PANT'S STORY OF THE BLACK CAT
"Life's like this," Pant gripped Johnny's arm, as the two red balls in
the back of the dark cage shifted from side to side; "life's just like
this: When once you've done a thing, you want to do it again. That's why
we have to watch our habits, if we want our lives to count for something.
Lots of fellows don't watch them. I told you about killing the old tiger
and his mate, and bringing in the cubs to the doctor, so he could sell
them to the traders and buy supplies for his hospital. Well, once I had
done that, I wanted to do it again. I guess there was something of my old
desire to study cats in me yet, for I was overjoyed when I heard wild
stories about a giant black leopard that haunted the trail far up the
river. You see, the mountain streams were drying up, and the big cats
were being driven out of the mountain forests to the river jungles.
"The stories they told about that big black cat made a fellow's blood run
cold. He was big as a tiger. He was a fierce man-eater. His fangs were
twice the size of a tiger's, and each one like a knife blade. He had been
seen to seize a full grown man, and before the man's companions could
fire upon him, to leap to the bough of a tree, ten feet from the ground,
the man in his jaws, too. The others had fled in terror. They never knew
what terrible fate had overtaken their companion until a few days later a
second party passing that way had found his bones strewn beneath that
tree.
"Of course I laughed at their stories. A black cat do a thing like that?
Why, the one in the zoo back home was not three times the size of a house
cat, and he, the keeper had told me, was eight years old.
"I did not believe their stories, but the natives believed them, and
would not stir up the river road; and none would come down it, either; so
those who were sick could not come to the hospital I had helped to make
better. This made me angry.
"'I will go and kill that black cat,' I said to the doctor. 'I will have
his skin for a foot mat!'
"He smiled in a friendly way, and bade me not be rash. The black leopard,
he told me, was much more to be feared than the tiger. Unlike the tiger,
he killed for the fun of killing. He climbed trees, and there on the dark
trunk, seeming but a part of the tree itself, he waited for his prey. In
the gloom of the forest, he dropped without a sound, and his attack was
most terrible. He was truly large, too, six feet in length from tip of
nose to base of tail.
"I did not believe the doctor. Had I not seen a full grown black leopard
in the zoo? Was he not an insignificant fellow? And yet, I was a little
afraid, for I remembered that the black cat in the zoo had not been
afraid, when all the other great cats cringed in dark corners of their
cages. I was a little afraid, but I would not admit it.
"'Just because you have told me he is terrible,' I said, 'I will take
along a strong cage. I will bring him to you alive. We will sell him to
the traders, and buy more beds for our hospital.'
"Then the doctor begged me not to be foolhardy. But I would not listen.
With four natives to carry the cage, with a rifle in my hand, and a big
knife at my belt, I went--went far up the river trail. When the natives
would go no farther, I called them dirty cowards, and putting my rifle
inside the cage, dragged the cage after me until I had come to a place
where, in a deep forest, at the bend of the river, the black cat was said
to make his stand.
"I was frightened a little, Johnny, when I saw the bleached bones of a
man lying beneath a great tree where mosses and vines hung thick, but I
reassured myself by saying the man had died there alone, and the jackals
had picked his bones.
"'That's the origin of the wild story,' I told myself. 'Like as not there
is no black cat at all, and I shall go home disappointed.'
"But I didn't, Johnny, I didn't."
Johnny could feel Pant's hand grip his arm hard, as the black creature in
the cage stirred and gave forth a sort of hissing yawn.
"You were never in the jungle at night?" Pant's tense, vibrant whisper
told more plainly than words that he was living over again those hours in
the jungle alone.
"No," breathed Johnny.
"It's wonderful, and terrible. The sun sinks from sight. Darkness comes
and then out shines the moon. And the moonlight! Nowhere else is it like
it is in the jungle. It creeps down among the masses of leaves,
transforming swinging, swaying limbs into gigantic, twisting serpents,
ready at any moment to swing down upon you. It turns every shadow-dotted
tree trunk into a beast ready to leap at your throat. It's weird,
fascinating, terrible. Down at the river some beast plunges into the
water. You hear the splash, then the swish, swish of his strokes. He is
coming to your bank, you are sure. You are afraid. Who would not be?
"But me, I sat by my cage, with the rifle over one knee and watched. One
hour, two hours, three hours I watched, until at last all the twisting
branches, the spotted tree trunks were familiar to me.
"And then, then he came; the black beast, the great black cat, he came."
