Chatterbox, 1906 Part 9

The hunting lodge proved a delightfully comfortable place, and old Michael was a splendid game-keeper. He seemed disappointed that my cousin had not come, for apparently he regarded Jack with great confidence. To me, however, he was very courteous and polite, and I think he did his best to hide his disappointment.

The bear was a big one, he said; he damaged as much corn as he ate, and since his inside was 'as large as a barn' (so Michael said), the unfortunate peasants were in great trouble with regard to their crops.

By this time I had learned enough Russian to keep up a simple conversation, in which of course grammar had no part whatever; I could make myself understood if my companion happened to be a person of sense, and this old Michael was. To my inquiry as to how the bear and I were to become acquainted, he replied that he had made all arrangements.

'There is flesh placed in an open s.p.a.ce in the forest which he crosses sometimes,' Michael said; 'his tracks pa.s.s over it several times. When it is dusk I shall guide you to the place, and you shall climb a tree and pa.s.s the night in it; at early dawn he will come and eat, and then you will shoot.'

I liked the plan; it was something quite new--rather a chilly experience, perhaps, but one must put up with a little inconvenience in the pursuit of bears 'with insides like barns'! I would dress warmly.

I remembered Jack's request that I would be kind to his three lovely red setters, Duke, Monarch, and York, and during the rest of the day they were with me, noon, afternoon, and evening. They vied for my special favour; they could not make enough of me. 'It is so delightful to see an English face again,' they told me as plainly as if they could speak 'and we do like you so!' They ate most of my lunch; they walked out in the afternoon with me; they fought one another for my attention; they shared my dinner. We spent a short evening together; I grew dearer to them every moment, and when I said good-night to them, and they were locked up in Michael's stable, their howls were so loud that one might have supposed the greatest possible disaster had overtaken each one of them.

I heard them howling and barking very miserably as I walked away with Michael into the forest, and for a mile their distressed voices were audible--really it was very flattering to me, I thought!

Arrived at the spot where Bruin's repast had been laid out, Michael pointed out to me the tree which he had selected as my ambush. It was indeed the only convenient one, standing as it did close to the place where the bear must stop to eat the supper arranged for him. So I climbed up into the branches, old Michael handing up my warm coat and rug, and settled myself as comfortably as possible in a place where a natural couch in the fork of the tree seemed to offer an inviting spot for slumber, while Michael bade me good-night and went off. I heard his footsteps for ten minutes as he tramped away into the darkness and silence of the forest; then these died away, and I was left alone with my thoughts and with the stillness and ghostliness of the night.

Things get a bit on one's nerves under these circ.u.mstances, and I felt very far from being sleepy. I started when a gust of wind caused some pine-tree to utter a groan; every rustle of twig upon twig sent the blood to my pulses--was the bear coming? Nevertheless, I did eventually fall asleep unawares, and it must have been early morning, about two o'clock, when I awoke with a start. A sound had roused me--what was it?

I listened: undoubtedly the bear was here and busy over his meal; there was a gobbling and grunting, and the noise of greedy satisfaction. I was not nervous now; my sleep had done me good. If only I could see the brute, to point my rifle at him! I could just distinguish in the darkness a black ma.s.s which might be he, but it would be useless to risk a shot. So I waited with what patience I could muster, which was very little, and listened to the gobbling beneath me, and longed for daylight.

And as I sat and listened a new sound suddenly reached my ears--as I was a born Briton there were those wretches, Duke and Monarch and York, still crying for me in Michael's stables, maybe two miles away! How sounds do travel in the silence of night-time; probably a gust of wind from that direction had brought me this tale of their devotion to their new friend! Well, if so, they must be a terrible nuisance to the village, thought I, if this has been going on all night!

I continued to listen, and the yelping barks of the dogs came with marvellous distinctness to my ears, indeed, the sound seemed to grow more distinct. Was the wind rising? the tree-tops against the skyline seemed to be quiet enough. Surely the brutes--but no! they had been securely shut up in Michael's stable....

