CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
WE MEET WITH A LUDICROUSLY AWFUL ADVENTURE.
The day following that on which we set out from King Jambai's village,as narrated in the last chapter, Jack, Peterkin, Makarooroo, Njamie'slittle boy, and I embarked in a small canoe, and bidding adieu to ourhospitable friends, set out on our return journey to the coast.
We determined to proceed thither by another branch of the river whichwould take us through a totally new, and in some respects different,country from that in which we had already travelled, and which, in thecourse of a few weeks, would carry us again into the neighbourhood ofthe gorilla country.
One beautiful afternoon, about a week after parting from our friends, wemet with an adventure in which the serious and the comic were strangelymingled. Feeling somewhat fatigued after a long spell at our paddles,and being anxious to procure a monkey or a deer, as we had run short offood, we put ashore, and made our encampment on the banks of the river.This done, we each sallied out in different directions, leavingMakarooroo in charge of the camp.
For some time I wandered about the woods in quest of game, but althoughI fired at many animals that were good for food, I missed them all, andwas unwillingly compelled to return empty-handed. On my way back, andwhile yet several miles distant from the camp, I met Jack, who hadseveral fat birds of the grouse species hanging at his girdle.
"I am glad to see that you have been more successful than I, Jack," saidI, as we met.
"Yet I have not much to boast of," he replied. "It is to be hoped thatPeterkin has had better luck. Have you seen him?"
"No; I have not even heard him fire a shot."
"Well, let us go on. Doubtless he will make his appearance in goodtime. What say you to following the course of this brook? I have nodoubt it will guide us to the vicinity of our camp, and the groundimmediately to the left of it seems pretty clear of jungle."
"Agreed," said I; and for the next ten minutes or so we walked besideeach other in silence. Suddenly our footsteps were arrested by a lowpeculiar noise.
"Hark! is that a human voice?" whispered Jack, as he cocked his rifle.
"It sounds like it," said I.
At the same moment we heard some branches in an opposite directioncrack, as if they had been broken by a heavy tread. Immediately after,the first sound became louder and more distinct. Jack looked at me insurprise, and gradually a peculiar smile overspread his face.
"It's Peterkin," said I, in a low whisper.
My companion nodded, and half-cocking our pieces, we advanced with slowand cautious steps towards the spot whence the sound had come. Thegurgling noise of the brook prevented us from hearing as well as usual,so it was not until we were close upon the bushes that fringed the banksof the streamlet that we clearly discerned the tones of Peterkin's voicein conversation with some one, who, however, seemed to make no reply tohis remarks. At first I thought he must be talking to himself, but inthis I was mistaken.
"Let's listen for a minute or two," whispered my companion, with a broadgrin.
I nodded assent, and advancing cautiously, we peeped over the bushes.The sight that met our eyes was so irresistibly comic that we couldscarcely restrain our laughter.
On a soft grassy spot, close to the warbling stream, lay our friendPeterkin, on his breast, resting on his elbows, and the forefinger ofhis right hand raised. Before him, not more than six inches from hisnose, sat the most gigantic frog I ever beheld, looking inordinately fatand intensely stupid. My memory instantly flew back to the scene on thecoral island where Jack and I had caught our friend holding a quietconversation with the old cat, and I laughed internally as I thought onthe proverb, "The boy is the father of the man."
"Frog," said Peterkin, in a low, earnest voice, at the same time shakinghis finger slowly and fixing his eyes on the plethoric creature beforehim--"frog, you may believe it or not as you please, but I do solemnlyassure you that I never did behold such a great, big, fat monster as youare in all--my--life! What do you mean by it?"
As the frog made no reply to this question, but merely kept up anincessant puffing motion in its throat, Peterkin continued--
"Now, frog, answer me this one question--and mind that you don't telllies--you may not be aware of it, but you can't plead ignorance, for Inow tell you that it is exceedingly wicked to tell lies, whether you bea frog or only a boy. Now, tell me, did you ever read `Aesop'sFables?'"
The frog continued to puff, but otherwise took no notice of itsquestioner. I could not help fancying that it was beginning to looksulky at being thus catechised.
"What, you won't speak! Well, I'll answer for you: you have _not_ read`Aesop's Fables;' if you had you would not go on blowing yourself up inthat way. I'm only a little man, it's true--more's the pity--but if youimagine that by blowing and puffing like that you can ever come to blowup as big as me, you'll find yourself mistaken. You can't do it, so youneedn't try. You'll only give yourself rheumatism. Now, _will_ youstop? If you won't stop you'll burst--there."
