THE TALE OF A TIGER
Perhaps, my friends, you have never heard of a place called Singapore. Well, it’s no matter if you haven’t. It’s a long, long way east, where all sorts of shipping trade, and where all sorts of people live—Chinamen, Malays, Javanese, Bengalees, English, Dutch, and what not. Well, there was at Singapore a certain Dutch family in the pepper trade. They were named Vandervermin. They were all rich, cautious, heavy people; all save Jacob Vandervermin, who when a mere youth was left a poor orphan; left, as it might have seemed, on purpose to exercise the loving benevolence of prosperous uncles and aunts, and flourishing cousins. Alas! the whole body of the Vandervermins considered the poverty of Jacob as a blight—a family reproach; a nuisance that every one sought to put off upon the other. Jacob was the little toe of clay that disgraced the Vandervermin body of brass. And what made him worse, he was, for one with Dutch blood in his veins, a sprightly, frolicsome fellow. He was a beggar, and yet, with a stony hardness of heart—as Peter Vandervermin, the head of the family, declared—he would laugh and make offensive jokes upon his wretchedness. There are men who cannot understand a joke, simply because it is a thing that carries no worth with it in a ledger. Now Peter Vandervermin received a joke—especially the joke of a poor man—as an offence to his judgment and a sidelong sneer at his pocket. His wife, Drusilla Vandervermin, was of the same belief; and in this goodly creed man and wife had reared a numerous family. Jacob Vandervermin was the only outcast of the name who had ever disgraced it by a jest. It was plain he would come to no good; plain that he would die the death of a sinner. When one day his body was found mortally mangled by a tiger, not one of the Vandervermins was shocked or surprised. No: they had always said that something dreadful would happen to him, and it had come about. Jacob was buried—handsomely buried. Not one of the Vandervermins would have given him when alive the value of a coffin nail; but, being dead, the case was altered. The pride of the family was concerned in the funeral; hence, they respected themselves in their treatment of the deceased. Doubtless the ghost of a despised, ill-used relation is propitiated by a costly burial; and thus many a cousin or half-brother who has glided through life in a cobweb coat has superfine cloth upon his coffin.
I had this history of Jacob Vandervermin from a Chinaman. He repeated it to me with the eloquence and fervour of a believer. The Chinamen—at least the sort that live at Singapore—believe that when the tiger kills its first man, his ghost becomes its very slave; bound, ordered by fate to be a sort of jackal to the tiger; compelled by destiny to find the beast its dinners, even among his kith and kin. Hence, a tiger having carried off one of a family, not one of the survivors is from that moment safe. My Chinaman—he passed for a very learned fellow among his tribe—had the most intimate knowledge of the Vandervermin tragedy, which, after his own lofty fashion—painting his story as though he was painting his native porcelain—he related to me. I shall give it you in plain, cold English; for, my good friends all, be it known to you, I scorn the flourish of a traveller.
At the age of eighteen Jacob Vandervermin—having been knocked from uncle to uncle, the poor, passive family shuttlecock—fell at length into the counting-house of his richest, and oldest uncle, Peter. For two years did Jacob eat the bread of dependence; for with that bitter word was his bread always buttered—when he awakened the inextinguishable ire of his rich and orderly relative. Jacob had been guilty of a gross wickedness; in fact, of a crime, in the eyes of Peter Vandervermin, of the deepest dye. He had, in a moment of culpable neglect, let fall a large, unsightly blot of ink upon his uncle’s ledger. To the mind of Peter Vandervermin, his graceless nephew had thrown an indelible stain upon the white reputation of the family; at least Peter so avenged the fault, for without a word he seized a ruler that lay upon the desk, and with it smote the skull of the blotting offender. Jacob uttered no syllable; but instantly closing the ledger, and raising it with both his hands, he brought down the book of figures with such precise vehemence upon the head of his uncle, that the principal of the house of Vandervermin & Co. lay stunned and prostrate on the floor of his own temple—that is, of his own counting-house.
Now Jacob was not a man to give unnecessary trouble. He knew that if he remained it would only cause his uncle the pain and the perplexity of thrusting him from the house, and therefore, with scarcely a penny in his purse, did Jacob don his hat and cross his uncle’s threshold.
Vain was it for him to beg the aid of any of the name of Vandervermin. What, he—a poor creature, too, a pauper, a beggar, a—no, there was no worse word for him—he smite so good, so tender an uncle! No, he might starve, perish; it would be to share his wickedness to relieve him. It was a secret comfort to the Vandervermins that Jacob, in a momentary forgetfulness, had knocked down his uncle. That sacrilegious blow had for ever and for ever snapped the thousand fine ties that—despite of his previous errors—still held him to the family heart. Now he might perish; and the sooner the better. The only hope was that he would be drowned, or decently starved to death; that, for the sake of the family, he would not come to be hanged, however richly he deserved it.