The bear appeared to be listening also; there was gobbling and a pause; more gobbling and another pause--oh! if he should grow nervous and bolt before I could get in a shot! A great change came over my feelings towards those dogs. I had thought them charming animals last night; now, as I listened to their yelping--it was growing more distinct, not a doubt of it!--I began to hate them bitterly. They were loose and were following my track through the forest! The splendid opportunity of scoring my first bear was trembling in the balance! The sounds came nearer and nearer. I tried to point my rifle at the dark opaque ma.s.s below me, but it was useless.

Then suddenly came a crisis. The bear had been gobbling less and listening more--did he mean to bolt? If he moved, I should risk a shot.

Of a sudden there was a moan, a snarl, a shuffle; he had taken fright, he was off!

Wildly I raised my rifle, I tried to catch a glimpse of him--oh, for a ray of light! But for the life of me I could not distinguish even his big body; I could have wept for anger, for in another instant my opportunity would have gone.

Then came one of the few shocks, really bad ones, from which I have suffered during a fairly peaceful life; in one instant and without the slightest warning I became aware that the great brute was climbing my tree! My tongue was paralysed with horror, I could not even shout; I endeavoured to point my gun downwards, but the barrel caught against a bough; I gasped, attempting to shriek. I heard his panting breath close beneath me; then I felt that his claws had caught the end of my long fur coat, and all the pent-up horror I felt found vent at last in a shriek of anguish.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Three yelping, delighted dogs."]

Apparently this caused Bruin quite as much terror as he had caused me, for he fell back to the ground like a stone, and since his claws were attached to my coat, I fell with him. For one horrible moment we rolled together on the ground--I remember the animal smell of the brute to this day--and then he was gone! and coming in his place three yelping, delighted dogs were jumping about on me. I'm afraid I called those setters names which they must have thought very rude; I kicked at them and abused them; gradually they realised that I was not quite the nice fellow they had thought me.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "King Louis leaped fully armed into the sea."]

I learnt later that a furious neighbour of Michael's, annoyed by their night-long barking, had opened the stable-door and let them out. But the bear--alas! I never saw him again; he left the place in sore dudgeon--so that the peasants saved the remains left to put up with certain rude remarks from my cousin Jack. I believe he thought these remarks humorous, but I a.s.sure you they were not in the least funny.

STORIES FROM AFRICA.

I.--THE STORY OF A CRUSADER.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

A very long time ago a wise man said that there was always something new to be found in Africa. The Africa he knew was only that fringe of the dark continent into which the Roman arms had penetrated, but in our days, as in his, there is a charm about the stories from that mysterious land of which we have even now so much to learn. There are the travellers' tales of men who went where no white foot had trodden before them, fighting tales of men who won honour at the sword's point, and tales, just as stirring, of those who carried only the message of peace.

The names of Livingstone and Gordon, Mackenzie and Hannington, should be household words in every English home, and there are others less known of whom there are stories worth the hearing.

And our first tale is told by an old French baron, aged eighty years or more, ending his life peacefully on his fair estate in Champagne. No doubt he liked to look back to the stirring days of his youth, and I dare say the young folk who gathered round his hospitable hearth knew the Sire de Joinville for a good story-teller, who could beguile a winter evening with tales of that luckless Crusade in which he bore his part, and of his hero and leader, sovereign, saint, and soldier in one, Louis, the cross-bearing King of France; and, happily for us, before the stories died with the teller, the young Queen, Jeanne of Navarre, prevailed upon him to set down his recollections.

Five and fifty years is a long time to look back upon, but doubtless it seemed but a little while to Jean de Joinville since he gathered his va.s.sals and kindred to follow King Louis to the East. He remembered the farewell banquet, when, standing at the head of his own table, perhaps for the last time, he bade his guests speak if they had any grudge or quarrel against him, and then courteously withdrew that they might say their minds more freely. And then, when they had no fault to find, he rode away at the head of his gallant company, not daring, he tells us, to turn his eyes lest his courage should fail him at the sight of his fair home and the thought of his two bonnie boys. It required courage indeed to set sail in those days, when the travellers knew so little of the lands whither they went, and our Crusader wondered how any man dared trust himself to the ocean with unforgiven sin upon his conscience, not knowing at night where the dawn of day might find him.

