Gordon Grice's Blog, page 33

Do Animals Rape Humans?

We were talking a while back about apes taking a sexual interest in humans (see the comments following that linked post). As seen in the illustration above, this was a favorite notion of the Victorians. But, as detailed in the comments of this earlier post, there are a few cases of orangutans and other apes taking a sexual interest in humans. 



Captivity--or, more broadly, habituation to humans--is the important factor in all these cases. The one documented rape of a human by an orangutan that I am aware of involved an orang returned to the wild after a captive upbringing. That's the one witnessed by Birute Gildakis, mentioned in the earlier comments. Since that earlier writing, I have re-read Gildakis account in context. It is very clearly a case of forcible copulation. Gildakis also documents the sexual behavior of other captive orangs, including an infant that attempted to insert his penis into the ear of man. Further cases involved orangs seizing human hands and applying them to their own genitals in masturbation. 


With the assistance of Dee and Croconut, I've compiled a few cases relating to animals other than apes. These, too, involve animals habituated to humans. As Dee points out, the incidents can't really be called "rape" because non-humans presumably don't share our morals and intentions. 


First, here's video of a dolphin becoming sexually excited by a human female. This is not so uncommon as you'd think, at least in captivity. Dolphins have also attacked men by striking them in the genitals. 


Not for the easily offended, obviously. 

[Edit: Sorry, Youtube has removed this video.]




























Here's a news clip and video involving a kakapo, a flightless parrot from New Zealand. 




N. Zealand's 'night parrot' brought back from the brink - Yahoo! News: "The breeding program faced another hurdle when male kakapo became 'imprinted' on their human handlers, meaning they saw them as more likely potential mates than female kakapo.

In the early days of the conservation effort, rangers even wore an outlandish rubber helmet dotted with dimples in an unsuccessful attempt to collect kakapo sperm when males tried to mate with their heads.


British actor Stephen Fry witnessed the kakapo's amorous antics first hand while filming his program Last Chance to See in 2009, when a kakapo named Sirocco took a shine to zoologist Mark Carwardine and began vigorously coupling with his scalp."


















In Dublin, Ireland, in April 2012, a stallion attempted to mount a policeman at a fair, to the amusement of onlookers. To judge from videos drifting around the web, the officer escaped with his safety and his virtue intact. 

At the Bee Hive: The Sequel

Photos courtesy of Brian Lueck

Police Shoot Shark in New Zealand

At a beach in New Zealand, a shark has killed a swimmer. The victim is reported to be a man in his 40s. 



Large shark kills man in New Zealand; beach closed - Yahoo! News: 

"Police went out in inflatable surf-lifesaving boats and shot at the shark, which they estimate was 12 to 14 feet long.
"It rolled over and disappeared," Rutene said, without saying whether police are certain that they killed the creature."

The size of the shark would seem to suggest a great white, though no one has definitively said so at this early stage. If the estimated size mentioned above is accurate, it's just possible that the attacker was a tiger shark or other member of the requiem family. 



Update: The victim has been identified as Adam Strange, a TV and film director. Later reports say that two or even three sharks may have been involved. (It's not unusual for several sharks to seize prey once it has been injured or killed.) There is still no definite ID on the species, but later details have strengthened the predominant theory that they were great whites. One report mentions the attacker's wide body. Several reports mention previous sightings of great whites in recent days and one earlier this same day. Apparently the shark struck twice; Strange struggled and may have momentarily repelled the shark before its second strike. More likely, this was simply an example of the great white's classic multiple-strike strategy. The first strike allows the shark to taste and feel the victim and decide whether it's appropriate prey. It may also allow the victim to be killed or weakened by blood loss so that the shark faces less risk of injury when it finally moves in to feed.  



Witnesses report that Strange swam into an area where the sharks were feeding on fish and sea birds. This has been described as a "feeding frenzy," though that term seems to get tossed around no matter how the animals actually behave. 



More information on great whites and tiger sharks:

Wildlife Classics: Arthur Conan Doyle's Jaguar

The Brazilian Cat




by Arthur Conan Doyle










It is hard luck on a young fellow to have expensive tastes,
great expectations, aristocratic connections, but no actual money in his
pocket, and no profession by which he may earn any. The fact was that my
father, a good, sanguine, easy-going man, had such confidence in the wealth and
benevolence of his bachelor elder brother, Lord Southerton, that he took it for
granted that I, his only son, would never be called upon to earn a living for
myself. He imagined that if there were not a vacancy for me on the great
Southerton Estates, at least there would be found some post in that diplomatic
service which still remains the special preserve of our privileged classes. He
died too early to realize how false his calculations had been. Neither my uncle
nor the State took the slightest notice of me, or showed any interest in my
career. An occasional brace of pheasants, or basket of hares, was all that ever
reached me to remind me that I was heir to Otwell House and one of the richest
estates in the country. In the meantime, I found myself a bachelor and man
about town, living in a suite of apartments in Grosvenor Mansions, with no
occupation save that of pigeon-shooting and polo-playing at Hurlingham. Month
by month I realized that it was more and more difficult to get the brokers to
renew my bills, or to cash any further post-obis upon an unentailed property.
Ruin lay right accross my path, and every day, I saw it clearer, nearer, and
more absolutely unavoidable.