For some weeks Jacob continued to live without money. Nothing, perhaps, so eminently shows the superiority, the crowning greatness of the human animal—a fact so well attested in many cases—as the power of man to subsist for a time without cash. He is a self-wonder while he does it; nevertheless, the miracle is performed. Tear a plant up by the roots—fling it aside—and it perishes. Shut a cat up in an empty, mouseless garret, and one by one her nine lives will go out. But take money from man—money, which is the root of evil, a root upon which man best flourishes, thereby proving the wickedness of his nature—and still, still he lives. Perhaps, somehow, the carnivorous, omnivorous animal becomes an air-plant, and so feeds upon the atmosphere about him. I have met with many air-plants of the sort. There is not a city, a town, without them. Such men get over days, and weeks, and months, and wonder how they have so successfully travelled thus far to the grave. They must rub their hands, that they have cheated what seemed to them a vital principle of nature.
And in this way Jacob Vandervermin lived. Every day seemed to him a difficult stepping-stone to get over, and yet the night saw him on the other side of it. But it is hard, miserable work, this keeping check against time by meals in the bowels: this incessant looking for butcher and baker as the allies against death, and wondering and trembling from day to day, lest they should not come to the rescue. My friends, this is hard, debasing work—I have known it.
One day, with thoughts heavy as lead upon his brain, did Jacob Vandervermin wander forth. He wandered and wandered, until, weary and spent, he sank upon the stump of a tree in a desolate place. “How—how,” cried Jacob, “shall I live another day!”
What a mole-eyed thing is man! How he crucifies himself with vain thoughts—how he stands upon tiptoe, straining his eyestrings, trying to look into the future, when at that moment the play is over—the show is done.
Jacob had scarcely uttered—“How shall I live another day!” when a tiger, a royal tiger—wherefore a cruel, treacherous, bloodthirsty beast should be called royal, I know not—when a royal tiger—fell like a thunderbolt upon him.
As a very large tom-cat snaps in its mouth a very small mouse, and looking statelily around seems to say—the mouse kicking all the while—“Pooh, pooh; why this is nothing!” so did the royal tiger look and speak, with Jacob Vandervermin writhing and screaming in its jaw. Well, tigers make short work of men. Almost as short as man himself sometimes makes of his fellow biped. Jacob Vandervermin—it was his luck to meet with a benevolent tiger; he was not played with before he was finally crunched—Jacob Vandervermin was soon dead.
And now, my friends, prepare for a wonder! Long before the tiger had picked the bones of Jacob—Jacob’s ghost stood, like a waiting footman, meekly behind the dining animal. There was Jacob in his wide, parasol-like hat of straw—his white jacket and trousers, in all things the same as when he lived, save that he was so transparent the eye could see through him: and then his look was so serene and passionless! It was odd to see how meekly the ghost looked on the while the tiger gnawed and crunched, and then with its rasping tongue cleaned the bones of the ghost’s late body. It was plain that the ghost cared no more for what he once thought the most valuable thing under heaven, than if it were an old threadbare coat, put aside for a glorious garment. Thus, after a few minutes, the ghost seated itself upon the stump of the tree—where, a short time before, it had sat in the flesh—and twiddling its thumbs, looked composedly about it. And when the tiger had finished Jacob—for the poor animal had not for a week before tasted so much as a field mouse—it stalked away to its den, the ghost of Jacob following it.
Gorged to the whiskers, almost for two whole days did the tiger sleep. And then rising and stretching itself—like a Mogul after a debauch—the tiger said, “Jacob!”
“What wills my lord?” answered Jacob’s ghost.
“Jacob, I must sup: something nice, now—something delicate. I don’t like to say it to your face, Jacob, but you haven’t quite agreed with me. I could fancy something mild and tender to-night.”
For a moment the ghost was thoughtful; then observed, “What says my lord to a nice sugar-cane salad?”
The tiger leered somewhat pityingly at the ghost; then saying “Look here!” opened its jaws. Even the ghost of Jacob shivered—like moonlight upon water—at the dreadful array of teeth. “Think you,” said the tiger, “such teeth were made for salads?”
“Tigers, I have heard, were not always flesh-eaters,” said the ghost, a little boldly.
“Almost for two whole days did the tiger sleep”
“Why, there is a story among tigers,” answered the ingenuous brute, “that at one time—but it’s a long time ago—we used to crop clover and trefoil and wild thyme, for all the world like foolish little lambs. And then suddenly—but how it came about I never heard—we took to eating the kids and lambkins that before we played with. How the change began, and who took to killing first, I know not: I have only heard it wasn’t tigers; and now, I only know that I must sup: that this very night I must have another Vandervermin. Have you any babies in the house?”
“None: I assure you, my lord, not one,” answered the ghost.
“That’s a pity,” said the tiger, “for I feel it, my stomach needs something tender and succulent. However, lead on: air and exercise may tone my vitals a little. Why do you tarry, sirrah?”—and the tiger growled like a stage tyrant—“you know your destiny; lead on.”
The ghost seemed to feel the truthful force of the rebuke, and immediately led the way. As they walked on, the ghost espied a remarkably fine ox, strayed from a neighbouring farm. “See, my lord, see!” cried the shadow.
