Part 19

I felt Babu Chowdry watching me to see if I was satisfied. He drew a deep breath. "That'll be all right," we said to each other, and both returned to work. He came into my room a minute later, and said impressively, "The people do say it must be a Devil, as the rifles won't go off." He waited to see the effect of the announcement, but getting only, "That'll be all right," he returned to business.

In an hour or so Snadden reappeared, looking tired with laughing. This was what he had to tell:

"My wife had a fright yesterday. A leopard had been seen prowling round the house. A servant said it came upon the verandah, and stood on its hind legs and looked into the nursery, where the baby was, and also a dog." (Mr Snadden intimated in some way that he had doubted the story.) He continued: "I told my wife it would prefer dog, but naturally she did not wish it to have a choice. So I set her mind at rest by leaving a military policeman with a rifle to hold the fort when I came to office, explaining to him what to do if the leopard returned. It came all right, about the same time as yesterday. They say the cook was in the act of showing the policeman where it issued yesterday from the jungle, when they saw it reappear.

"The man loaded, aimed, and pulled the trigger. The cartridge did not go off. He slipped in another noiselessly, and aimed again. There was no hurry. The leopard did not see him. It was standing still, apparently taking a deliberate view of the house and servants' quarters; looking for a dog, I do believe. No man could want an easier target. After aiming carefully he pulled the trigger, and for the second time the shot did not go off.

"This seems to have flustered him, so that he made an audible click as he put in a third cartridge, and the leopard heard it and looked round and saw him, and turned to go away. He took aim at it. It turned its head round for a parting glance at him just as he pulled the trigger again. For the third time the rifle failed to act. The shot did not go off. The man was left standing, half distracted. He said that as it disappeared the leopard swelled to the size of a tiger, and the glare of its eyes as it looked at him made his heart stand still. It could be no common leopard that bewitched his rifle so.

"Everybody in the house gathered round him to hear his story. That was when my wife sent a man running to me. The policeman half-walked, half-staggered to the lines" (the huts where sepoys lived, near Mr Snadden's house), "and there he was when I went up. They had had a glorious scare. By George, how quickly the panic spread!" reflected Mr Snadden. "They were shivering with funk all round the court before the man, who was running from my house, arrived there. I had noticed something was amiss, and was making inquiries to find out what it was before he came."

"Had the man loitered on the way?"

"No, I think he came straight. The panic round here was not his doing, whatever it was. It came up from the bazaar. I've made sure of that. It seems a miracle. I've been round pacifying the town. The bazaar was upside down, business was stopped, women were shrieking and running after their children a mile away from my house, within a few minutes after the leopard disappeared into the bushes. I cannot understand it."

"Was the beast seen elsewhere?"

"No. The panic was all about what had happened and the rifle not going off."

Neither of us ever knew how the panic spread, though Mr Snadden had a fine scientific curiosity about it, which made him take much trouble inquiring. He concluded his report on this occasion, thus:

"It did not last long at the lines. The man had hardly told his story more than five times when the Subadar (the principal native officer) pushed his way into the middle of the crowd to hear him, and, listening to him, took the rifle out of his hands to examine it. He lifted the hammer, and pointing to the leather on the nipple, asked him, 'Did you remove that?' The man looked stupefied, shook his head, and relapsed into silence, and the excitement ended. The men were very good about it, laughing only a little and not unkindly. They did not jeer at the poor fellow, but rather pitied him, for the accidental oversight that had made him look so foolish, and given him such a fright," and made him miss the reward of twenty rupees, more than a month's pay, which he would have got for killing the leopard.

When the truth was known it was easy to pacify the town.

XXIII

THE GALLANT LEOPARD

The lions and tigers and leopards cannot bring libel suits or arrange duels. So men can call them cowards with impunity, and often do; but it is not fair, and surely all who have been long enough in the woods to know better should do justice to the beasts that are dumb. Besides, there is a real joy in telling the downright truth. It is apt to have the merit of novelty, for one thing. That is why it seems right to tell in 1909 an adventure that befell three gallant officers in Upper Burma, a little more than a dozen years ago.

Three real ornaments of the British army, and one of them so highly placed that in confidential moments after dinner he spoke to me not of his debts, but of his savings and investments, were riding abreast together through a forest. Three finer specimens of "Britishers abroad" the army could not have furnished. They combined all its best qualities--the wild daring of the Irish scallawag, the steadiness of the Englishman, and the cunning of the Jew. If they had all been of one kind, whether scallawags, Englishmen, or Jews, they might have come out of this adventure less perfectly. Great is the advantage of a judicious mixture!

What happened was that a leopard was looking for a meal as they came along. He was not hunting men. He was crouching among the bushes beside the road and watching, as a cat watches sparrows, a crowd of monkeys gambolling among the trees, and unconsciously coming near him. He is at home in the trees, and very fond of monkeys; but they are too nimble for him, if they have a chance. So he was biding his time, till one of them would be within reach of a sudden spring; and none of them had noticed him, when the three officers came riding past.

Now, whatever the attraction was, probably curiosity, what is certain is that the advent of our gallant three caused a sensation in the little world aloft; and, as the miniature men and women of the woods crowded to see the very latest samples of British officers, they saw the leopard too! And with wild hullabaloo they hurried far away.

The leopard was angry. Had he not cause? Who were these men to come and spoil his sport? They, on their noisy iron-shod horses, prancing along, with their orderlies clattering behind them, coming as if the world belonged to them? He felt like another Jonah, who could answer the Lord inquiring, "Doest thou well to be angry?" with a heart-whole emphasis, saying, "I do well!"

So he came boldly upon the road on which they were galloping and stood upon it, facing them. He took no pains to hide himself. He was no longer in the mood for crouching. He waited for them; but he did not lie in wait. His lips were ajar, and every muscle tight--a pretty picture!

"Good God! There's a leopard!" cried the son of Jacob. See how deeply rooted is piety in the Semitic soul! Men have known that man for nearly twenty years, and never heard him mention God at any other time.

They all drew bridle and dismounted. Even the scallawag consented to do that. The Englishman called for his gun. An orderly handed it to him.

"By all that's holy, you're not going to provoke him by peppering him with snipe-shot?"

The Englishman agreed not to fire, as they had no ball-cartridges. But the leopard was not aware of that. The road was along the side of a slope. The ground went steeply up on one side of it; steeply down on the other. So the leopard, "lightly and without apparent effort," like a cat leaping upon a chair, sprang upwards, and sat behind a bush, 15 or 20 feet above the level of the road.

"Slight as the cover for him was, it would have been ample, if we had not seen him go behind it," said one of the men to me afterwards. "We remarked how well he knew to hide himself. Till he went behind that bush we would not have believed it could have covered anything. Once he was there, it was only because we had seen him go that we knew he was there. But for that, we would have seen nothing. The ground being above us was a help to us, and, knowing where to look, we could see the outline of the leopard plainly through the leaves. He had not allowed for that."

No; he had not reckoned on the watchfulness of three men resolute that the élite of the British army should not be made into cat's-meat. They held each other back, so to speak, without any difficulty. They could see that where the enemy sat was like a magnificent spring-board. If he had selected the eldest of them, and leapt with his usual accuracy, he and his chosen one would have been a hundred yards down the glen together in a few seconds; and the excitement in army circles would have been very great. Half a dozen men would have "got steps."

But these three were too wary. They--felt their value to the Commonwealth. They would not pass in front of him. Nothing would induce them. It was, "You first, sir," for a long time, till the leopard was tired of it, and saw the game was up. He leapt down lightly and crossed the road before their faces, with a deliberate swinging stride, looking round at them as he passed.