river where mosses and grape vines hung thick along the banks,
and where great slimy beasts rose from the water to glare at us. I caught
the fever and lay for weeks in a bed of a hospital provided for Dutch
missionaries.
"After I got well, I poled more boats up the river until, at last, I was
in the heart of India, where there were few white men, where there were
many naked natives, where it was all jungle, and where in the night I
could hear the call of the wild things, my friends, the great cats. Ah,
my boy! Then I was happy. I would study. I would learn secrets. I would
know things that no other man knew."
Pant paused and, rising, began to pace restlessly back and forth, and
Johnny, watching, was reminded of the great Bengal tiger pacing the
length of his cage.
"There was a mission station," Pant went on, still pacing to and fro; "a
little mission, with a tiny hospital and a doctor. It was in a native
village at the edge of a great jungle. The natives swarmed to it from
many miles around. When I asked the gray haired doctor why they didn't
have a large hospital, he shook his head and answered:
"'No money.'"
"I had a little money; I gave him that, and he let me stay there with
them. There were just his wife and one nurse and the servants. I did
little things for them about the place the time I was not sleeping during
the day. At night I went out into the jungle alone. That first night,
when they saw me starting out, they called me back; told me there were
great cats lurking in the jungle that would kill and eat me; begged me
not to go, but I said to them:
"'I have a charmed life. Nothing can harm me. Besides, all cats are my
friends.'
"You see," Pant sat down upon the sand, "you see, I didn't want to tell
my secret. Never tell your secrets, Johnny, at least not all of them.
You'll mean more to your friends and trouble your enemies more if you
keep them. I kept mine; but I went out into the jungle alone.
"I found them, Johnny; I found the great tawny cats with the dark
stripes, the tigers. They were not hard to find, for I knew the secrets
of cats, and all cats are alike.
"First I found the old tiger, then his mate. They were hunting in the
tall grass. Right away, when they saw me, they wanted to hunt me and take
me home to their cubs. But there I had them. There was my great secret.
When I showed them what I could do, they were afraid. They walked round
and round me until, in the morning, the grass was all trampled round in a
circle.
"The next night I found their cubs playing near the roots of a fallen
tree. They were three months old--big as dogs. The father had broken the
forelegs of a deer, and had brought it home for them to kill.
"When they saw me, the old ones wanted to get me more than ever. How they
snarled! How they circled and lashed their tails! They couldn't get me; I
had them. They were afraid. Ten men on elephants, with rifles, they would
have attacked with a rush, but not me. They were afraid.
"But, Johnny, they were wonderful cats. Their coats! You have seen tigers
in cages. Bah! They are nothing to the great, free cats of the jungle.
The yellow! You have seen the sky at sunset sometimes when it was painted
with golden fire? It was like that, only grander. And the dark stripes!
They were like midnight. The gleam of their teeth, the burning red of
their eyes, as they prowled in the night. Ah! Johnny! I had found true
happiness. I only wanted one thing to make me perfectly happy, and that
was to have them play with me, as they played with their cubs; as the
house cats played with me when I was in rompers. That, too, would have
come, but--"
Sighing, Pant rose and began pacing the beach again.
"A change came over me. I began to see things and to wonder. At times I
thought how sick I had been down there in the little Dutch mission
hospital, and how the short, fat Dutch nurses had pattered about in their
wooden shoes to help make me well. Then I saw the hundreds and hundreds
of poor natives who came limping into our little station, or who were
carried in on bamboo stretchers. It all set me thinking. Up to that time,
I had thought that nothing mattered but cats. I wanted to know all about
cats. I wanted, yes, I do believe I wanted to be like a cat. Some folks
believe we were all animals once before we were born as humans. An old
native of the jungle told me that. If that is true, then I was once a
cat.
"But I got to thinking that perhaps humans counted more than the great
cats in the jungle. I didn't want to think that, not at first, but I
couldn't shake it off. When I went into the jungle to watch the cats I
saw in my mind those sick people coming, coming, coming. I didn't like
it; didn't want to see them. There was yet the great black cat. I must
find him somewhere in the jungle. I must see him.
"One day I talked to the doctor about my thoughts, and he told me that
people counted for much more than big cats. He said he needed medicine,
supplies, new houses, everything, and since I could go to the jungle and
come back alive, perhaps I could help him.
"'How?' I asked.
"It was a terrible thing he said: 'Go into the jungle and get me tiger
cubs. Traders will pay big money for them.'
"It was terrible. I could do it. There were three cubs. I could get them,
but--
"'But,' I said to the doctor, 'the big cats, the father and mother, must
first be killed.'
