The Crimson Flash Part 16

"Oh! But aren't we?" There was a puzzled look on her face.

"Why! You--you said that was the end of it!"

"I suppose so for today. I'm really too shaky to box any more to-day. But how about to-morrow?"

With a wild shout of joy, Johnny leaped to his feet.

"Then--then--," he stammered. "Why, you're a brick!"

He extended his hand and helped her to her feet.

"Why? What's so wonderful?" she smiled at him. "I ran into you and got b.u.mped. I don't hold that against you. Why should I? Would another boy hate you for it?"

"No. He might not, but a girl--"

"Fiddle! Girls are just like boys, if you let them be. Shall I see you to-morrow?"

"You sure will!"

For a moment Johnny hesitated before taking her hand for a farewell; the question of the diamond ring had flashed through his mind. Was this the time to ask? He hesitated; then gave it up. A moment before he had felt that he had lost her. He would risk nothing more this day.

"Good-bye and good luck," he murmured, as she turned to go her way.

CHAPTER XI THE BLACK BEAST

"Pant," said Johnny the next evening, as they sat upon the beach in the moonlight, with the tom, tom, tom of the circus drum sounding from the distance, "there's one thing that puzzles me about this crimson flash."

"Let's hear." There was a smile lurking about the corners of Pant's mouth.

"That big yellow cat last night was scared stiff, just frozen in his tracks by the crimson flash," said Johnny. "They tell me that all the big cats act that way, except one."

"Uh!" grunted Pant. "The black panther."

"He leaps right at it, wants to eat someone up every time it's flashed on his cage. How's that?" asked Johnny.

Pant smiled, as he drank in a deep breath of cool, night air. "That, Johnny, is a rather long story, a story I've never told. But, because you've been a good pal, because, though I've doubtless seemed mighty queer at times, you've never asked a leading question, I've a strong notion to tell it to you."

Johnny waited in silence. The tom tom of the drum ceased. By that he knew that Gwen, Queen of the circus, was just entering the ring for her part.

He had intended to see that act again, but if Pant spoke--

"I think I will," mused Pant. "You see," he went on, "ever since I was a small child I have had a great interest in cats. Even before I could walk, so they tell me, I would turn up missing, and they'd find me at last creeping through the gra.s.s in the meadows, following an old tomato colored cat that was hunting for moles.

"As I grew older I came to know that a cat could see in the dark, and that he did most of his hunting at night. These things interested me.

Night after night I would slip from my bed, steal out into the night and follow the cats in their nightly wanderings. I guess I learned things about cats that no one else knows; some of their secrets, I mean. I've never told them, and I'm not going to tell them to you. Knowledge is of very little use to people unless they go to the places where it can be applied, and very few are willing to go all that way.

"When I was thrown out into the world to shift for myself I still wanted to know more about cats. Little by little I came to know that house cats were but the pygmies among cats; that there were large, fierce, dangerous cats--wild cats, mountain lions, tigers, and the like. It was just when my curiosity about these big cats was at its height that I happened to wander into a zoo. There I found tigers, panthers, leopards and mountain lions. I was wild with joy. I watched these big cats for hours. I asked so many questions of the attendant that he threatened to throw me out.

When night came he did force me to go away. For a week I did nothing but haunt that zoo.

"At last it came to me suddenly one day that I could learn nothing really worth while about these wonderful cats unless I could watch them, as I had watched house cats, in their native haunts, as they rested, fed, played and wandered about or stalked their prey. I asked the keeper where their native homes were. He showed me on a map. I was astonished. They were from all over the world, India, Africa, South America, everywhere.

"There were two cats that had caught my eye, the great tawny beast, the Bengal tiger, and the smaller black cat with the shifting eye, the black leopard.

"When I was told that both these came from the jungles of India I was overjoyed. I would go there and follow them day after day, until I knew all their secrets.

"When I told the attendant of my resolve, he laughed at me; said I'd be killed and eaten before I had been in the jungle a day.

"I took to thinking about that; then I tried to study out some way to make the great cats of the jungle afraid of me. I returned again to the zoo and studied the great animals. When the keeper was not looking I tried many things. At last I found one thing that would make them afraid--all but one, the black cat with the shifting eyes; he was not afraid. He leaped at his bars snarling, but I said to myself, 'He is only one, all other black leopards will be afraid.'"

"Of the crimson flash?" whispered Johnny.

Pant gave him a look of warning, then glanced away at the lake.

"I was only a boy and not very far in my teens at that, but I went to the jungles of India. I don't remember much how I went. I was a stowaway on a big steamer, then in a smaller one. I helped pole long, heavy barges up an endless river where mosses and grape vines hung thick along the banks, and where great slimy beasts rose from the water to glare at us. I caught the fever and lay for weeks in a bed of a hospital provided for Dutch missionaries.

"After I got well, I poled more boats up the river until, at last, I was in the heart of India, where there were few white men, where there were many naked natives, where it was all jungle, and where in the night I could hear the call of the wild things, my friends, the great cats. Ah, my boy! Then I was happy. I would study. I would learn secrets. I would know things that no other man knew."

Pant paused and, rising, began to pace restlessly back and forth, and Johnny, watching, was reminded of the great Bengal tiger pacing the length of his cage.

"There was a mission station," Pant went on, still pacing to and fro; "a little mission, with a tiny hospital and a doctor. It was in a native village at the edge of a great jungle. The natives swarmed to it from many miles around. When I asked the gray haired doctor why they didn't have a large hospital, he shook his head and answered:

"'No money.'"

"I had a little money; I gave him that, and he let me stay there with them. There were just his wife and one nurse and the servants. I did little things for them about the place the time I was not sleeping during the day. At night I went out into the jungle alone. That first night, when they saw me starting out, they called me back; told me there were great cats lurking in the jungle that would kill and eat me; begged me not to go, but I said to them:

"'I have a charmed life. Nothing can harm me. Besides, all cats are my friends.'

"You see," Pant sat down upon the sand, "you see, I didn't want to tell my secret. Never tell your secrets, Johnny, at least not all of them.

You'll mean more to your friends and trouble your enemies more if you keep them. I kept mine; but I went out into the jungle alone.

"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 gra.s.s. 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 gra.s.s 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.