*CHAPTER IV.*
_*THE WOLF'S LAIR.*_
Yes, it was all true! That grim gray wolf was not seeking an earlybreakfast for herself, but a safe plaything for the five young wolflingswhich she loved so dearly. She cared but little for the scratch on hershoulder when she thought of their delight.
She snatched up Carl so stealthily, and with so soft a touch, he neverwakened until he felt the cool breeze that arose with the peep of day,fanning his hot cheeks as the wolf ran swiftly on. It was too dark forhim to see where he was, or he might have been frightened into fits. Heput up his two little chubby hands and felt the wolf's shaggy coat. Hethought it was Sailor, and threw his arm lovingly round the big throat.He was far too sleepy to take much notice.
The wolf gave him a gentle swing, as she still ran at her fastestpace,--aware, by the way in which she looked over her shoulder, that thepursuers were already on her track. She could hear the baying of thedogs, and darting down the river-bank, hid herself in a natural hollowformed by the dripping of a little spring. She laid Carl down where thecool drops trickled on his head, and he was soon asleep again, sounderthan before.
The wolf knew well what she was about. In that quiet water-cradle, withlong trailing creepers for fly-curtains, and the softest of mosses for abed, the child never roused to utter a sound.
Many a native mother tries the same plan, and puts her little black babyto sleep in a shallow watercourse when the heat and the insects becomeintolerable, and so secures a few hours' refreshing sleep for it on themost sultry days.
The dogs lost the scent when the wolf stepped into the water, andscoured the plain beyond her retreat. Then the wary creature took up herprize once more, and doubling cleverly upon her pursuers, made her wayto the hills, where her mate was keeping watch over the preciouswolflings. A run of five miles through the morning air was aninvigorating experience after his fretful, feverish night, and Carlwaked up at last, with a stretch and a laugh, quite unconscious of hisperilous position.
They had entered one of the basins scooped in the side of the hills,where the wild beasts made their retreat. The gorge was narrow at theentrance, and partly filled up by dislodged stones and fallen rocks, nowovergrown with tangle and jungle, and overshadowed by spreading trees.
These places are called _koonds_ in India; and in the rainy season arewell watered by a mountain torrent, dashing and foaming from the heightsabove. Beneath those precipitous rocks, and through the dense foliagewhich clothed them, the hottest rays of the midday sun could scarcelypenetrate. Now, at that early hour, it was so dark Carl coulddistinguish nothing but a dog-like form. He was still dreaming of hisfaithful Sailor, and began to struggle and kick to be set on his feet.His hands had dabbled in the wolf's blood, and he rubbed his half-openeyes, wondering more and more why his ayah did not come and make Sailorleave go of him.
The rapid exercise had made the wolf's torn shoulder burst out bleedingagain, and as they forced their way through a perfect sea of grass andfern and flowers, under bush and over brake, he became smeared all over.This was his safeguard. Wolves live for the night, and trust to theirown keen scent to recognize each other, in the blackness of darknesswhich envelopes them, as they penetrate deeper and deeper into theinnermost recesses of the koond.
It is a well-known fact that when a pack of wolves are out hunting, ifone of their number gets into a fight, and becomes smeared with theblood of their prey, the rest of the pack mistake it for the object oftheir chase, and tear it to pieces instead.
We think only of the savage ferocity of the wolf when it is seeking itsprey, but it has a warm and loving heart beneath its shaggy coat. Thenobility of the dog is in it; and to each other they are as faithful,affectionate, and obedient, and even more intelligent.
The gray wolf stopped at last before a luxuriant korinda bush. Thethick-leaved branches arched over until they touched the ground, forminga leafy tent so thick and dark and cool no rain could filter through,and the brightest sunshine could scarcely dart more than a flickeringglimmer upon the snug nest it sheltered.
Such was the spot the wolves had chosen for their nursery. They had duga hole and lined it with the softest moss they could find, and thewolf-mother had torn off the hair from her own coat to improve herbabies' bed.
