Clutterbuck's Treasure

My shots came at the right moment, and the mystery which that lion must have already felt to exist with regard to the banging and the hole in the ground, and things in general, was, for that lion, never solved. He went away to the Happy Hunting Grounds with his last moments in this world made mysterious by unguessable and incomprehensible riddles, leaving me a very proud and elated young person.

Perhaps other lions who have been shot by a visible creature, and with whom my first victim has by this time scraped acquaintance in those shady retreats, have now explained it all for him, and have described what an artful, tricky, fire-spitting, incomprehensible race are we humans, who have about as much strength in our whole bodies as lions have in one muscle of their forearms, but who can nevertheless spit fire at a lion from the other end of nowhere, and burn him up in an instant from out of sight.

CHAPTER XX

OUR TRUSTY NIGGER TO THE RESCUE

We did not attempt to skin that lion, for the best of reasons—because we did not know how.

Simple Jack was very much inclined to try, because, said he, it could not be very difficult. He had heard that if one cut it straight down the proper place one could pull the whole skin clean off over the beast's head, like a fellow having his football jersey pulled off after a match. But I did not encourage his enterprising spirit in this matter, because I did not think Jack's theory would "come off," or the lion's skin either.

We made up a splendid fire after this adventure, and passed the rest of the night in comfort and self-laudation. We could not expect to see much more animal life out of our pit ambushes after all the banging and talking in which we had indulged.

But we heard several hyenas—probably the pilots and squires of Lord Leo, departed—which came around and said a great many things in derisive tones, as it seemed to us; but whether they intended thereby to rejoice over the downfall of a tyrant, or to abuse us for depriving them of their patron and food-provider; or whether, again, they were addressing their remarks to the lion himself, ignorant of his death, and assuring him, wherever he might be, that he was wasting invaluable time, inasmuch as two fat and juicy young men were ready and waiting for his kind attention down by the river, I really cannot say, not knowing hyenese.

But this I know, that once, when Jack and I had both (oh, how imprudently!) just dozed off for a few minutes of repose, I suddenly awoke to the consciousness—like a person in a ghost story—that we were "not alone."

Up I started, and up started Jack also, aroused by the same sound that had awakened me. What was it?—another lion?

Not only was it not another lion, but lion number one had disappeared. We sat up and rubbed our eyes. We stood up and looked carefully around, and asked one another what in the name of all that was mysterious was the meaning of it?

At the sound of our voices there was a scuffle behind the scrub close in front of us, and a pattering of feet; growlings, moanings, yelpings followed the scuffle: and we ran, rifle in hand, to solve the mystery.

There lay our lion, dragged from the spot in which he had died, and there, under the lee of a prickly-pear bush, his friends the hyenas would, in another minute or two, have torn him to pieces.

I did not know then that the hyenas would have eaten their lord and patron. It struck me that they had dragged away his carcass in order to hide it, in honour, from his enemies, perhaps to bury it. I mentioned this to Jack, who laughed rudely.

"Bury it?" he said. "Yes; in their stomachs."

I had conceived quite a wrong idea of the relations between the hyena and the lion, it appeared. The respect of the former for the latter, I now know, though great during life, vanishes with the breath of his nostrils. The hyena flatters and adores the lion while he can roar and kill food for him; but when the lion dies the hyena instantly eats him if he can get hold of the royal carcass.

The morning after our exploit with the lion, which had first so nearly eaten Jack and afterwards been itself so nearly devoured by hyenas, we left our quarry to take care of itself, for this was the only course open to us, and went on foot towards Ngami, leaving it on the ground at the mercy of vultures or hyenas, or anything else that should smell it out and descend upon it. We went on foot, because our horses had broken away and departed, as we feared "for good," whither we knew not.

But to our great joy and surprise, when we reached a grassy glade near the village (having walked about ten miles from the spot in which we had passed the night), we suddenly came upon them feeding quietly, with their torn halters dangling on the ground, neither surprised nor disconcerted to see us.