 What made me feel my
own poverty the more was that, apart from the great wealth of Lord Southerton,
all my other relations were fairly well-to-do. The nearest of these was Everard
King, my father's nephew and my own first cousin, who had spent an adventurous
life in Brazil, and had now retumed to this country to settle down on his
fortune. We never knew how he made his money, but he appeared to have plenty of
it, for he bought the estate of Greylands, near Clipton-on-the-Marsh, in
Suffolk. For the first year of his residence in England he took no more notice
of me than my miserly uncle; but at last one summer morning, to my very great
relief and joy, I received a letter asking me to come down that very day and
spend a short visit at Greylands Court. I was expecting a rather long visit to
Bankruptcy Court at the time, and this interruption seemed almost providential.
If I could only get on terms with this unknown relative of mine, I might pull
through yet. For the family credit he could not let me go entirely to the wall.
I ordered my valet to pack my valise, and I set off the same evening for
Clipton-on-the-Marsh.




 After changing at
Ipswich, a little local train deposited me at a small, deserted station lying
amidst a rolling grassy country, with a sluggish and winding river curving in
and out amidst the valleys, between high, silted banks, which showed that we
were within reach of the tide. No carriage was awaiting me (I found afterwards
that my telegram had been delayed), so I hired a dog-cart at the local inn. The
driver, an excellent fellow, was full of my relative's praises, and I learned
from him that Mr. Everard King was already a name to conjure with in that part
of the country. He had entertained the school-children, he had thrown his grounds
open to visitors, he had subscribed to charities - in short, his benevolence
had been so universal that my driver could only account for it on the
supposition that he had parliamentary ambitions.




 My attention was
drawn away from my driver's panegyric by the appearance of a very beautiful
bird which settled on a telegraph-post beside the road. At first I thought that
it was a jay, but it was larger, with a brighter plumage. The driver accounted
for its presence at once by saying that it belonged to the very man whom we
were about to visit. It seems that the acclimatization of foreign creatures was
one of his hobbies, and that he had brought with him from Brazil a number of
birds and beasts which he was endeavouring to rear in England. When once we had
passed the gates of Greylands Park we had ample evidence of this taste of his.
Some small spotted deer, a curious wild pig known, I believe, as a peccary, a
gorgeously feathered oriole, some sort of armadillo, and a singular lumbering
in-toed beast like a very fat badger, were among the creatures which I observed
as we drove along the winding avenue.




 Mr. Everard King, my
unknown cousin, was standing in person upon the steps of his house, for he had
seen us in the distance, and guessed that it was I. His appearance was very
homely and benevolent, short and stout, forty-five years old, perhaps, with a
round, good-humoured face, burned brown with the tropical sun, and shot with a
thousand wrinkles. He wore white linen clothes, in true planter style, with a cigar
between his lips, and a large Panama hat upon the back of his head. It was such
a figure as one associates with a verandahed bungalow, and it looked curiously
out of place in front of this broad, stone English mansion, with its solid
wings and its Palladio pillars before the doorway.




 "My dear!"
he cried, glancing over his shoulder; "my dear, here is our guest!
Welcome, welcome to Greylands! I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Cousin
Marshall, and I take it as a great compliment that you should honour this
sleepy little country place with your presence."




 Nothing could be more
hearty than his manner, and he set me at my ease in an instant. But it needed
all his cordiality to atone for the frigidity and even rudeness of his wife, a
tall, haggard woman, who came forward at his summons. She was, I believe, of
Brazilian extraction, though she spoke excellent English, and I excused her
manners on the score of her ignorance of our customs. She did not attempt to
conceal, however, either then or afterwards, that I was no very welcome visitor
at Greylands Court. Her actual words were, as a rule, courteous, but she was
the possessor of a pair of particularly expressive dark eyes, and I read in
them very clearly from the first that she heartily wished me back in London
once more.




