And so the miserable day dragged on. Towards evening I thought I must try to get some food down Peter’s throat, for his strength in scrambling round the room had amazed me, and I did not despair of somehow pulling him round yet. He seemed sound asleep in the serge bag, so I lifted him down very gently, and sitting on the floor with the bag in my lap, I attempted to get a teaspoonful of milk near his little nose. But the moment I touched him he screamed and sprang out, biting my finger with extraordinary strength as I tried to stop him.
To my horror, he tore up the window curtain with amazing rapidity and attempted to run along the pole, a thing he had not done for many weeks. But his strength gave out, he lost his footing, clung on upside down for a miserable second, then fell with a scream upon the hard wooden floor. With a look at me I shall never forget, he dragged himself (for his hindquarters were now paralyzed) behind the chest of drawers.
I moved the piece of furniture and got him to drag himself out, and with a supreme effort to scramble into his box, which was on a chair close by. When I lifted the lid, a minute or two later, he was dead. He was curled up, with a queer little smile upon his face, as if triumphant that he had defied me to the last, and I—I could only be thankful that his sufferings and his terror were ended.
Ruby’s eyes were glazing when I looked at her a little later, and she died quietly half an hour after Peter had breathed his last.
I sent their two little bodies to be post-mortemed to a veterinary college in North London, kindly recommended by the Zoo people. The verdict was that Peter had died of acute congestion of the lungs, and Ruby of pneumonia, complicated by nephritis of some standing.