“No, no,” said the tiger, a little contemptuously. “I can’t do that sort of thing now: having once tasted the goodness of man, I must go on with him. No, no; I thank my luck I now know what good living really is.” And then the tiger paused, and twisting its tail gracefully about its legs, as sometimes an ingenuous maid will twist about a gown flounce, the brute observed—“What a lovely night! How the air freshens one’s spirits! What a beautiful moon—and how the stars shine—and the airs whisper among the tamarind trees, like unseen fairies making love! You are sure, Jacob, there is not a baby in the house?”
“Nothing like it, my lord,” answered Jacob.
“What is the best you can promise me?” asked the tiger.
“To-night, I’m afraid nothing better than Drusilla, my aunt,” said the ghost. The tiger growled dubiously; and then said, “Well, we can but look at her. You know the safest way—so mind what you’re about.”
Cautiously, stealthily, goaded by fate, did the ghost of Jacob lead the tiger to the mansion of Peter Vandervermin. Leaping a low wall, they gained a garden, and proceeded along a winding walk, until they came to a pretty little summer pavilion, wherein sat aunt Drusilla, as was her wont, knitting, with a large Dutch pug at her feet.
“There’s your supper,” said Jacob, pointing to the withered old gentlewoman.
“Humph!” growled the tiger, and angrily twitched its tail—“humph! It’s against my stomach; I can’t do it.”
“What think you,” urged the ghost, “of the pug just for a snack?”
The tiger curled its whiskers with a look of disgust, and growling “dropsical,” turned supperless away. And all the next night did the tiger fast. But sweet is the sauce of hunger; for on the third evening the tiger rose and stretched itself, and its eyes glared with brightening flame as it said—“Come along, Jacob: I don’t know that the old woman will eat badly after all.”
Jacob again conducted the destroyer to the house. Again showed Drusilla, unconscious of her fate, knitting, knitting. There was a slight growl—a spring—an old woman’s scream—a yap, yap from the pug—and then the wall was leapt—and Peter Vandervermin was a widower.
I will not follow the tiger to its banquet. Suffice it to say, the tiger ate and slept. However, very ill and feverish did the tiger awake in the morning. “Jacob,” cried the tiger, “what’s the matter with me? Phew! I can hardly move.”
“Perhaps,” said Jacob, “my lord has just a stitch in his side.”
“No, no,” said the tiger, “I feel ’em now; it’s that abominable old woman’s knitting needles.”
“Every rose has its thorn, my lord,” said the ghost, joking as a ghost may be supposed to joke. “You never find a woman without pins and needles.”
“Jacob,” cried the tiger, “either you come of a very bad family, or, after all, man-eating is by no means so wholesome—however pleasant it may be—as a hearty, simple meal off a buffalo, a deer, or anything of that sort.”
“Then why, my lord,” urged the ghost, “why not return to the humbler diet?”
“That’s all very well, Jacob. Why don’t men—with red noses and no insides—turn from arrack and new rum, and drink only at the diamond spring? I begin to feel myself no better than a drunkard: yes, I fear I’m a lost tiger. It’s very nice—very delicious to eat a man at night—but it’s like what I’ve heard of drink—what a headache it leaves in the morning! Ha!” cried the beast, “I’m afraid I’m making quite a man of myself. Look at my tongue, Jacob; it’s as hard and as dry, you might grind an axe upon it. Oh, that dreadful old woman!”—and the tiger closed its heavy, bloodshot eyes, and tried to sleep.
Only three days past, and then the tiger leapt up, and licking itself all over—as though it was going out to an evening party, and wished to put the very best gloss upon its coat—the creature cried—“Come away, Jacob; I must have another Vandervermin.”
“Oh, my lord,” cried the ghost, “think what you’ll suffer in the morning.”
“That for the morning,” cried the tiger, whisking its tail—“I tell you, Jacob, I intend to make a night of it. Slave, lead on.”
And thus for three months, conducted by the fate-enforced ghost, did the tiger continue to sup off Vandervermins. Uncles and aunts, cousins male and female, in all eight, had the tiger devoured, when one night the brute carried off the ninth and last victim in the person of Justus Vandervermin, lawyer and usurer. The tiger—strange to say—devoured every bit of him; but it was the brute’s last morsel; it never could digest him. Justus Vandervermin remained, like so much india-rubber, in the vitals of the tiger. Nothing could stir the lawyer.
“Jacob,” cried the brute, feeling its last hour approach. “I shall die, and your ghost will be at rest. I forgive you—but why—why didn’t you tell me that Justus was a lawyer?”
And with these words the tiger died, and the ghost of Jacob Vandervermin was instantly at peace.
“And if all this story isn’t true, Captain”—asked one of the Cat-and-Fiddle company—“what do you get out of it?”
“Why, true or not, this much,” answered Captain Bam; “never to neglect and ill-use a poor relation. For however low and helpless he may seem, the day may come when he shall have about him the strength of a tiger.”
