It is now four o'clock, and I hear a wild pig rooting among the fallen leaves. I see a small rodent that looks like a diminutive hedgehog. He is gnawing the bark from a dead limb, possibly to capture some insect secreted under it; but as rodents usually live upon vegetable diet, he may have some other reason for this.
It is five o'clock, and the shadows are beginning to deepen in the forest. I see two little grey monkeys playing in the top of a very tall tree. The birds are tiresome and monotonous. Yonder is a small snake twined around the limb of a bushy tree. He is doubtless hunting for a nest of young birds. The low, muttering sound of distant thunder is heard, but little by little it grows louder. It is the familiar voice of the tornado. I must prepare for it.
The stove is now lighted, and a pie-pan of water set on it. In it is stirred an ounce of desiccated soup. It is heated to the boiling-point, and then set on the swinging table. Then a can of mutton is emptied into another pan of the same kind, and a few crackers broken and stirred in. The soup is eaten while the meat is being cooked. When it is ready, the flame of the stove is turned off, and the second course of dinner is served, consisting of canned mutton, crackers and water. The dishes, consisting usually of three tin pie-pans and a cup, are thrust out into the adjacent bush, for the ants and other insects to clean during the night.
In the meantime Moses has had his supper, and gone to his own little cage, to find shelter from the approaching storm. The curtains are hung up on the side of the cage, from which the tornado is coming. Now the leaves begin to rustle. It is the first cool breath of the day, but it is only the herald of the furious wind that is rapidly advancing. The tree-tops begin to sway. Now they are lashing each other as if in anger; the strong trees are bending from the wind; the lightning is so vivid that it is blinding; the thunder is terrific. One shaft after another, the burning bolts are hurled through the moaning forest. The roar of thunder is unceasing. I hear the dull thud of a falling tree, while the crackling boughs are falling all around me. The rain is pouring in torrents, and all nature is in a rage. Every bird and beast has sought a place of refuge from the warring elements. No sign of life is visible, no sound is audible, save the voice of the storm.
How unspeakably desolate the jungle is at such an hour, no fancy can depict. How utterly helpless a human being is against the wrath of nature, no one can realise, except to live through such an hour in such a place.
PREPARING FOR THE NIGHT
On one occasion five large trees were blown down, within a radius of two hundred yards of my cage, and scores of limbs were broken off by the wind, and scattered like straws. Some of them were six or eight inches in diameter, and ten or twelve feet long. One of them broke the corner off the bamboo roof over my cage. The limb was broken off a huge cotton-tree near by, and fell from a height of about sixty feet. It was carried by the wind some yards out of a vertical line as it fell, and just passed far enough to spare my cage. Had it struck the body of it, no doubt it would have been partly demolished, for the main body of the bough was about six inches in diameter and ten feet long. This particular tornado lasted for nearly three hours, and was the most violent of any I saw during the entire year.
Now the storm subsides, but the darkness is impenetrable. I have no light of any kind, for that would alarm the inhabitants of the jungle, and attract a vast army of insects from all quarters. Moses and the boy are fast asleep, while I sit and listen to the many strange and weird sounds heard in the jungle at night The bush crackles near by. It is a leopard creeping through it. He is coming this way. Slowly, cautiously he approaches. I cannot see him in the deep shadows of the foliage, but I can locate him by sound, and identify him by his peculiar tread. Perhaps he will attack the cage when he gets near enough. He is creeping up closer. He evidently smells his prey, and is bent on seizing it.
My rifle stands by my elbow. I silently raise it, and lay it across my lap. The brute is now crouching within a few yards of me, but I cannot see to shoot him. I hear him move again, as if adjusting himself to spring upon the cage. He cannot see it, but he has located me by scent. I hear a low rustling of the leaves as he wags his tail preparatory to a leap. If I could only touch a button and turn on a bright electric light over his head! He remains crouching near, while I sit with the muzzle of my rifle turned towards him, and my hand on the lock. It is a trying moment. If he should spring with such force as to break the frail network that is between us, there could be but one fate for me.