TALL TALES OF SPORT AND ADVENTURE.
(By Mr. Punch's own Short Story-teller.)
I.—THE PINK HIPPOPOTAMUS. (CONTINUED.)
On the opposite side of the room, with his brave old back against the wall, stood my dear father, his arms tightly bound to his sides, and a cummerbund tied firmly over that mouth which had never, save in moments of thoughtless, but pardonable anger, spoken any but words of kindness to his son. In front of him was couched a huge man-eating tiger—I recognised his hominivorous propensities at once by the peculiar striping of his left shoulder, an infallible sign to a sportsman's eye—licking his chops in joyous anticipation of the unresisting feast which Providence had thus thrown in his way. I could see the great red tongue darting out now on one side of his mouth, now on the other, while his immense tail lashed the floor in dazzling curves. This spectacle would have been sufficient to shake the nerves of an ordinarily courageous man—but this was not all. On one side of the gigantic cat lay coiled an immense python, of the deadliest kind, and on the other one of the tallest and most powerful elephants I have ever seen was squatting on its haunches, blinking at my poor father with its wicked little eyes. I knew at once what had happened. My father's only weakness was a fondness amounting to mania for conjuring tricks of all kinds. The latest mail had brought us some English papers containing descriptions of the Cabinet Trick of the Davenport Brothers, who were at that time (this may help to fix the date, a point on which I have never cared to trouble myself) astounding all London by their dexterity in untying themselves from ropes lashed securely round them. As soon as he had read the accounts my father determined that he would practise the trick, and for a week past he had spent hours in our little room with coils of rope wound round every part of his body in the effort, which had hitherto proved vain, to release himself. Every day the heroic old fellow, still panting from his intolerable exertions, had murmured "I am all but undone," but never—if the expression may be pardoned—had he been so near his utter undoing as he was at this awful moment. Of course I knew what had happened. The dastardly Chamberlain, whose discomfiture I have already narrated, must have got wind of my father's daily practice, and, taking advantage of his state of bondage, must have introduced into our room its present horrible occupants. The room was not a large one, and the stairs leading to it were steep, and I have never yet been able to explain to myself satisfactorily by what masterpiece of diabolical ingenuity the scoundrel was able to carry out his stratagem.
However, this was no moment for discovering explanations. The situation required instant action. Fortunately, my father's eyes were unbandaged, and for the space of half-an-hour, as it afterwards turned out, he had been able to control his zoological invaders by the mere magnetism of his unwavering glance. One wink, however, was bound to prove fatal, and I saw from the beads of perspiration standing upon the old man's rugged forehead that he must be very near the limit of his power of keeping both eyes open. If a drop of perspiration should happen to roll into one of his eyes there could be, I knew, but one end to the business.
As good luck would have it, the animals had not noticed my entrance. I immediately decided what to do. Addressing my father silently in the deaf and dumb language, of which I am a master, I adjured him to stand firm for another moment or two. I could see from the expression of trustful thankfulness, which stealing over his face, robbed it of every vestige of anxiety, that he had understood my appeal. Then creeping cautiously to a cupboard, I opened it without the slightest noise and found, as I expected, a small coil of rope and a dish of Sallûns, a very tasty kind of native cake. Taking two of these, I tied one to each end of the rope, and threw it deftly so that one cake dropped under the elephant's trunk, while the other, by a stroke of good fortune, fell right into the wide open jaws of the python. The slack, as I intended, alighted gently in a running noose round the tiger's throat. What I anticipated happened. The snake, without troubling itself to discover whence the gift had come, swallowed the Sallûn with which fate had so unexpectedly provided it. In doing so it pulled the dainty at the other end slightly away from the mammoth, who, seeing it moving from him, lost no time in seizing it with his trunk and placing it, as is the wont of these animals, in his mouth. The rope was immediately pulled taut, and began to choke the tiger. His roars were awful but unavailing. Neither elephant nor python would release his hold, and in just seventy-four seconds—I took the time by my stop-watch—the beautiful striped brute was a corpse. This, however, was not all. So hard did the two living beasts struggle in their fearful tug of war that the tiger's head gradually became detached from his body and rolled away to my immoveable father's feet. What would be the result of the contest? The agony of watching was frightful. In my suspense I tried to breathe a prayer, but at the time all I could remember was the fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid, which I repeated twice over without a single mistake. Meanwhile, the two combatants, as the Sallûns went further and further down their throats and into their stomachs, approached closer and closer to one another. At last only a yard, then a foot, then six inches, then an inch separated them, until at last—Great heaven! my hair, even as I write, stands on end with unutterable horror—I saw the python open its enormous jaws to their fullest extent and swallow, yes, literally swallow the trunk, the tusks, and the vast head of the elephant. Slowly the immense pachyderm disappeared. I heard his great bones crack and shiver as inch after inch of him was remorselessly engulfed until, after three minutes and fourteen seconds, all that visibly remained of him was a little tail, which for a space waggled feebly out of the snake's mouth. Then this, too, was still. Another gulp and it was gone, and all was over.
To dispatch the python in its distended condition was the work of a moment. I at once released the old man who had been the delighted spectator of my successful cunning. His joy, as may be imagined, was great, but his pride in his son was even greater than his joy. I exacted from him a promise (which, I regret to say, he broke only a few days afterwards) never again to practise the Cabinet Trick. Then, having rung the bell and ordered my servant to carry away the remains of the three beasts, I proceeded to make my preparations for starting without delay in quest of the Pink Hippopotamus.
(To be continued.)