The Adventures of Kathlyn | Page 2

The cat, now hot with the lust to kill, threw himself against the bars, snarling and spitting.
Kathlyn called out to him sharply, and fearlessly approached him. She began talking in a monotone. His ears went flat against his head, but he submitted to her touch because invariably it soothed him, and because he sensed some undefinable power whenever his gaze met hers. She snapped the leash on his collar just as her father came running up, pale and disturbed. He ran to the door and opened it.
"Winnie, you poor little kitten," he said, taking her in his arms, "how many times have I told you never to take that dog about when Kit's leopard is off the leash?"
"I didn't think," she sobbed.
"No. Kit here and I must always do your thinking for you. Ahmed!"
"Yes, Sahib," answered the head keeper.
"See if you can stop that racket over there. Sadie may lose her litter if it keeps up."
The lean brown Mohammedan trotted away in obedience to his orders. He knew how to stop captive lions from roaring. He knew how to send terror to their hearts. As he ran he began to hiss softly.
Colonel Hare, with his arm about Winnie, walked toward the bungalow.
"Lock your pet up, Kit," he called over his shoulder, "and come in to tea."
Kathlyn spoke soothingly to the leopard, scratched his head behind the ears, and shortly a low satisfied rumble stirred his throat, and his tail no longer slashed about. She led him to his own cage, never ceasing to talk, locked the door, then turned and walked thoughtfully toward the bungalow.
She was wondering what this gift was that put awe into the eyes of the native keepers on her father's wild animal farm and temporary peace in the hearts of the savage beasts. She realized that she possessed it, but it was beyond analysis. Often some wild-eyed keeper would burst in upon her. Some newly captive lion or tiger was killing itself from mere passion, and wouldn't the Mem-sahib come at once and talk to it? There was a kind of pity in her heart for these poor wild things, and perhaps they perceived this pity, which was fearless.
"She gets a little from me, I suppose," Colonel Hare had once answered to a query, "for I've always had a way with four footed things. But I think Ahmed is right. Kathlyn is heaven born. I've seen the night when Brocken would be tame beside the pandemonium round-about. Yet half an hour after Kit starts the rounds everything quiets down. The gods are in it."
The living-room of the bungalow was large and comfortable. The walls were adorned with the heads of wild beasts and their great furry hides shared honors with the Persian rugs on the floor. Hare was a man who would pack up at a moment's notice and go to the far ends of the world to find a perfect black panther, a cheetah with a litter, or a great horned rhinoceros. He was tall and broad, and amazingly active, for all that his hair and mustache were almost white. For thirty years or more he had gone about the hazardous enterprise of supplying zoological gardens and circuses with wild beasts. He was known from Hamburg to Singapore, from Mombassa to Rio Janeiro. The Numidian lion, the Rajput tiger, and the Malayan panther had cause to fear Hare Sahib. He was even now preparing to return to Ceylon for an elephant hunt.
The two daughters went over to the tea tabouret, where a matronly maid was busying with the service. The fragrant odor of tea permeated the room. Hare paused at his desk. Lines suddenly appeared on his bronzed face. He gazed for a space at the calendar. The day was the fifteenth of July. Should he go back there, or should he give up the expedition? He might never return. India and the border countries! What a land, full of beauty and romance and terror and squalor, at once barbaric and civilized! He loved it and hated it, and sometimes feared it, he who had faced on foot many a wounded tiger.
He shrugged, reached into the desk for a box of Jaipur brass enamel and took from it a medal attached to a ribbon. The golden disk was encrusted with uncut rubies and emeralds.
"Girls," he called. "Come here a moment. Martha, that will be all," with a nod toward the door. "I never showed you this before."
"Goodness gracious!" cried Winnie, reaching out her hand.
"Why, it looks like a decoration, father," said Kathlyn. "What lovely stones! It would make a beautiful pendant."
"Vanity, vanity, all is vanity," said the colonel, smiling down into their charming faces. "Do you love your old dad?"
"Love you!" they exclaimed in unison, indignantly, too, since the question was an imputation of the