Pant paused. There came a hiss from the cage, as if the black cat, too,
was living those hours over again.
"I saw him, Johnny, I saw him. I caught the wicked gleam of his two red
eyes." Pant gripped Johnny's arm until it hurt. "He was not thirty feet
from me. Flattened against a broad tree trunk, he was glaring at me out
of the dark. How he came so close without my seeing him, I cannot tell.
He was a devil. Perhaps he had been there all that time. Who knows?
"Anyway, there he was. I cast my charm upon him. And I had him, Johnny, I
had him. With my rifle I could have shot him on the instant. But he had
me, too. He was so wonderful. I have told you about the wonder of the
tiger's coat. It is nothing to the coat of a black leopard in the jungle.
You have seen him. You know how immense he is; seven feet from tip of
nose to base of tail. You have seen him in his cage, but will never see
him as I saw him that night, a free beast in his own wilderness, and I a
stranger, an intruder.
"But I thought I had him. I wanted to study him: to learn his secrets. I
planned how I would follow him day after day, and learn all his secrets.
I was mad, stark mad."
Pant paused again as if for breath. The black beast moved nearer on his
shelf within the cage. The thrashing of his tail was like the dull beat
of a drum.
"Just when I was thinking all this," Pant rose upon his knees in his
excitement, "just when I thought I had him, he gave one piercing scream
and leaped. My man, what a leap! He struck me all unprepared; struck me
with fangs and claws tearing at my flesh. Yet my right hand was free. It
was a tense, agonizing second. In some way I got out my knife and slashed
away with it. The next instant I lost consciousness."
Pant paused again. Once more the leopard moved his length along the cage.
"But, Johnny, here's the strangest part of all. I cannot explain it; only
know it's true. They say that sometimes, in moments of great shock, men
lose their personality and become another person; that when they come
back to themselves they have done things they know nothing of, yet others
have seen them do. It may have been like that with me. And then, a great
teacher in the heart of India once told me that there was a great spirit
of the forest who looked after brave hunters, and did things for them in
time of great danger which they could not do for themselves. It may have
been that, too. Whatever way it may have been, it was strange; so strange
that you would not believe me were I not your friend who always told you
the truth.
"Listen, Johnny! When I came to myself I was weak, terribly weak from
loss of blood; but the cat, the big black cat, he was raging in the cage,
and the door was fastened tight."
Pant paused. The animal tent was still. Suddenly a crimson flash gleamed.
For an instant it turned the black cat blood red. The next moment, with a
wild snarl, the beast flattened himself against the bars of his cage.
A keeper sprang out of the darkness.
"What's that?" he demanded.
"What's what?" drawled Pant.
"I thought I saw a flash."
"He evidently thought something of the sort," Pant replied, poking his
thumb at the black cat.
"Well, you guys better move on. This ain't no place for spinnin' yarns."
"That's all right," drawled Pant, "but let me tell you, friend; if
anything ever happens to this circus, a fire, a cyclone, a train wreck,
or anything like that, you get that cat. Get that black cat!"
"What d'you know about him?"
"Plenty that I don't tell to strangers."
Pant lifted the wall of the tent and stepped out into the moonlight,
followed by Johnny.
"You didn't finish," suggested Johnny.
"There's not much more to tell. You have to hand it to that doctor,
though. When I didn't come back in the morning, he tried to organize a
party to search for me. No one would go. They were scared cold by the
black cat. So he came alone. He found me there, too weak to move, and he
carried me all the way back and put me in a bed I'd helped him to buy.
"The natives went for the black cat and brought him back to the village
in triumph.
"When I was better a trader came to me and offered me the price of a
tiger's cub for the black cat. I laughed in his face, and told him I'd
take the cat to the States myself. That's what I did. I got five thousand
dollars for him, and sent it all back to the doctor so he could buy beds,
and absorbent cotton, and medicine for his hospital."
"That was good of you," said Johnny.
"Who's good?" demanded Pant. "Didn't he teach me sense when I didn't know
anything but cats? Didn't he carry me out of the jungle on his back when
no one else dared to go in?"
For a time they were silent. Then, gripping Johnny's arm, Pant whispered:
"But, Johnny, we're after worse cats than the black one. We're after
human tigers. Tigers that destroy man's faith in man; that make life
little worth the living. And, Johnny, we're on their trail, close on
their trail. Perhaps to-morrow, perhaps the day after, you shall
see--well, you shall see what you shall see."