 However, my debts
were too pressing and my designs upon my wealthy relative were too vital for me
to allow them to be upset by the ill-temper of his wife, so I disregarded her
coldness and reciprocated the extreme cordiality of his welcome. No pains had
been spared by him to make me comfortable. My room was a charming one. He
implored me to tell him anything which could add to my happiness. It was on the
tip of my tongue to inform him that a blank cheque would materially help
towards that end, but I felt that it might be premature in the present state of
our acquaintance. The dinner was excellent, and as we sat together afterwards
over his Havanas and coffee, which later he told me was specially prepared upon
his own plantation, it seemed to me that all my driver's eulogies were
justified, and that I had never met a more large-hearted and hospitable man.




 But, in spite of his
cheery good nature, he was a man with a strong will and a fiery temper of his
own. Of this I had an example upon the following moming. The curious aversion
which Mrs. Everard King had conceived towards me was so strong, that her manner
at breakfast was almost offensive. But her meaning became unmistakable when her
husband had quitted the room.




 "The best train
in the day is at twelve fifteen," said she.




 "But I was not
thinking of going today," I answered, frankly - perhaps even defiantly,
for I was determined not to be driven out.




 "Oh, if it rests
with you--" said she, and stopped with a most insolent expression in her
eyes.




 "I am
sure," I answered, "that Mr. Everard King would tell me if I were
outstaying my welcome."




 "What's this?
What's this?" said a voice, and there he was in the room. He had overheard
my last words, and a glance at our faces had told him the rest. In an instant
his chubby, cheery face set into an expression of absolute ferocity.




 "Might I trouble
you to walk outside, Marshall?" said he. (I may mention that my own name
is Marshall King.)




 He closed the door
behind me, and then, for an instant, I heard him talking in a low voice of
concentrated passion to his wife. This gross breach of hospitality had
evidently hit upon his tenderest point. I am no eavesdropper, so I walked out
on to the lawn. Presently I heard a hurried step behind me, and there was the
lady, her face pale with excitement, and her eyes red with tears.




 "My husband has
asked me to apologize to you, Mr. Marshall King," said she, standing with
downcast eyes before me.




 "Please do not
say another word, Mrs. King."




 Her dark eyes
suddenly blazed out at me.




 "You fool!"
she hissed, with frantic vehemence, and turning on her heel swept back to the
house.




 The insult was so
outrageous, so insufferable, that I could only stand staring after her in
bewilderment. I was still there when my host joined me. He was his cheery,
chubby self once more.




 "I hope that my
wife has apologized for her foolish remarks," said he.




 "Oh, yes--yes,
certainly!"




 He put his hand through
my arm and walked with me up and down the lawn.




 "You must not
take it seriously," said he. "lt would grieve me inexpressibly if you
curtailed your visit by one hour. The fact is - there is no reason why there
should be any concealment between relatives - that my poor dear wife is
incredibly jealous. She hates that anyone - male or female - should for an
instant come between us. Her ideal is a desert island and an eternal
tete-a-tete. That gives you the clue to her actions, which are, I confess, upon
this particular point, not very far removed from mania. Tell me that you will
think no more of it."




 "No, no;
certainly not."




 "Then light this
cigar and come round with me and see my little menagerie."




 The whole aftemoon
was occupied by this inspection, which included all the birds, beasts, and even
reptiles which he had imported. Some were free, some in cages, a few actually
in the house. He spoke with enthusiasm of his successes and his failures, his
births and his deaths, and he could cry out in his delight, like a schoolboy,
when, as we walked, some gaudy bird would flutter up from the grass, or some
curious beast slink into the cover. Finaily he led me down a corridor which
extended from one wing of the house. At the end of this there was a heavy door
with a sliding shutter in it, and beside it there projected from the wall an
iron handle attached to a wheel and a drum. A line of stout bars extended
across the passage.




 "I am about to
show you the jewel of my collection," said he. "There is only one
other specimen in Europe, now that the Rotterdam cub is dead. It is a Brazilian
cat."




 "But how does
that differ from any other cat?"




 "You will soon
see that," said he, laughing. "Will you kindly draw that shutter and
look through?"




 I did so, and found
that I was gazing into a large, empty room, with stone flags, and small, barred
windows upon the farther wall. In the centre of this room, lying in the middle
of a golden patch of sunlight, there was stretched a huge creature, as large as
a tiger, but as black and sleek as ebony. It was simply a very enormous and
very well-kept black cat, and it cuddled up and basked in that yellow pool of
light exactly as a cat would do. It was so graceful, so sinewy, and so gently
and smoothly diabolical, that I could not take my eyes from the opening.




 "Isn't he
splendid" said my host, enthusiastically.