Five little heads popped up to welcome mother, as the gray wolf, withCarl in her mouth, pushed her way beneath the branches; and the grim,gaunt wolf-father, who had been guarding them in her absence. got upwith a stretch as she dropped the child into the midst of the prickingears and wagging tails. She had brought Carl to her wolflings as a catbrings a mouse to her kittens, to teach them how to kill and to devour;but the savage lesson was yet unlearned. They were more ready for playthan for lessons, and found infinite delight in tearing his shirt topieces, and freeing him from so strange an encumbrance.
They rolled over and over together as puppies love to do; and when Carlcried, not knowing what to make of such strange surroundings, thewolf-father in much perplexity sniffed all over him.
Could that smooth-skinned, hairless little creature be one of his cubs?How he pricked up his ears every time the small lips puckered, half infear, and more than half in anger, because nobody came to fetch Carl!The deepening sobs ended at last in a roar that made the five strongwolflings howl in concert.
The shaggy mother stepped into her nest and cuddled her young oneslovingly in her rough paws. The sixth little head crept closer andcloser until it also found a pillow on that hairy shoulder. Sleeping inthe dark on the dewy moss, Carl dreamed of Sailor in a rougher coat, andwaked to find his dream a reality. But his arms were round his hairynurse, and the pouting lips were kissing her rough cheek, as if shereally were his own dear old doggie.
Could he have seen the savage face, he might have been afraid.
Those who live in the land where wild beasts dwell, know that a lovingcaress will even induce a tiger to withdraw its teeth; but few, veryfew, have the courage and presence of mind to try it. It is justanother proof that love, which is stronger than death, is also strongerthan the savage instincts of wolves and tigers; reminding us of thatmillennial day when the wolf shall lie down with the lamb, and noneshall hurt or destroy in all God's holy mountain.
Rare as such instances are, they do really happen, and many a story istold under the banyan trees of Bengal of children who have been broughtup thus in a wild wolf's nest.
From that hour the grim and savage creature looked on Carl Desborough asher own.
He waked up wide at last, hungry and thirsty. Old Gray Legs, the fiercewolf-father, cracked a marrow-bone with his formidable teeth as a boymight crack a nut, and gave it to him to suck. The wild honey trickledfrom the rocks above the korinda bush. Ripe mangoes dropped from thetrees around, and lay ready to his baby hand in the drying grass, andother wild fruits ripened and fell around him as the summer days wenton. It must have worried the wolf-mother that he cared so little forflesh, which her cubs begin to eat at five weeks. But nothing comesamiss to a wolf in the shape of food, so she let him help himself towhat he liked best.
The wild birds sang overhead; the frogs croaked in the grass, andqueer-looking lizards basked in the chinks of the rock; crawling snakeswound their slimy length about unheeded, as they hissed in anger orbasked in some happy spot into which a straggling sunbeam happened topenetrate. Carl might shriek with terror when he heard the tigersgrunting in the bed of the stream, as the search for water grew moredifficult every day, or the "Ugh! ugh!" of a grizzly bear in search ofthe mangoes in which it so delights; but he was really safe, for thewolves never leave their young alone. If one parent takes a stroll, theother remains to watch over them, and at the sound of their cry thewhole pack would rally to their defence.
Carl was so much weaker and so much more helpless than their otherwolflings, that Old Gray Legs and his mate kept him close beside themwhen he ventured outside his mossy hole.
No human foot had ever penetrated this
forest fastness, and if some echoof a hunter's cry did occasionally waken its solitudes, it was scarcelyheeded.
It was as if poor little Carl had been transported to another world,beyond the reach of all who loved him so dearly. As the weeks went onhe forgot his home, or remembered it only in dreams. Like a babyRobinson Crusoe,
"He was out of humanity's reach; Must he finish his journey alone-- Never hear the sweet music of speech, And start at the sound of his own!"