"'Yes,' he smiled. And that was all he said.
"I went into the jungle again that night and, as I watched the splendor
of the great cats, I said, 'No, I will never do it! Never! Never!' And
yet I was going to do that very thing. I was going to take a rifle with
me, and lie there in that wonderful moonlight to wait for them to come
back; sooner than I thought, too.
"It was that night, for the first time, that the old tiger left his mate
and the three cubs while I watched them and went away to hunt by himself.
Then I was glad, for I always had wished to watch him as he hunted down
the blue deer, the buffalo, wild goat or wild pig. So I followed.
Creeping after him through the moonlight I lost him many times, for his
yellow stripes were like the moonbeams, and the dark ones like wavering
shadows. But I always found him again, as he rose to leap along some path
or across an open spot in the forest.
"At last I knew that we were nearing the village. 'Ah!' I said to myself,
'so that is your game. You will pick a calf or a fat young pig for your
dinner. Perhaps you may not fare as well as that,' for I decided that I
must use my charm to drive him from the village if he went to rob there.
"But, before I had expected it, he began to circle. By that I knew he had
scented some prey. Narrower and narrower his circle grew. Greater and
greater became my curiosity, for I wondered what kind of prey he could
find so near the village and yet not safe in its pen.
"Finally I climbed upon the trunk of a dead tree, and then I saw. My
blood ran cold. Out of the village had wandered a child, a little girl of
four or five years. She had crept from her bed while others were asleep,
and there she was, the pale moonlight glistening from her body, and the
tiger not four springs away. Then it was that I saw, saw clear as midday
how it was; that all big cats were men's enemies, and were but to be
killed.
"Yet, I could not kill. I had not as much as a knife. I could do but one
thing. I had my charm. I must stand between the beast and the child.
"Three leaps brought me in his path. Then I turned and faced him. It was
a great and terrible moment. My charm; would it work? He was terribly
angry. Lashing his tail, he leaped to one side. But that was no good. I
had him. I was now beside the child, who was not one bit afraid.
"That time the tiger almost dared. He leaped once. Two more leaps
remained. He leaped again. I could see the round, black pupils of his
eyes; count his teeth; hear him breathe. Three times they relaxed. He did
not dare. My charm; it worked. I had him. He did not dare.
"At last he slunk away through the tall grass. Then, because the child
was not afraid, because I knew it would be the last time I should ever
watch the cats and their cubs, I took the child and followed the tiger
back to the lair, where all night long, beneath the moon, the tiger and
his mate with their cubs beat a hard, round path about me and the little
girl.
"Just before sunrise I heard the distant beat of the tom tom, the
bellowing of bull buffaloes. Then it was that I knew that the natives
were driving the herd of buffaloes to the jungle that they might frighten
the tigers from their lair, and secure the remains of the child. And all
the time I had the child safe in my arms."
Pant paused and looked away over the glimmering water. The tom, tom, tom
of the circus drum was sounding. The indistinct noises wafted on the
breeze might be the lowing buffaloes. Johnny, for the second, fancied
himself in the heart of the jungle with Pant, the child, and the tigers.
"The next night," Pant's voice had grown suddenly husky, "I went to the
jungle again, and that morning I brought in the pelts of the tiger and
his mate. The kittens were chained to a tree. The natives brought them in
later. The hospital was bigger and better after that. And I, I was a
hero, a hero to them all, but not to myself."
"But the black cat, the panther?" suggested Johnny after a moment of
silence.
"Oh, yes, that was later. We have not time for it now. We move to-night.
We must hurry. Already the people are leaving."
"One thing more before we go," said Johnny eagerly. "Light, Pant, does
light travel in straight lines?" He was thinking of the crimson flash
that had leaped apparently from mid-air in the tent the previous evening.
"I am surprised that you ask it," Pant smiled. "You have been in Alaska?"
"Yes."
"Then, at Cape Prince of Wales you must have seen the midnight sun?"
"Yes, in June."
"If the sun's rays shone straight, you must have had then as many hours
of continuous darkness in December as you had of continuous daylight in
June. Did you?"
"No," said Johnny. "We had three or four hours of sun every day, even in
December."
"Then," said Pant, smiling, "the sun's rays must have been bent that they
might reach you. In fact, the rays of light never travel straight. So
long! I'll leave you now to think that over. See you at our next stand.
Hope I can tell you then who has your diamond ring."
He vanished into the night, leaving Johnny to stare after him in wonder
and admiration.
"Some day," Johnny said to himself, "I'll hear the story of the black
leopard."