Son of Power Part 16

"I am thinking what a difference there is between your standpoint and that of the hunters of wild animals I know. But tell me--have you ever been afraid?"

"Yes, once."

"Really afraid?"

"Yes."

"I want to hear about it some day, if you will be so good; but first I want to tell you a story of fear; two kinds of fear. There has been no one I could speak to--and I am in need of help."

"I would like to help you. Tell on."

"Do you know much about hyenas?"

"I know they are the most unclean of all beasts. I have never heard that they are dangerous to men."

"Sometimes they are. Only a little way from where we sit in this jungle, a woman was killed and eaten last year, by a hyena. But I am not afraid for myself. I have said my fear is of two kinds. First, I am seriously concerned for the children; especially the baby. She is frail at her best and if it were not for her long afternoon naps, I am unwilling to think what would come to her just from the sort of thing which has been happening. She is highly organised; and one has heard that any kind of nerve-shock is most dangerous to such children. Then, there is a different kind of fear, _quite_ different; it is for her Great Dane dog."

"Won't he charge them?"

"That is the most awful part of it. Of all creatures I have ever known, I may as well say of all people I have ever known, he has the most splendid courage. One night in every week he is taken to Bhanah's own quarters, so that his master shall not be disturbed. The change seemed to relieve him, at first. But--one who had not seen could never conceive how gradually, through the long, long nights--I have watched his almost super-human courage--breaking."

Skag opened his lips to speak, but she put up her hand.

"This is hard to tell because I have never known that I could be afraid. I have always supposed that I had perfect courage. But while Nels' courage has been in the wrecking, my own has been wrecked--quite!"

Her voice was very low and very bitter.

"I don't believe it's as bad as that."

She glanced up and smiled the slow smile of extreme age upon extreme youth.

"My husband, the police commissioner, has hunted in India more than twenty years; some of his friends longer than that. I suppose they are as familiar with the natures and doings of most animals in this country as foreign hunters can become. But of course the natives know jungle creatures even better. We have two servants, born in these hills, my ayah and Bhanah the old cook; I have much from both of them. But my experience here in this tent, has--as the natives would say--established it all in me. You will have heard that hyenas are almost always the scouts for tigers."

"Yes, Mr. Cadman told me that."

"Jackals run with them. The hunters say that between the hyena, whose stench is beyond description awful, and the jackal, whose stench is strong dog, they obliterate the tiger smell and so prevent the desperate panic coming in time to the hunted creatures, who fear the tiger more than anything."

"Hyenas in captivity do not smell so exceptionally bad."

"One has heard that all flesh-eating animals in captivity are fed clean meat, reasonably fresh--"

"They are; and for the moment I forgot their reputation--that would make a difference."

"It is claimed here, that they eat only two kinds of flesh, at once--human and dog. They say that the hyena entices and betrays to the killing, the tiger kills and eats his fill, then the jackals come in and leave only bones and tendon-stuff for the hyena. This is what he devours as soon as it is old enough to suit his taste."

"Are all these animals here in this jungle?"

"Plenty of jackals; but the tigers have been killed out of all this part of these Ghats by the European sportsmen of Bombay and Poona. The hunters disregard hyenas; so there are many left, with no killer to kill for them."

"That might make them dangerous."

"And they will tell you that when a hyena is forced to kill for himself, he invariably hunts for a dog. It has become very important to me that dog flesh is their first choice. And dogs never fight hyenas; never even to defend their own lives. They may bark or howl while the hyena is some distance away, but as soon as it comes near they are silent; and when it approaches them, they simply cower and submit. Not only that, but it is beyond question that hyenas have the power to call dogs to them. . . . For five weeks I have been alone in this tent six nights in every week all night, with two children and the spartan soul of Nels the Great Dane dog; and I have seen and I have heard the _process_ of the hyena's lure."

"That is what I want to hear about."

"You shall hear; but will you be good enough to remember, please, Nels is no average dog. There is nothing better in lineage than his. Also, he is a thoroughly trained hunting dog. My husband, the police commissioner, has used him in hunting tigers and cheetahs, black panthers and leopards of the long sort, the big black bears of Himalaya and jungle pigs, which we call wild boars at Home. To different famous hunting districts of the country he has taken Nels, on many hunting-furloughs; and Nels' courage stands to him and to his friends, the very last word in courage. I have often heard him say he does not know a man with courage to equal that which has never once failed in Nels."

"I should like to know that dog."

"You shall certainly meet him; and it may be you are the one to know him. I am confident no one does, now."

"About the hyenas?"

"The hyena has three kinds of call. The most common is the bark of a puppy. (If you ever hear it you will not wonder why mother dogs go out to it, to their death.) Presently the bark breaks into a puppy's cry.

It whimpers, then it climbs up into heart-breaking desolation; the wailing cry of a lost puppy. It snaps out in distraction futile little yappings; then it whimpers again, like sobbing. So on for hours.

"The next most common is a laugh; a harsh, senseless laugh. The effect is to terrorise, to paralyse its prey. It is wicked. It climbs up into piercing, high, falsetto tones; all maniacal. . . . So insane that though one knows perfectly well what it is, it chills one's blood.

This keeps on a long time, with variations. Every change seems worse than the last. But sooner or later it brings one up standing with a laugh impossible to describe, unless it is devilish--so clear, so keen, so intelligent, so beyond expression malicious. Toward morning this sometimes brings sweat. Oh, maybe not if one were alone; but with Nels, watching Nels--indeed yes!

"The last and least often heard--I mean they do not do it every night, sometimes not for several nights, sometimes they do all three in one night--is the cry of a little native baby; the cry of a lost baby; the cry of a deserted baby; the cry of a baby alone out in the jungle shadows and frightened to death."

She stopped and lay quite still; seeming to forget he was there.

"And what then?"

"Nothing, only it keeps on sometimes the rest of that night. They never mix the three kinds together. Even when they do them all in one night, they are usually in this order as I am telling you. Sometimes the baby is still for a few minutes; then it begins again and goes on."

Again she stopped a long time. Suddenly she flung up her hand and spoke faster:

"No, there's nothing more about that little deserted native baby's cry, excepting that I've started up in broad daylight afterward, with a cold panic in my heart that it had really been a baby, a true baby and I had failed to go and save it. And--the nights, the long nights I have fastened my weight on Nels' neck to keep him inside of this door!"

She pointed to the opening by her couch.

"Why don't you chain him?"

"He goes on a leash perfectly, but he has never been taught to be chained up. My husband has never permitted the servants to do it. I tried it here myself, but he suffers and cries; and that keeps both the children awake. It would jeopardise Baby's life to force him. On account of the ceremony which occurred a few hours before her mother died, the servants believe she belongs to Nels. They claim that he acknowledges the owners.h.i.+p. I will admit that he behaves like it. She has often kept him back. He goes from this tent door to her cot yonder, to look at her. But always he comes back to the door. Some night my weight will not be sufficient. That is my fear."

"The situation is clear and I think I can manage it, if you will leave it to me for a night or two. These beasts must be kin to a big snake I met in the Gra.s.s Jungle country. My friend Mr. Cadman shot him. That was when I found fear--"

At that moment Skag heard the clear, treble tones of a child's voice:

"Nels-s, Nels-s, Nels-s!"

And the veriest fairy thing his eyes had ever looked upon came flying in the tent door before him. Her head was a halo of gold made of the finest kind of baby curls. She was unbelievable. She was like a flame, beside the couch.

"This is Betty, our baby."

The child lifted intensely blue eyes and while Skag smiled into them, he was without words before the vivid whiteness of her face. She was sent with her ayah to the back of the tent for her nap. Then Nels came in.