The young wolflings made him run on all fours; for if they saw him standupright, one or other was sure to leap on his back and roll him over.Besides, it was often much easier to crawl than to walk in thattrackless wild of fallen rocks and marshy swamps, where decayingtree-trunks barred the path, and unsuspected burrows perforated whatmight otherwise have been described as solid ground.
Like all wild beasts, the wolves retreated to their secret bower for amidday sleep, and took their stroll in the moonlight. So Carl wasalmost always in the dark, and his eyes grew so weak he began to blinklike an owl in the sunshine. For sometimes he waked up when his wolfishcompanions were all fast asleep, and at such times he was apt to straybeyond the dense foliage of the korinda. Now and then the fierce blazeof the noonday sun shot a swift ray across the drying watercourse, wherea fallen tree made a break in the thick masses of leaves that for themost part shut out sky and sun altogether. He would scramble over therough ground, attracted by its brilliancy, and then, half-blinded by theunaccustomed light, stumble and fall. Many a sad hurt befell him, andmany a time Old Gray Legs fetched him home; many a fight he had withchattering monkeys and sprightly-spotted fawns--fights which would haveended badly for Carl but for the vigilance of his foster-parents. Butthe scars and scratches, the bites and stings, taught him at last tofind protection and safety by the gray wolf's side, until he becameafraid to lose sight of her, and answered her slightest call asdutifully as the five strong cubs, who were now his sole playfellows.
He became the old wolf's constant care; for the perils which surroundedhim increased when week after week wore away, and the ever-increasingheat dried up the last and deepest pool, which had remained to mark thecourse of the once dashing torrent. The blackening grasses rustled asthe wolves rushed hither and thither, with their tongues hanging out oftheir mouths from thirst; and the young things cried for the water theycould not find.
When the moon rose behind the rocky steeps which shut in the koond withits precipitous wall, the patriarch of the pack gave tongue, and calledhis hairy children to follow him out. The time had come for those fivewolflings to obey the call, and Carl was as unwilling to be left behindas the gray wolf was to leave him. Out, out he went into the silverymoonlight, led by the two old wolves into the very midst of the pack,catching something of the excitement of the hunt as the wolves sweptdown the dried-up river-bed with an appalling howl, in pursuit of theirflying prey. To keep up with them was impossible, and when he couldneither run nor crawl, in his terror he scrambled upon hisfoster-mother's back and rode.
When that appalling howl rang through the midnight air, every sleeper inNoak-holly wakened in trembling fear; and yet a bit of white ragfluttering at the end of a tall bamboo would have made so good a"scare-wolf" that it would have kept the whole pack at a respectfuldistance.
After nights like these, Carl grew vigorous and strong, bounding intothe air, and leaping like the young fawn they were pursuing, and runningon all fours with astonishing swiftness.
Once he was almost left behind, as the whole pack scampered off suddenlyat the unwelcome sound of the hunting-horn of a Rana, or small hillchieftain.
The child was left staring wistfully at the Hindu train; for, like thewolves, the Rana had chosen the midnight to come out with his hog-spearand beat the jungle for his share of the game with which the hillsabounded. But the sight of the turbaned heads and the dusky faces, thebare black arms poising the long bamboo-handled spears, and the sound oftheir unearthly cries, aroused no thought of home in the heart of thebaby hunter. They only terrified him. The boy was growing wild. Witha leap and a yell he bounded into the air, for the Rana's dogs were uponhim.
Out from the towering moonje grass rushed the returning wolves, hemminghim round as they would the weakest of the pack, and fighting off thehounds.
Carl was down; but Gray Legs stood over him and brought him out of thefray unhurt, although the Rana's spear stuck in the ground within aninch of his naked chest.
"There is a boy in the midst of the pack," said the Rana's jogie orbeater, who had thrown the spear--"a child of the fair people"--for sothe Hindus amongst themselves usually call the Europeans.