They allowed themselves, moreover, to be caught by us, which was really exceedingly obliging of them, for there they were with the whole of Africa to run about in if they pleased, and no one to prevent them; and yet they submitted tamely to be placed once more under the yoke, and to enter into bondage upon the old conditions!

At the village of Ngami we found our waggon, with its, to us, invaluable accompaniment of native hunter and Kaffir driver, and its welcome load of little luxuries such as bottled beer, and big luxuries such as express rifles, with other delights.

The native hunter was a Somali, and knew a little English. His name, for those who liked it, was M'ngulu; but we felt that we could never do justice to such a name as that without a special education, and called him "M" for short. He had convoyed other bands of young English sportsmen, and knew enough English words to convey his meaning when he wanted anything, such as tobacco, which he called "to-bac," or whiskey, which he called "skey," but which, since we soon found that he was better without it, we never offered him.

I do not think our Kaffir driver had a name of his own; we called him "Nig," or, sometimes "Hi!" and he was equally pleased with either, being an extremely good-natured person.

M'ngulu, or M, took to us at once. I think it was on account of the lion of the previous night, to whose remains we very quickly introduced him. I had made sure that the hyenas would have picked its bones by the time we reached the spot, but, to my joy, there the brute lay, untouched. As we neared the place, however, three huge vultures rose from a tree close by and flapped lazily away to another a few yards farther down the bank, which showed that we were only just in time to save our property.

It was a treat to see M skin that lion, or any other animal. There was no mystery about the proceeding when he had a hand in it. Off came the skin as easily as if the fellow were divesting himself of his waistcoat, which, by the bye, is a garment that he did not actually wear. When I come to think of it, I am afraid I should be puzzled to tell you what M did wear. I do not think it can have been much, or I should have remembered it.

When M saw that we had really killed a lion, and without his assistance, he evidently felt that he was in for a good thing. He had cast in his lot with a couple of great sportsmen, and that was enough to make him very happy.

Those who had recommended M'ngulu to us informed us that he knew Bechuanaland as well as most men know their own back gardens. You might set him, they said, anywhere within a hundred or two miles of Vryburg, blindfold; then remove the handkerchief and ask him where he was, and he would tell you. I do not know that this was an exaggeration. I am certain that we, at all events, never succeeded in finding a place which he did not know, or pretend to.

M now desired to be informed where we wanted to go to, and in pursuit of what game?

"Oh, elephant," said Jack. "Let's have a turn after the elephants first, Peter; don't you think so?"

I did, and remarked forthwith to M'ngulu, interrogatively, "Elephants?"

"Oh, elfunts," said M. "M'ngulu know—not here—come."

And M'ngulu took a turn to the north-east and went away with us after those elephants, up through the continent of Africa, as though he knew every clump of trees from sea to sea, and all that dwelt therein.

Wherever the elephant country may have been, we occupied a week in getting there; a week, however, which was not wasted, but which was full of adventure and delight; of days spent in stalking or tracking, and of nights luxuriously passed within the waggon under the comfortable knowledge that M'ngulu lay asleep without by the fireside with one eye open, and that if a lion or any other large beast were to move a whisker within a mile or so, M would know the reason why.

And at length one day, as we passed by a dense copse of trees whose appearance was unfamiliar to us, M remarked, "This right tree; elfunt like him not far now!" from which we inferred that we had passed into a district which produced the food beloved by the big creatures we had come to find.

Soon after this we made a camp, by M'ngulu's directions, and left the waggon under the care of the Nig, to whom we presented a rifle for use in case of accidents, and departed, all three of us, on horseback into the jungle.

Jack said that it was to be hoped no one would alarm Nig and cause him to wish to fire that rifle; for that would be a fatal moment for poor Nig, who knew no more about firearms than he did about the rule of three. Nig spoke English fairly well, and we asked him at parting what he would do if attacked by a lion? Whereupon the Kaffir seized his rifle (which was loaded), and waved it wildly about his head (with accompaniment of bad language and war dance), in a fashion that caused us to ride away in great haste over the veldt, and not to draw rein until we were well out of range of his weapon. It was on the second day after leaving camp that we saw our first elephant, and made our acquaintance for the first time with an animal actually and undoubtedly "possessed," and a pretty lively introduction it was for us!

