“I found them, Johnny; I found the great tawny cats with the dark stripes, the tigers. They were not hard to find, for I knew the secrets of cats, and all cats are alike.
“First I found the old tiger, then his mate. They were hunting in the tall grass. Right away, when they saw me, they wanted to hunt me and take me home to their cubs. But there I had them. There was my great secret. When I showed them what I could do, they were afraid. They walked round and round me until, in the morning, the grass was all trampled round in a circle.
“The next night I found their cubs playing near the roots of a fallen tree. They were three months old—big as dogs. The father had broken the forelegs of a deer, and had brought it home for them to kill.
“When they saw me, the old ones wanted to get me more than ever. How they snarled! How they circled and lashed their tails! They couldn’t get me; I had them. They were afraid. Ten men on elephants, with rifles, they would have attacked with a rush, but not me. They were afraid.
“But, Johnny, they were wonderful cats. Their coats! You have seen tigers in cages. Bah! They are nothing to the great, free cats of the jungle. The yellow! You have seen the sky at sunset sometimes when it was painted with golden fire? It was like that, only grander. And the dark stripes! They were like midnight. The gleam of their teeth, the burning red of their eyes, as they prowled in the night. Ah! Johnny! I had found true happiness. I only wanted one thing to make me perfectly happy, and that was to have them play with me, as they played with their cubs; as the house cats played with me when I was in rompers. That, too, would have come, but—”
Sighing, Pant rose and began pacing the beach again.
“A change came over me. I began to see things and to wonder. At times I thought how sick I had been down there in the little Dutch mission hospital, and how the short, fat Dutch nurses had pattered about in their wooden shoes to help make me well. Then I saw the hundreds and hundreds of poor natives who came limping into our little station, or who were carried in on bamboo stretchers. It all set me thinking. Up to that time, I had thought that nothing mattered but cats. I wanted to know all about cats. I wanted, yes, I do believe I wanted to be like a cat. Some folks believe we were all animals once before we were born as humans. An old native of the jungle told me that. If that is true, then I was once a cat.
“But I got to thinking that perhaps humans counted more than the great cats in the jungle. I didn’t want to think that, not at first, but I couldn’t shake it off. When I went into the jungle to watch the cats I saw in my mind those sick people coming, coming, coming. I didn’t like it; didn’t want to see them. There was yet the great black cat. I must find him somewhere in the jungle. I must see him.
“One day I talked to the doctor about my thoughts, and he told me that people counted for much more than big cats. He said he needed medicine, supplies, new houses, everything, and since I could go to the jungle and come back alive, perhaps I could help him.
“‘How?’ I asked.