The Crystal Sceptre: A Story of Adventure

by Philip Verrill Mighels

The hush affected me deeply. I felt so alone with the dead, and yet not confident of my safety. My imagination pictured a ring of leopards, cats and other creatures stealing silently up, like the curious women who enjoy to look upon a corpse, these all half afraid that the king was not really lifeless after all. Probably no creature was then within half a mile of the spot, for the noise had been sufficient to frighten away even the snakes, it seemed to me, yet I never for a moment entertained a thought of climbing down from where I was.

The wait, through the midnight and the long chilly hours of morning was the harder to bear because of the weakness I felt, after all the over-wrought emotions I had undergone. It was difficult, moreover, to cast off the dread of the still brute below me, not to mention the sounds which recommenced in the animal-haunted jungle. I was exhausted, for the strain had been as hard to bear as severe physical labour. In addition to this, I had performed a good day’s work, before I came to my tryst with the tiger. How long seemed the time since I left the friendly Links, on my quest of vengeance and retribution!

I may have dozed, as I half lay against the woven creepers, and although it could not have been for long, dawn had come when I started awake. In the forest the shadows were still too deep to be fathomed, yet at last I made out the rigid form on the ground. My enemy was almost directly under the place where I was sitting. I could see no arrows at all; and my mind had pictured him bristling with the shafts.

Slowly the light increased. What a gaunt, unhandsome form it was in the grass! Then the sunlight struck on the tree-tops and bird-notes, not particularly musical, began to make more cheerful that dark abode. With a new impulse of courage, I dropped myself down, laid hold of my bow and a leg of the tiger, and dragged with all my strength to get him out of the place.

Then I got a good look at the carcass. He was old, wretchedly thin, scarred about his bleary, dead eyes, nearly toothless and as worn-looking as an old hearth-rug. I saw where my first shot had struck him above the shoulder. The arrow, which was broken off in the wound, had jabbed in and plowed along under the skin for six or eight inches. The second had ripped through the flesh of his right fore leg, leaving a gash which the brute had widened when he broke the shaft out, sidewise, in his thrashing. The last shot had sent the envenomed flint tearing into his breast, an inch below the throat, where it had penetrated to a considerable depth. It also was broken, but a tough shred of the wood still held the feathered portion dangling from the wound.

As I looked on the thin, old reprobate I was silly enough to feel a little pity, so tragic seemed the “poverty” which he had known, as testified by his miserable condition. My fears too had been wholly dissipated by the sun; I wondered why I had been in such a plight of dread throughout the night.

A final tug brought the roué of the jungle clear of the undergrowth. The second I emerged to the edge of the hill clearing, a chorus of cries came down from the camp. I turned to see the whole drove of Links coming madly down the slope from which they had been watching for more than an hour.

Such a commotion the simple creatures made, as, crazy with joy and awe, and still dreading the foe they knew so well, they pressed about me and chattered and made me a hero and struck at the ground all about the tiger with their clubs! Fatty went through a sort of blubbering welcome and got down and licked at my shoes until I felt obliged to give him a trifle of a kick. The chief made no effort to conceal his admiration for my feat, but he was dignified, after the manner of a great Newfoundland dog among the lesser canines. His albino mate, however, gazed upon me from her round, pink eyes with a look of worshipping to which I very much objected. At her side the carping Grin was doing his best to belittle the tiger and to sneer through his expression of amazement. On the whole, one would have thought the tiger a monster and a prince among his kind. I began to feel my glory to be somewhat tawdry.

After half an hour of tribute, both to the brute and myself, on the part of the tribe, I rolled the beast over to look for a decent bit of hide. He was not worth the skinning, and that is the truth. However, I had my plan and therefore I whipped out my knife and skinned a part of the shoulders and back. After this I took off the head, for I meant to have the skull for a trophy. Then I directed the Links to dig a grave.

They were loth to consign even this partially stripped carcass to oblivion, yet they complied with my wish. Eventually all withdrew to the camp above. I immediately set Fatty to work at skinning the head for boiling,—to rid it of flesh—while I placed my piece of the pelt in the stream of brine, in order to prepare it for tanning.