The Way of the Wild

by F. St. Mars

The Chieftain's mate sat on, as stolid, and as solid, and as statuesque as ever. She had not moved when he evaporated, or given any sign whatever.

With the coming of the mist, the cat woke up. The cold probably awoke him. He was not pleased. He had come to get warm, not cold. He arose and stretched himself, baring all his claws and fangs with lazy insolence, for any whom it might concern to see.

Then—he collapsed, falling as if the slab on which he stood had slidden from under him, and remained—flattened tense, wide-eyed, and dangerous.

The Chieftain's wife had jerked her head and sneezed. At least, she had yanked her cranium quick as quick, and made a noise. It seemed like a sneeze. For the rest, she remained as motionless and expressionless as bronze Buddha, her wonderful orbs scowling at the wild cat.

Then that cat got off that slab of rock. I say got off, but it would be more correct to say that he slid off sideways on his tummy—flat. One had difficulty in seeing that he moved. His inscrutable, wide, sinister, yellow-green eyes were fixed upon the Chieftain's wife. The whole of his attention was fastened, focused, concentrated upon the Chieftain's wife. And there he made his mistake. He forgot about the Chieftain himself, but the Chieftain had not forgotten about him. In fact, the Chieftain was there, on the spot, or over it, rather, exactly above the wild cat's head, five hundred feet above, and very slowly revolving upon wide, outstretched pinions, as if hung by invisible, slowly swung wire from heaven.

If the cat had looked up! But, then, the cat would not have been a wild four-footed animal if he had. In all the aeons four-footed wild-folk never seem to have learnt to look up, and, for the omission, die some painful deaths that might otherwise be avoided. I do not say that none of them ever look up—they do, but it is seldom.

Indeed, finally this wild cat did look up; he could not well help it. There was a sound like the swift descent of a smiting sword above him. But he was seconds too late.

Seconds before, the Chieftain had vanished again. Nay, he had changed. His wings had shut, and—he had turned into a line, a dark streak drawn, almost as lightning draws itself, from heaven to earth, thus—wh-r-r-r-ssss-sh!

It was then that the cat looked up—just in time to receive the Chieftain's black tiger-talons, upon brilliant yellow claws, clashing against his own ivory fangs, and—well, in his eyes.

The Chieftain's wife flung from her strange self her immobility, flung out a scream, flung open her pinions, and—shifted. She could not have arrived upon the scene more than three seconds after her lord—but not by any means master. She was certainly not half that time getting to work.