CHAPTER XXI

THE BAD ELEPHANT

We were riding slowly, in Indian file, through a rather dense belt of forest, M leading, when that worthy suddenly drew up and slowly turned his head round to shoot a warning glance at us. When he did this old M always looked so exactly like a setter drawing up to a point, that it was all Jack and I could do to avoid laughing aloud.

At this particular moment, laughter or anything else of a noisy description would have been a grave mistake, for M was very much in earnest. He beckoned us up to him, and pointed to a tree which had been almost stripped of its leaves and smaller twigs, and said, "Elfunt—bad elfunt!"

"Why bad?" whispered Jack to me; "and how does he know whether it is bad or good?"

To this I could give no reply, for I could not imagine wherein consisted the goodness or the badness of an elephant. There did not appear to me to be anything peculiarly wicked in an animal helping itself to its natural and favourite food without M'ngulu's leave; and I confess that up to this point my sympathies were in favour of the elephant and against his traducer, M; but I was to learn presently that this elephant was a very bad animal indeed—a really wicked creature without one redeeming feature about his character.

It seems that the acute M'ngulu formed his opinion as to the elephant upon whose traces he had suddenly chanced by the manner in which he had eaten his breakfast. He had not only stripped the tree, but had savagely pulled it about and broken its branches, scattering bits far and wide, and from this fact M promptly concluded that he was a bad or "rogue" elephant—namely, one who by reason of his evil temper has found it impossible to remain with the herd to which he belongs, and has therefore separated himself or been forcibly separated from his fellows, and has departed to vent his fury, in future, upon trees, or strangers, or anything that is encountered.

"You know," said Jack, when we discussed this question together afterwards, "it's a capital idea! Why don't we fellows of the human persuasion adopt the plan? Fancy, if one could always banish sulky chaps, at school or anywhere, and send them away to rage about the place until they recovered their senses and returned mild and reasonable!"

I said that I scarcely thought the plan would work in polite society, because, though the community to which he belonged would no doubt be excellently well rid of the rampageous one, the rest of the world would probably object to his being at large, and would likely enough return him to the fold in several pieces.

M'ngulu followed up that elephant, by some mysterious process of his own, for two hours, at the end of which period we had drawn so close to the quarry that we could distinctly hear him somewhere in front of us, still breakfasting, apparently in his own distinctively "roguish" way, for there was a sound of continual rending and tearing of branches, and the ground here and there was littered with wasted food which, Jack whispered, might have been given to the elephantine poor instead of being chucked about in this ruthless way!

A minute or two more, and M'ngulu stopped, sitting motionless upon his horse, finger to lip. Wondering and excited, we followed his example, sitting like two statues.

Presumably M'ngulu had caught sight of the elephant, but I could see nothing of the brute; neither could Jack, it appeared, for he craned his neck to this side and that, and looked excited but vacant. The rending noise had ceased. Doubtless the "rogue" was becoming suspicious; perhaps he had heard us, or seen us, or scented us.

"That's the worst of having a Somali hunter," whispered Jack; "one can smell them quite a long way off! Any fool of an elephant ought to"—

But Jack's frivolity was suddenly broken off at this moment by a loud ejaculation from M'ngulu, who turned swiftly about at the same instant and whipped up his horse, shouting out something to us in his native lingo, which we took for instructions to follow his example.

Off we scudded, all three of us, separating as we went; and as we turned and fled I heard a sound which was somewhat terrifying to the inexperienced—a shrieking, trumpeting noise, accompanied by the crashing of trees and shuffling of great limbs; and I knew, without being told, that the "bad" elephant had taken this hunt into his own hands.