Peterkin paused here, and for some time continued to gaze intently inthe face of his new friend. Presently he began again--
"Frog, what are you thinking of? Do you ever think? I don't believeyou do. Tightened up as you seem to be with wind or fat or conceit, ifyou were to attempt to think the effort would crack your skin, so you'dbetter not try. But, after all, you've some good points about you. Ifit were not that you would become vain I would tell you that you've gota very good pair of bright eyes, and a pretty mottled skin, and thatyou're at least the size of a big chicken--not a plucked but afull-fledged chicken. But, O frog, you've got a horribly ugly bigmouth, and you're too fat--a great deal too fat for elegance; though Ihave no doubt it's comfortable. Most fat people are comfortable. Oh!you would, would you?"
This last exclamation was caused by the frog making a lazy leap to oneside, tumbling heavily over on its back, and rolling clumsily on to itslegs again, as if it wished to escape from its tormentor, but hadscarcely vigour enough to make the effort. Peterkin quietly lifted itup and placed it deliberately before him again in the same attitude asbefore.
"Don't try that again, old boy," said he, shaking his fingerthreateningly and frowning severely, "else I'll be obliged to give you apoke in the nose. I wonder, now, Frog, if you ever had a mother, or ifyou only grew out of the earth like a plant. Tell me, were you everdandled in a mother's arms? Do you know anything of maternal affection,eh? Humph! I suspect not. You would not look so besottedly stupid ifyou did. I tell you what it is, old fellow: you're uncommonly badcompany, and I've a good mind to ram my knife through you, and carry youinto camp to my friend Ralph Rover, who'll skin and stuff you to such anextent that your own mother wouldn't know you, and carry you to England,and place you in a museum under a glass case, to be gazed at by nurses,and stared at by children, and philosophised about by learnedprofessors. Hollo! none o' that now. Come, poor beast; I didn't meanto frighten you. There, sit still, and don't oblige me to stick you upagain, and I'll not take you to Ralph."
The poor frog, which had made another attempt to escape, gazed vacantlyat Peterkin again without moving, except in regard to the puffing beforereferred to.
"Now, frog, I'll have to bid you good afternoon. I'm sorry that timeand circumstance necessitate our separation, but I'm glad that I havehad the pleasure of meeting with you. Glad and sorry, frog, in the samebreath! Did you ever philosophise on that point, eh? Is it possible,think you, to be glad and sorry at one and the same moment? No doubt acreature like you, with such a very small intellect, if indeed you haveany at all, will say that it is not possible. But I know better. Why,what do you call hysterics? Ain't that laughing and crying at once--sorrow and joy mixed? I don't believe you understand a word that I say.You great puffing blockhead, what are you staring at?"
The frog, as before, refused to make any reply; so our friend lay forsome time chuckling and making faces at it. While thus engaged hehappened to look up, and to our surprise as well
as alarm we observedthat he suddenly turned as pale as death.
To cock our rifles, and take a step forward so as to obtain a view inthe direction in which he was gazing with a fixed and horrified stare,was our immediate impulse. The object that met our eyes on clearing thebushes was indeed well calculated to strike terror into the stoutestheart; for there, not three yards distant from the spot on which ourfriend lay, and partially concealed by foliage, stood a large blackrhinoceros. It seemed to have just approached at that moment, and hadbeen suddenly arrested, if not surprised, by the vision of Peterkin andthe frog. There was something inexpressibly horrible in the sight ofthe great block of a head, with its mischievous-looking eyes, ungainlysnout, and ponderous horn, in such close proximity to our friend. Howit had got so near without its heavy tread being heard I cannot tell,unless it were that the noise of the turbulent brook had drowned thesound.
But we had no time either for speculation or contemplation. Both Jackand I instantly took aim--he at the shoulder, as he afterwards told me;I at the monster's eye, into which, with, I am bound to confess, myusual precipitancy, I discharged both barrels.
The report seemed to have the effect of arousing Peterkin out of hisstate of fascination, for he sprang up and darted towards us. At thesame instant the wounded rhinoceros crossed the spot which he had leftwith a terrific rush, and bursting through the bushes as if it had beena great rock falling from a mountain cliff, went headlong into therivulet.
Without moving from the spot on which we stood, we recharged our pieceswith a degree of celerity that, I am persuaded, we never beforeequalled. Peterkin at the same time caught up his rifle, which leanedagainst a tree hard by, and only a few seconds elapsed after the fall ofthe monster into the river ere we were upon its banks ready for anothershot.