 "Glorious! I
never saw such a noble creature."




 "Some people
call it a black puma, but really it is not a puma at all. That fellow is nearly
eleven feet from tail to tip. Four years ago he was a little ball of black
fluff, with two yellow eyes staring out of it. He was sold me as a new-born cub
up in the wild country at the head-waters of the Rio Negro. They speared his
mother to death after she had killed a dozen of them."




 "They are
ferocious, then?"




 "The most
absolutely treacherous and bloodthirsty creatures upon earth. You talk about a
Brazilian cat to an up-country Indian, and see him get the jumps. They prefer
humans to game. This fellow has never tasted living blood yet, but when he does
he will be a terror. At present he won't stand anyone but me in his den. Even
Baldwin, the groom, dare not go near him. As to me, I am his mother and father
in one."




 As he spoke he
suddenly, to my astonishment, opened the door and slipped in, closing it
instantly behind him. At the sound of his voice the huge, lithe creature rose,
yawned and rubbed its round, black head affectionately against his side, while
he patted and fondled it.




 "Now, Tommy,
into your cage!" said he.




 The monstrous cat
walked over to one side of the room and coiled itself up under a grating.
Everard King came out, and taking the iron handle which I have mentioned, he
began to turn it. As he did so the line of bars in the corridor began to pass
through a slot in the wall and closed up the front of this grating, so as to
make an effective cage. When it was in position he opened the door once more
and invited me into the room, which was heavy with the pungent, musty smell
peculiar to the great carnivora.




 "That's how we
work it," said he. "We give him the run of the room for exercise, and
then at night we put him in his cage. You can let him out by turning the handle
from the passage, or you can, as you have seen, coop him up in the same way.
No, no, you should not do that!"




 I had put my hand
between the bars to pat the glossy, heaving flank. He pulled it back, with a
serious face.




 "I assure you
that he is not safe. Don't imagine that because I can take liberties with him
anyone else can. He is very exclusive in his friends-aren't you, Tommy? Ah, he
hears his lunch coming to him! Don't you, boy?"




 A step sounded in the
stone-flagged passage, and the creature had sprung to his feet, and was pacing
up and down the narrow cage, his yellow eyes gleaming, and his scarlet tongue
rippling and quivering over the white line of his jagged teeth. A groom entered
with a coarse joint upon a tray, and thrust it through the bars to him. He
pounced lightly upon it, carried it off to the comer, and there, holding it
benveen his paws, tore and wrenched at it, raising his bloody muzzle every now
and then to look at us. It was a malignant and yet fascinating sight.




 "You can't
wonder that I am fond of him, can you!" said my host, as we left the room,
"especially when you consider that I have had the rearing of him. It was
no joke bringing him over from the centre of South America; but here he is safe
and sound - and, as I have said, far the most perfect specimen in Europe. The
people at the Zoo are dying to have him, but I really can't part with him. Now,
I think that I have inflicted my hobby upon you long enough, so we cannot do
better than follow Tommy's example, and go to our lunch."




 My South American relative
was so engrossed by his grounds and their curious occupants, that I hardly gave
him credit at first for having any interests outside them. That he had some,
and pressing ones, was soon borne in upon me by the number of telegrams which
he received. They arrived at all hours, and were always opened by him with the
utmost eagerness and anxiety upon his face. Sometimes I imagined that it must
be the Turf, and sometimes the Stock Exchange, but certainly he had some very
urgent business going forwards which was not transacted upon the Downs of
Suffolk. During the six days of my visit he had never fewer than three or four
telegrams a day, and sometimes as many as seven or eight.




 I had occupied these
six days so well, that by the end of them I had succeeded in getting upon the
most cordial terms with my cousin. Every night we had sat up late in the
billiard room, he telling me the most extraordinary stories of his adventures
in America - stories so desperate and reckless, that I could hardly associate them
with the brown little, chubby man before me. In retum, I ventured upon some of
my own reminiscences of London life, which interested him so much, that he
vowed he would come up to Grosvenor Mansions and stay with me. He was anxious
to see the faster side of city life, and certainly, though I say it, he could
not have chosen a more competent guide. It was not until the last day of my
visit that I ventured to approach that which was on my mind. I told him frankly
about my pecuniary difficulties and my impending ruin, and I asked his advice -
though I hoped for something more solid. He listened attentively, puffing hard
at his cigar.




 "But
surely," said he, "you are the heir of our relative, Lord
Southerton?"




 "I have every
reason to believe so, but he would never make me any allowance."




 "No, no, I have
heard of his miserly ways. My poor Marshall your position has been a very hard
one. By the way, have you heard any news of Lord Southerton's health
lately?"




