Popular Adventure Tales

by Mayne Reid

  CHAPTER XXI.

  THE HIDEOUS HYENA.

  Fatigued as they were, they would soon have fallen asleep. But they werenot permitted to do so. As they lay with closed eyes in that half-dreamystate that precedes sleep, they were suddenly startled by strange voicesnear the camp.

  These voices were uttered in peals of loud laughter; and no one,unacquainted with them, would have pronounced them to be anything elsethan the voices of human beings. They exactly resembled the strongtreble produced by the laugh of a maniac negro. It seemed as if someBedlam of negroes had been let loose, and were approaching the spot.

  I say approaching, because each moment the sounds grew clearer andlouder; and it was evident that whatever gave utterance to them wascoming nearer to the camp.

  That there was more than one creature was evident--aye, and it wasequally evident that there was more than one kind of creature; for sovaried were the voices, it would have puzzled a ventriloquist to havegiven imitations of them all. There was howling, and whining, andgrunting, and growling, and low melancholy moaning as of some one inpain, and hissing, and chattering, and short, sharp intonations, as ifit were the barking of dogs, and then a moment or two of deep silence,and again that chorus of human-like laughter, that in point of horrorand hideous suggestions surpassed all the other sounds.

  You will suppose that such a wild concert must have put the camp in astate of great alarm. Not a bit of it. Nobody was frightened in theleast--not even innocent little Trueey, nor the diminutive Jan.

  Had they been strangers to these sounds, no doubt they would have beenmore than frightened. They would have been terrified by them; for theywere calculated to produce such an effect upon any one to whose earsthey were new.

  But Von Bloom and his family had lived too long upon the wild karoo tobe ignorant of those voices. In the howling, and chattering, andyelping, they heard but the cries of the jackal; and they well knew themaniac laugh of the hideous hyena.

  Instead of being alarmed, and springing from their beds, they lay stilland listened--not dreading any attack from the noisy creatures.

  Von Bloom and the children slept in the wagon; Swartboy and Totty uponthe ground--but these lay close to the fires, and therefore did not fearwild beasts of any kind.

  But the hyenas and jackals upon this occasion appeared to be bothnumerous and bold. In a few minutes after they were first heard, theircries rose around the camp on all sides, so near and so loud as to bepositively disagreeable--even without considering the nature of thebrutes that uttered them.

  At last they came so close, that it was impossible to look in anydirection without seeing a pair of green or red eyes gleaming under thelight of the fires! White teeth, too, could be observed, as the hyenasopened their jaws, to give utterance to their harsh laughter.

  With such a sight before their eyes, and such sounds ringing in theirears, neither Von Bloom nor any of his people--tired as they were--couldgo to sleep. Indeed, not only was sleep out of the question, but, worsethan that, all--the field-cornet himself not excepted--began toexperience some feelings of apprehension, if not actual alarm.

  They had never beheld a troop of hyenas so numerous and fierce. Therecould not be less than two dozen of them around the camp, with twicethat number of jackals.

  Von Bloom knew that although, under ordinary circumstances, the hyena isnot a dangerous animal, yet there are places and times when he willattack human beings. Swartboy knew this well, and Hans, too, from havingread of it. No wonder, then, that some apprehension was felt by all ofthem.

  The hyenas now behaved with such boldness, and appeared so ravenous,that sleep was out of the question. Some demonstration must be made todrive the brutes away from the camp.

  Von Bloom, Hans, and Hendrik, laid hold of their guns, and got out ofthe wagon, while Swartboy armed himself with his bow and arrows. Allfour stood close by the trunk of the nwana, on the other side from thatwhere the fires were. In this place they were in the shadow, where theycould best observe anything that should come under the light of thefires without being themselves seen. Their position was well chosen.

  They had scarcely fixed themselves in it, when they perceived a greatpiece of neglect they had been guilty of. Now, for the first time itoccurred to them what had brought the hyenas around them in suchnumbers. Beyond a doubt it was the flesh of the elephant,--the_biltongue_.

  That was what the beasts were after; and all now saw that a mistake hadbeen committed in hanging the meat too low. The hyenas might easily getat it.