The portion of the bank of the stream at this spot happened to be rathersteep, so that the rhinoceros, on regaining his feet, experiencedconsiderable difficulty in the attempts to clamber out, which he maderepeatedly and violently on seeing us emerge from among the bushes.
"Let us separate," said Jack; "it will distract his attention."
"Stay; you have blown out his eye, Ralph, I do believe," said Peterkin.
On drawing near to the struggling monster we observed that this wasreally the case. Blood streamed from the eye into which I had fired,and poured down his hideous jaws, dyeing the water in which hefloundered.
"Look out!" cried Jack, springing to the right, in order to get on theanimal's blind side as it succeeded in effecting a landing.
Peterkin instantly sprang in the same direction, while I bounded to theopposite side. I have never been able satisfactorily to decide in myown mind whether this act on my part was performed in consequence of asudden, almost involuntary, idea that by so doing I should help todistract the creature's attention, or was the result merely of anaccidental impulse. But whatever the cause, the effect was mostfortunate; for the rhinoceros at once turned towards me, and thus, beingblind in the other eye, lost sight of Jack and Peterkin, who with therapidity almost of thought leaped close up to its side, and took closeaim at the most vulnerable parts of its body. As they were directlyopposite to me, I felt that I ran some risk of receiving their fire.But before I had time either to reflect that they could not possiblymiss so large an object at so short a distance, or to get out of theway, the report of both their heavy rifles rang through the forest, andthe rhinoceros fell dead almost at my feet.
"Hurrah!" shouted Peterkin, throwing his cap into the air at this happyconsummation, and sitting down on the haunch of our victim.
"Shame on you, Peterkin," said I, as I reloaded his rifle forhim--"shame on you to crow thus over a fallen foe!"
"Ha, boy! it's all very well for you to say that now, but you know wellenough that you would rather have lost your ears than have missed such achance as this. But, I say, it'll puzzle you to stuff that fellow,won't it?"
"No doubt of it," answered Jack, as he drew a percussion cap from hispouch, and placed it carefully on the nipple of his rifle. "Ralph willnot find it easy; and it's a pity, too, not to take it home with us, forunder a glass case it would make such a pretty and appropriate_pendant_, in his museum, to that interesting frog with which you--"
"Oh, you sneaking eavesdropper!" cried Peterkin, laughing. "It isreally too bad that a fellow can't have a little _tete-a-tete_ with afriend but you and Ralph must be thrusting your impertinent noses in theway."
"Not to mention the rhinoceros," observed Jack.
"Ah! to be sure--the rhinoceros; yes, I might have expected to find youin such low company, for `birds of a feather,' you know, are said to`flock together.'"
"If there be any truth in that," said I, "you are bound, on the sameground, to identify yourself with the frog."
"By the way," cried Peterkin, starting up and looking around the spot onwhich his interesting _tete-a-tete_ had taken place, "where is the frog?It was just here that--Ah!--oh!--oh! poor, poor frog!
"`Your course is run, your days are o'er; We'll never have a chat no more,'
"As Shakespeare has it. Well, well, who would have thought that soconversable and intelligent a creature should have come to such amelancholy end?"
The poor frog had indeed come to a sad and sudden end, and I felt quitesorry for it, although I could not help smiling at my companion's quaintmanner of announcing the fact.
Not being gifted with the activity of Peterkin, it had stood its groundwhen the rhinoceros charged, and had received an accidental kick fromthe great foot of that animal which had broken its back and killed itoutright.
"There's one comfort, however," observed Jack, as we stood over thefrog's body: "you have been saved the disagreeable necessity of killingit yourself, Ralph."
This was true, and I was not sorry that the rhinoceros had done me thisservice; for, to say truth, I have ever felt the necessity of killinganimals in cold blood to be one of the few disagreeable points in theotherwise delightful life of a naturalist. To shoot animals in the heatand excitement of the chase I have never felt to be particularlyrepulsive or difficult; but the spearing of an insect, or the deliberatekilling of an unresisting frog, are duties which I have ever performedwith a feeling of deep self-abhorrence.
Carefully packing my frog in leaves, and placing it in my pouch, Iturned with my companions to quit the scene of our late encounter andreturn to our camp, on arriving at which we purposed sending backMakarooroo to cut off the horn of the rhinoceros; for we agreed that, asit was impossible to carry away the entire carcass, we ought at least tosecure the horn as a memorial of our adventure.