What the Animals Do and Say

by Eliza Lee Cabot Follen

But I am forgetting poor puss.

Mr. W., a friend of mine, whose word might be taken for any thing, told me an extraordinary anecdote of a cat, which he said he knew to be true.

A friend of his was setting out on a voyage to some place, I forget where. Every thing was carried on board, and the two friends were in the cabin about taking leave of each other. "I asked my friend before parting," said Mr. W., "whether he had every thing that he wanted; if there was nothing more that he could think of to make him more comfortable or happy on his voyage." "One thing," he replied, "would add to my pleasure very much, if you would bring it to me. In the counting room of my store is a small white cat; I am very fond of the poor thing, and she will miss me I know; I should like to take her with me." I immediately went ashore and found his little cat looking very sorrowful in his lonely room; I carried her to him. They seemed mutually pleased at meeting."

When the vessel returned, Mr. W. received this account from the officers of the ship. They said that his friend made a great pet of the cat, and fed her always at his own meal times. He taught her to stand on her hind legs and ask for her food; he made her jump over a stick for his amusement; in short, he taught her to perform a great many amusing tricks. The officers and men were all very fond of poor little puss.

At length, the young man became very ill. The cat would not leave him night or day. At last, one day, she left the cabin and began to run about the ship, making the most terrible mewing. The sailors offered her food; she refused it. She would not be comforted. Finally, her cries turned into a complete howl. She manifested the greatest suffering, and, at last, she ran off to the end of the bowsprit and leaped into the sea. Just at the moment that the poor little faithful, loving cat was swallowed up by the waves, her human friend breathed his last, and they both entered the invisible land together.

Such an extraordinary event, and the gloom which a death at sea always casts over a ship's company, both together made the sailors even more than usually superstitious. They all declared that, every night at that same hour when the sick man died, a white cat was seen leaping into the ocean. The white crests of the breaking waves might easily thus appear to an ignorant person who lives, as a sailor does, in the midst of the wonders and sublime scenes which the ocean presents, in the awful terrors of its storms, or the serene glory of its quiet hours. But the love of the poor dumb animal for its master—that was a beautiful reality.

I have a story now for you, Frank, about a horse, as I know you are particularly fond of horses. An Arab chief with his tribe had attacked in the night a caravan, and had plundered it; when loaded with their spoil, however, the robbers were overtaken on their return by some horsemen of the Pacha of Acre, who killed several, and bound the remainder with cords. The horsemen brought one of the prisoners, named Abou el Mavek, to Acre, and laid him, bound hand and foot, wounded as he was, at the entrance to their tent. As they slept during the night, the Arab, kept awake by the pain of his wounds, heard his horse's neigh at a distance, and being desirous to stroke, for the last time, the companion of his life, he dragged himself, bound as he was, to the horse which was picketed at a little distance.

"Poor friend," said he; "what will you do among the Turks? You will be shut up under the roof of a khan, with the horses of a pacha or an aga; no longer will the women and children of the tent bring you barley, camel's milk, or dourra, in the hollow of their hands. No longer will you gallop, free as the wind of Egypt, in the desert. No longer will you cleave with your bosom the water of the Jordan which cools your sides, as pure as the foam of your lips. If I am to be a slave, at least may you go free. Go, return to our tent which you know so well; tell my wife that Abou el Marek will return no more; but put your head still into the folds of the tent, lick the hands of my beloved children."

With these words, he untied with his teeth the fetters, and set the courser at liberty. But the noble animal, on recovering its freedom, instead of bounding away alone, bent its head over its master, and, seeing him in fetters, took his clothes gently in its teeth, lifted him up, set off at full speed, and, without ever resting, made straight for the distant but well-known tent in the mountains.

The horse arrived in safety, laid his master down at the feet of his wife and children, and immediately dropped down dead with fatigue. The whole tribe mourned him, the poets celebrated his fidelity, and his name is still constantly in the mouths of the Arabs of Jericho.