The Van Buren press., 1894-09-29

could hear the great cats hurting them
selves against the bars, and could see
their eyes leaving brassy streaks
against the darkness as they leaped.
Two more sprang as the first had done
toward that quarter of the cage from
which came sounds of stan ping and
struggling and then the tanner began
to scream.
think that SO long as shall live !
shall not forget the sound of the tam
er's screams. He did not scream as .
woman would have done, from the
head, but from the chest, which
sounded SO much worse that was sick
from 1t in second with that sickness
that weakens one at the pit of the
stomach and along the muscles at the
back of the legs. He did not pause
for a second. Every breath was q
scream, and every scream was alike,
and one heard through it all the long
snarls OF satisfied hate and revenge
muffled by the mans clothes and the
rip, rip of the cruel. blunt claws.
Hearing it all in the dark, as we did,
for time must have taken leave of
my senses. l was ready to vomit for
the sickness that was upon me, and
beat my hands raw upon the iron bars
or clasped them over my ears against
the sounds OF the dreadful thing that
was doing behind them. remember
praying aloud that 1t might soon be
over with, SO only those screams might
be stopped.
It seemed as though it had gone on
for hours, when some men rushed in
with lantern and long sharp irons.
A hundred voices cried: "Here he is,
over here!" and they ran around out
side the cage and threw the light Of
the lantern on place where heap OF
gray, gold-laced clothes writhed and
twisted beneath three great bulls Of
fulvous hide and bristling black name.
The irons were useless. The three
furies dragged their prey out of their
reach and crouched over it again and
recommended. No one dared to go
into the cage, and still the man lived
and struggled and screamed.
l saw Toppan's fingers go to his
mouth, and through that medley Of
dreadful noises there issued sound
that, sick as was. made me shrink
anew and close my eyes and teeth and
shudder as though some cold slime had
been poured through the hollow of my
bones where the marrow should be.
1t was as the noise of the whistling OF
q fine whip-lash, mingled with the
whirr of locust magnified hundred
times. and ended in an abrupt clack-
ing noise thrice repeated.
At once l remembered where had
heard it before, because, having once
heard the hiss of an aroused and angry
serpent no child of Eve can ever for
get it.
The sound that now came from be-
tween Toppan's teeth and that filled
the arena from wall to wall. was the
sound that had heard once before in
the Paris Jardln des Plantes at feed
lng-time-the sound made by the great
constructors, when their huge bodies are
looped and coiled like reata for the
throw that never misses, that never
relaxes, and that no beast of the field
is built strong enough to Withstand.
All the filthy wickedness and abomin-
able malice of the centuries since the
enemy first entered into that shape
that crawls, was concentrated in that
hoarse, whistling hiss-a hiss that was
cold and piercing like an icicle-made
sound. It was not loud, but had in 1t
some sort of penetrating quality that
cut through the waves of horrid
sounds about us, as the snake-carved
prov of Viking galley might have
cut its way through the tumbling ed
dies Of tide-rip.
At the second repetition the lions
paused. None better than they knew
what was the meaning of that hiss.
They had heard it defore in their ma
tive hunting-grounds In the earlier
days of summer, when the first heat
lay close over all the jungle like the
hollow of the palm Of an angry god.
Or II they themselves had not heard it.,
fear OF the thing bred into their bones
suddenly leaped to life at the sound
and gripped them and held them close.
| When for third time the sound
sung and shrilled in their ears, their
heads drew between their shoulders,
their great eyes grew small and gilt.
tering, the hackles rose and stiffened
\ on their backs, their tails dropped, and
they backed slowly to the further side
of the cage and covered there, whin.
ing and beaten.
Toppan wiped the sweat from the in.
side of his hands and went into the
cage with the keepers and gathered up
the painting, broken body, with its
twitching fingers and dead, white face
and ears, and carried it out. As they
lifted 1t, the handful Of pitiful medals
dropped from the shredded gray coat
and ratified down upon the floor. In
the silence that had now succeeded, 1t
was about the only sound one heard
Az we sat that evening on the porch
of Toppan's house, in q fashionable
suburb Of the city. he said, for third
time: II had that trick from Mpong.
wee headman," and added: ut was
while was at Victoria Falls, waiting
to cross the Kalahari desert"
Then he continued, his eyes growing
keener and his manner changing:
"There is some interesting work to be
done in that quarter by some one. You
see, the Kalahari runs like this"-he
drew the lines on the ground with his
cane--''coming down in something
like this shape from the Orange river
to about the twentieth parallel south.
The aneroid gives its average eleva-
ton abont six hundred feet. l didn't