LITMIR.BIZ

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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’.”

      Chapter Six

      The Baboon and the Tortoise

      I have referred to Bolo, an old Kaffir medicine man, who, on his professional tour round the country, always remained a day or two with Abe Pike, in his way, a great doctor with a valuable fund of information about the medicinal properties of plants and roots. Bolo turned up in the evening, fresh from a beer dance, and the manner of his coming was that of a ravenous lion. He charged down upon the house in the dusk, with his necklet bones rattling, the horsehair mane flying, and the bellow of his deep voice setting the dogs off into a fury of barking, up he came – leaping, bounding, hurling himself forward with in-creditable swiftness, whirling his knobbed kerrie, his eyes glaring and his features twitching, the dogs snapping around him – right up to the door, as if he meant to burst in and brain everyone he met. Then he stopped, smiled in a wide vacuous way, took snuff, and squatted down, while the dogs as suddenly ceased their clamour and walked sheepishly away.

      “Well, you clatterin’ ole heathen,” said Abe, seating himself on the door-step, and shaving slices of tobacco against the ball of his thumb; “what mischief have you been up to?”

      “Yoh,” said Bolo, resting his long arms on his knees; “I have heard tales of the black tiger and the white man’s fear. But my medicine has sent the black evil away back again to the big kloof.”

      “To the kloof on my farm?”

      “Eweh! Why not? The white man is a great medicine man. Has he not a familiar in the old baboon – who is the most cunning of familiars?”

      “That’s so,” said Abe gravely; “the baboon is cunnin’, but he don’t know everything. Did I ever tell you the yarn o’ the baboon an’ the tortoise?”

      “No. Fire away, Uncle.” He hitched himself up against the door-post and related his story in Kaffir for Bolo’s benefit, though I prefer to render it in English.

      “The ole skelpot, one day hunting aroun’ nosed out a store o’ yearth nuts. He raked the yearth over an’ flatten’ it down, an’ he jes’ crawl aroun’ till the dry weather sot in, when he took’d up his quarters near the hidden store. One day he meet ole man baboon searching fer grubs. ‘Things is mighty dry,’ says the baboon. ‘Might be drier,’ says the skelpot. ‘Food is skerce,’ says the baboon. ‘Might be skercer,’ says the skelpot. ‘Ho! ho!’ says the baboon, mighty sharp, ‘you don’t seem to be troubled in your shell. There’s a shine on your shell, ole man skelpot,’ he says. ‘Shell shine when the stummick don’t pine,’ says the skelpot.”

      “Er-umh!” grunted Bolo.

      “‘Shell shine when the stummick don’t pine,’ said the skelpot. ‘Baugh,’ says the baboon, ‘p’raps you got some food, skelpot,’ says the baboon. ‘I’m gwine to sleep,’ says the skelpot, an’ he drew his head into his house, so the baboon couldn’t ask him any more questions.”

      “Er-umh!” said Bolo, politely signifying his sustained interest.

      “The ole man baboon he make sure the skelpot’s got some store o’ food, so he hid hisself in a tree an’ kep’ watch. There ain’t no hurry about a skelpot, an’ this yer skelpot he kep’ on sleepin’ all through the day, an’ the baboon got that hungry he were obliged ter gnaw the bark from the tree. But he jes’ kep’ on watchin’, an’ in the dusk he seed the skelpot pop out his head.”

      “Er-umh!” said Bolo.

      “Then the baboon climbed down softly, an’ when the skelpot move off, he follow’d. Arter a time the skelpot begin to scrape up the yearth, an’ the baboon look over his shoulder. He can’t see nothing, but he smelt the yearth nuts, an’ he makes a grab. ‘So! so!’ he says chuckling, ‘you got a fine pantry these dry times. Now you’ll have to go shares, or I’ll give the news out.’ Well, the skelpot he sees he were fairly caught, an’ so he take ole man baboon inter partnership, an’ the baboon show him where he’s ’ole is, though it were empty now.”

      “Er-umh!” grunted Bolo.

      “Well, the baboon got a bigger stummick than the skelpot, an it

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