"It's a wonder he didn't call them trees," muttered Magh.
"Hyena stole along like a shadow of nothing, so smooth and soft were his feet—a proper sneak, I must say I thought him even then, Cub as I was."
"Are you listening, Jaruk?" called Magh, maliciously; "this was a Brother of yours who was in partnership with Chita."
But Hyena only grinned a frothy laugh, and slunk over behind Sher Abi.
"Well," proceeded White Leopard, "we crept along, our bellies close to earth, till we came to a little ledge, where Rani and I waited, while Jaruk stole up to the white caves to see how the stalk was.
"'They sleep like the young of Owls in daytime,' he whispered when he returned; 'even I, who am a creature of fear, and not like you, Rani, a slayer of Bullocks, have rubbed my lean jaws against two fat Goats that are chewing the sweet cud of plenty.'"
"How your mouth must have watered, White Shirt," sneered Magh.
"Then Rani commenced the stalk, and I, even a Cub, though I had always lain hidden while she was making the kill before, followed close at her heels. Even now I remember just how Rani made the kill. First one paw, and then the other, she stretched out, and pulled herself along, with never so much as the rattle of a single stone. The Goats were like the Sahibs in the caves, safe in the conceit which comes of a full stomach. When Rani crouched lower than ever and braced her hind paws carefully, I knew that the charge was on. Waugh, waugh-houk! By the neck she had one—for that is the way of our kind always—and with a jerk he was thrown on her shoulder, and away up the hill she raced. I tried for the other, but, being new to the kill, missed, getting only the rope in my teeth. Even as I chased after Rani I could not help but laugh in spite of my miss, for Hyena was screaming as he ran, 'Did you get the fat one, the very fat one?'"
"The Greedy Pig," commented Magh.
"Ugh, ugh, ugh!" grunted Soor. "Why should he be likened to one of my kind? More like he had a paunch full of peanuts, or other filth, such as you carry, Miss Bleary-eye; or if he were greedy, was he not like unto his mate, Chita, who will eat half his own weight at a single kill?"