  This was soon made manifest; for, even at the moment while they stoodwatching the red festoons, plainly visible under the light of Swartboy'sfires, a shaggy spotted brute rushed forward, reared up on hishind-legs, seized one of the pieces, dragged it down from the pole, andthen ran off with it into the darkness.

  A rushing sound could be heard as the others joined him to get a shareof his plunder; and, no doubt, in less than half a minute the morsel wasconsumed; for, at the end of that time, glancing eyes and gleaming teethshowed that the whole troop was back again and ready to make a freshseizure.

  None of the hunters had fired, as the nimbleness with which the brutesmoved about rendered it difficult to take aim at any one of them; andall knew that powder and lead were too precious to be wasted on a"flying shot."

  Emboldened by their success, the hyenas had now drawn nearer, and in amoment more would have made a general charge upon the scaffolds offlesh, and, no doubt, would have succeeded in carrying off a largequantity of it. But just then it occurred to Von Bloom that it would bebest to lay aside their guns and remedy the mistake they had made, byputting the biltongue out of reach. If they did not do so, they wouldeither have to remain awake all night and guard it, or else lose everystring of it.

  How was it to be put out of reach?

  At first they thought of collecting it into a heap and stowing it awayin the wagon. That would not only be an unpleasant job, but it wouldinterfere with their sleeping quarters.

  An alternative, however, presented itself. They saw that if thescaffolds were only high enough, the meat might be easily hung so as tobe out of reach of the hyenas. The only question was, how to place thecross-poles a little higher. In the darkness they could not obtain a newset of uprights, and therein lay the difficulty. How were they to getover it?

  Hans had the credit of suggesting a way; and that was to take out someof the uprights, splice them to the others, with the forked endsuppermost, and then rest the horizontal poles on the upper forks. Thatwould give a scaffold tall enough to hang the meat beyond the reach ofeither jackals or hyenas.

  Hans' suggestion was at once adopted. Half of the uprights were taken upand spliced against the others so as to raise their forks full twelvefeet in the air; and then the cross-poles were rested over their tops.By standing upon one of the wagon-chests, Von Bloom was able to flingthe strips of meat over the horizontal poles, and in such a manner thatit hung only a few inches down, and was now quite beyond the reach ofthe ravenous brutes.

  When the business was finished, the party resumed their station underthe shadow of the tree, intending to watch for a while, and see how thewolfish intruders would act.

  They had not long to watch. In less than five minutes the troopapproached the biltongue, howling, and gibbering, as before; only thistime uttering peculiar cries, as if to express disappointment. They sawat a glance that the tempting festoons were no longer within theirreach.

  They were not going to leave the ground, however, without assuringthemselves of this fact; and several of the largest approached boldlyunder the scaffolds, and commenced leaping up to try the height.

  After several attempts, springing each time as high as they were able,they appeared to grow discouraged; and no doubt would in time haveimitated the fox with the grapes, and gone quietly away. But Von Bloom,indignant at being roused after such a fashion, from his pleasant rest,was determined to take some revenge upon his tormentors; so he whisperedthe word to the others, and a volley was delivered from
behind the tree.

  The unexpected discharge caused a quick scattering of both hyenas andjackals, and the pattering of their numerous feet could be heard as theyran off. When the ground under the scaffold was examined, two of thelarger of these ravenous quadrupeds, and one of the smaller, were foundto have bitten the dust.

  Swartboy had discharged his arrow along with the guns, and it was hethat had slain the jackal, for the poisoned shaft was seen stickingbetween the animal's ribs.

  The guns were again loaded, the party took their stations as before;but, although they waited another half-hour, neither hyena nor jackalmade their appearance.

  They had not gone far away, however, as their wild music testified; butthe reason they did not return was, that they had now discovered thehalf carcass of the elephant that lay in the lake, and upon that theywere making their supper. Their plunging in the water could bedistinctly heard from the camp, and during the whole night theyquarrelled and growled, and laughed and yelled, as they gorgedthemselves on their ample prey.

  Of course Von Bloom and his people did not sit up all night to listen tothis medley of noises. As soon as they perceived that the brutes werenot likely to come any more near the camp, they laid aside theirweapons, returned to their respective sleeping-places, and were all soonburied in the sweet slumber that follows a day of healthy exercise.