“Yer s’prised. Well, jes’ think how it took me—an’ on top o’ what I saw that day. I jes’ sot there an’ looked, an’ when he turned an’ shut that door, an’ moved the wooden button to secure it, I were fairly paralysed. ‘Ho-hoo,’ he sed, an’ blinked his eyes. He jes’ sed ‘ho-hoo’ in a friendly way, an’ planked hisself down before the fire, with the black palms o’ his hands to the coals, his head turned over his shoulder, an’ his little grey eyes takin’ stock o’ everythin’ in the room.”
“He must have escaped from captivity.”
“That’s the first thought that struck me when I steadied my brain pan. Thinks I, he b’longed to some man, an’ I looked at his waist for signs of the chain, but there were no sign. I noticed he looked empty, an’, remembering how he’d saved me by leading the tiger off another way, I got out a mealie cob. He snatched it quick, raised his eyebrows at me, then begun to eat as ef he’d been hungry for a week. There we sot—he one side, eating, me t’other, smoking. All o’ a sudden he quit eating: then he stood up on his hind legs an’ looked outer the winder. ‘Wot’s up now?’ sezs I to myself. There he stood looking outer that window; then he gave a jump into the rafters, crowding hisself under the slope. It gave me a sort o’ creepy crawl to see him do that, an’ I took down the ole gun. Bymby I yeard a sniff under the crack of the door as if a dog were taking a smell. Then there were a space o’ stillness that was terrible trying. I stood there looking at the door, ’xpecting to see it fly open, when I chanced to give a glance at the winder, and my blood froze.”
“What did you see?”
“What did I see? A pair o’ green eyes fixed on me. Then the gleam o’ white teeth an’ a sort o’ dim outline o’ a big round head. I let out a yell, an’ fired. If you look you’ll see where the winder’s smashed.”
“The tiger had tracked the baboon?”
“Very like ’twas jes’ that.”
“And then?”
“Then I jes’ jumped inter the pantry an shut myself in till daybreak.”