But after some delay from contrary winds, and a long wait at Cyprus, the French army landed in Egypt, where the first attack was to be made; King Louis leaped, fully armed, from his galley into the sea in his eagerness to reach the sh.o.r.e. The Saracens fled at first before the invading army, and the city of Damietta was taken almost without a blow. There the Queen, who had followed her husband, as our good Queen Eleanor did a few years later, was left with a sufficient garrison while the army moved onwards up the Nile.

But now the tide of war began to turn. If the valour and devotion of their leaders could have given victory to the Crusaders, they must have carried all before them, but De Joinville himself owned that King Louis was more of a dauntless soldier than a good general. The Saracens hara.s.sed the troops with their terrible Greek fire, which, De Joinville says, looked like a fiery flying dragon, and destroyed the wooden defences, to make which the Crusaders had broken up their boats. The King's brother, the Comte d'Artois, was killed in a desperate struggle when fording the Nile. Worst of all, sickness was abroad in the camp, killing more than the swords of the Saracens. Louis himself was stricken, but refused to be removed to more comfortable quarters, with the reply of a true king, 'G.o.d helping me, I will suffer with my people.' He mounted his horse for a last desperate attack, the good knight Geoffroi de Sergines riding at his bridle-rein, and, as the King told De Joinville afterwards, cutting down the Saracens who attacked him as a good servant brushes away the flies that annoy his master.

When the King could no longer keep his saddle, the brave Geoffroi carried him into a house inhabited by a good burgher-woman from Paris, and there laid him on the ground with his head on her knee, hardly expecting that he would live to see another sunrise. And here, dying as it seemed, Louis was taken by the Saracens, and his soldiers, on the false report of an order from their leader, laid down their arms.

(_Concluded on page 46._)

CHARLES KINGSLEY'S KINDNESS.

Charles Kingsley was a very kind-hearted, man, and could not bear to see anything in pain. One Sunday, as he was preaching his sermon in church, he stopped in the middle of it, stooped down, picked up something, and went into the vestry. He soon returned and went on with his sermon.

After the service was over, some one asked him why he had stopped in the middle of his sermon. He answered that he had seen a b.u.t.terfly lying on the floor, and he was afraid that he might tread upon it and kill it; so he picked it up and let it fly out of the vestry window.

THE GIANT OF THE TREASURE CAVES.

(_Continued from page 23._)

Alan was just beginning to wonder whether it was not foolish to go on any further inland into the valley--indeed, whether it was any use to hunt for Thomas any longer--when he caught the sound of m.u.f.fled voices coming from behind a group of trees near which he happened to be pa.s.sing. The soft moss had prevented his footsteps being heard, and, as he drew closer, he caught the gruff tones of Thomas's voice.

What was Thomas doing down there? To whom could he speaking? There must be something up when two men got away into a lonely wood in order to talk. His curiosity roused, Alan crept closer still to the trees, but the undergrowth prevented his seeing any distance. He was sure, however, that it was Thomas speaking, and he could now distinguish the words, in spite of the m.u.f.fled tones.

'I don't seem to see how it is to be done,' muttered the gardener, sullenly. 'It's not easy, I tell you.'

'What's the matter, man?' came in a voice with a foreign accent, which Alan did not recognise. 'The thing is possible enough if you choose to do it, and I'm sure I am making it worth your while. It isn't every day as you will get such an offer. Come, don't you be a fool, and throw your chances away.'

'I'm not throwing anything away,' returned Thomas, sulkily. 'But the risk---- '

'Well, what if it is a bit risky? You are well paid for the job. Do it quietly, take them unawares, and the risk will be nothing. But if you are going to be afraid of your own shadow I'm off with my bargain.

That's the long and the short of it.'

A rustle made Alan think the speaker was moving away.

'If you cut up rough you will be the loser a great deal more than I,'

replied Thomas, coolly. 'This job isn't to my taste, and if I do it, it will be in my own way. I must wait till my chance comes. It shall be done--that is, if it can be done at all--you may depend on it. I'm not going to back out. Don't be afraid. The risk is bigger for me than for you, and I'm not going to be copped--no, not for anybody.'