“I can also see in the daytime, but the light makes me wink. I can spring farther than any animal. This is one of the gifts I possess, otherwise I could not get my living. How I love the flesh of the kambis and of the ncheris!” As he thought of them his eyes glittered and shone like fire, and he licked his chops.
“When animals see me close to them, my eyes often paralyze them, and they cannot run away.” Then he grinned as njegos do, and added, “No wonder that the animals of the forest dread the njego, for often he makes a prodigious leap, falling in the midst of them when they are not aware of his presence, and then he gloats over the victim he has chosen.”
Suddenly the njego heard the trumpeting of a njokoo (elephant), and the terrible and appalling roar of a ngina (gorilla), and he listened a while, and said, “These creatures I do not attack.”
Soon after he met his mate near their lair, and they went inside, for the day was coming, and they were soon asleep. The njegos have a peculiar, silent way of communicating with each other by looks, movements of the tail, and other signs only known to them. So in this way after they had slept all day long and well into the next night the big njego said to his mate as they were lying in their lair: “Dear, the night is far advanced; it is time for us to go out in search of prey, and the day animals will be in their heaviest sleep and will not hear or scent us.”
It was then about midnight. After coming out of their lair, they rejoiced when they saw that the night was so dark. They said to each other, “How well we shall see to-night!” Then they looked at each other with great affection, the big njego licking the skin of his mate to show her how much he loved her.
They said good-by to each other, for njegos, like all night prowlers, as already said, go in search of prey by themselves, and they wished each other good luck. “I hope, dear,” said the big njego to his mate, “that you will find a kambi [antelope] to-night.” “I hope so,” she replied, “and I wish you the same.”
After this they parted, each going his own way, walking as noiselessly as still air, their lithe bodies passing through the jungle with a suppleness that was wonderful. The glow of their eyes was sometimes such that they looked like two bright burning pieces of charcoal.
The big njego, as he walked along, would stop now and then to scent better or to hear if some prey was moving in the forest. But in spite of all his cunning, power of scent, and good sight, he had bad luck, and did not get any prey. Toward four o’clock in the morning, the two njegos thought it was about time to return home.
When the big njego came to his lair, his mate had not yet arrived, and he waited for her outside. Soon after, he scented her, and then he paced to and fro, his long tail beating his flanks, and his eyes glaring like fire from excitement and pleasure at the prospect of her coming.