The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1894-12-07

screams. He did not scream as wo-
man would have done, from the head,
but from the chest which sounded so
much worse that was sick from 1t in
a second with that sickness that weak
ems one at tho pit of the stomach and
along the muscles at the back OF the
legs. He did not pause for second.
Every breath was n scream, and every
scream was alike, and one heard
through It all the long snarls of satis-
fed hate and revenge, muflled by the
mans clothes and the rip, rip Of the
cruel claws.
Hearing 1t in the dark, as we did,
made IL all the more dreadful. / think
for time l 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
CT 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.
1t seemed as though II had gone on
for hours, when some men rushed in
with a lantern and long, sharp irons.
A hundred voices cried: Here he Is,
over herev' and they ran outside the
cage and threw the light Of the lantern
on a place where heap Of gray gold
laced clothes writhed and twisted be-
meath three great bulks of fulvous hide
and bristling black name.
The irons were useless. The three
furies dragged their prey out of their
reach and crouched over 1t again and
recommended. No one dared go into
the cage, and still the man lived and
struggled and screamed.
saw Toppan's finger go to his
mouth and through that medley Of
dreadful noises there issued a 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 a fine whip
lash, mingled with the whirr of To-
Gust magnifed a hundred times, and
ended in an abrupt clacking noise
thrice repeated.
At once l remember ed where I 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 l had heard once before in
the Paris Jardin des Plantes, at feed
ing 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 with
stand. All the filthy WILDERNESS and
abominable malice Of the centuries
since the Enemy first entered into that
shape that crawls was concentrated in
that hoarse, whistling hiss-a hiss that
that was cold and piercing, like an
icicle made sound. 1t was not loud,
but it had in 1t some sort of penetrat-
ing quality that cut through the waves
Of horrid sounds about us, as the snake
carved PROV of Viking galley might
cut its way through the tumbling cd.
dies Of tide.
At the second repetition the lions
paused, none better than they Knew
what was the meaning of that hiss.
They had heard 1t before in their ma
tive hunting grounds in the earlier
days Of summer, when the first heat
lay close over the jungle, like the hol-
low of the palm of an angry god Or,
If they themselves had not heard it,
their sires before them had, and their
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 cowed there, whining
and beaten.
Toppan wiped the sweat from the
inside of his hands and went into the
cage with the keepers and gathered
up the painting, broken body, with its
twitching fingers and white face, and
carried it out. AS they lifted it, the
handful Of pitiful medals dropped
down upon the floor. In the silence that
had now succeeded, 1t was about the
only sound one heard.
AS we sat that evening on the porch
of Toppans house, in a fashiona BILE
suburb Of the city, he said for the third
time: II had that trick from Mpong-
wee headman," and added, 1T was
while l was at Victoria Falls, waiting
to cross the Kalahari Desert"
Then he continued, his eyes grow
ing 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 give it's average elevation
about 600 feet. / didn't cross 1t at the
time, because we had sickness and the
porters cut But made lot of geo.
logical observations, and from these I
have built up theory that the Kala-
hari is no desert at all, but big, we'll
watered plateau, with higher grounds
on the east and west.
'The tribes, too, thereabouts, called
the place Linoka Noka, and that's the
Bantu for rivers upon rivers THEY'RE