 "He has always
been in a critical condition ever since my childhood."




 "Exactly - a
creaking hinge, if ever there was one. Your inheritance may be a long way off.
Dear me, how awkwardly situated you are !"




 "I had some
hopes, sir, that you, knowing all the facts, might be inclined to advance
--"




 "Don't say
another word, my dear boy," he cried, with the utmost cordiality; "we
shall talk it over tonight, and I give you my word that whatever is in my power
shall be done."




 I was not sorry that
my visit was drawing to a close, for it is unpleasant to feel that there is one
person in the house who eagerly desires your departure. Mrs. King's sallow face
and forbidding eyes had become more and more hateful to me. She was no longer
actively rude - her fear of her husband prevented her - but she pushed her
insane jealously to the extent of ignoring me, never addressing me, and in
every way making my stay at Greylands as uncomfortable as she could. So
offensive was her manner during that last day, that I should certainly have
left had it not been for that interview with my host in the evening which
would, I hoped, retrieve my broken fortunes.




 It was very late when
it occurred, for my relative, who had been receiving even more telegrams than
usual during the day, went off to his study after dinner, and only emerged when
the household had retired to bed. I heard him go round locking the doors, as
his custom was of a night, and finally he joined me in the billiard room. His
stout figure was wrapped in a dressing-gown, and he wore a pair of red Turkish
slippers without any heels. Settling down into an armchair, he brewed himself a
glass of grog, in which I could not help noticing that the whisky considerably
predominated over the water.




 "My word!"
said he, "what a night!"




 It was, indeed. The
wind was howling and screaming round the house, and the latticed windows
rattled and shook as if they were coming in. The glow of the yellow lamps and
the flavour of our cigars seemed the brighter and more fragrant for the
contrast.




 "Now, my
boy," said my host, "we have the house and the night to ourselves.
Let me have an idea of how your affairs stand, and I will see what can be done
to set them in order. I wish to hear every detail."




 Thus encouraged, I
entered into a long exposition, in which all my tradesmen and creditors from my
landlord to my valet, figured in turn. I had notes in my pocket-book, and I
marshalled my facts, and gave, I flatter myself, a very businesslike statement
of my own unbusinesslike ways and lamentable position. I was depressed,
however, to notice that my companion's eyes were vacant and his attention
elsewhere. When he did occasionally throw out a remark it was so entirely
perfunctory and pointless, that I was sure he had not in the least followed my
remarks. Every now and then he roused himself and put on some show of interest,
asking me to repeat or to explain more fully, but it was always to sink once
more into the same brown study. At last he rose and threw the end of his cigar
into the grate.




 "I'll tell you
what, my boy," said he. "I never had a head for figures, so you will
excuse me. You must jot it all down upon paper, and let me have a note of the
amount. I'll understand it when I see it in black and white."




 The proposal was
encouraging. I promised to do so.




 "And now it's
time we were in bed. By Jove, there's one o'clock striking in the hall."




 The ting-ling of the
chiming clock broke through the deep roar of the gale. The wind was sweeping
past with the rush of a great river.




 "I must see my
cat before I go to bed," said my host. "A high wind excites him. Will
you come?"




 "Certainly," said I.




 "Then tread
softly and don't speak, for everyone is asleep."




 We passed quietly
down the lamp-lit Persian-rugged hall, and through the door at the farther end.
All was dark in the stone corridor, but a stable lantern hung on a hook, and my
host took it down and lit it. There was no grating visible in the passage, so I
knew that the beast was in its cage.




 "Come in!"
said my relative, and opened the door.




 A deep growling as we
entered showed that the storm had really excited the creature. In the
flickering light of the lantern, we saw it, a huge black mass coiled in the
comer of its den and throwing a squat, uncouth shadow upon the whitewashed
wall. Its tail switched angrily among the straw.




 "Poor Tommy is
not in the best of tempers," said Everard King, holding up the lantern and
looking in at him. "What a black devil he looks, doesn't he? I must give
him a little supper to put him in a better humour. Would you mind holding the
lantern for a moment?"




 I took it from his
hand and he stepped to the door.




 "His larder is
just outside here," said he. "You will excuse me for an instant won't
you?" He passed out, and the door shut with a sharp metallic click behind
him.




 That hard crisp sound
made my heart stand still. A sudden wave of terror passed over me. A vague
perception of some monstrous treachery turned me cold. I sprang to the door,
but there was no handle upon the inner side.




 "Here !" I
cried. "Let me out!"




 "All right!
Don't make a row!" said my host from the passage. "You've got the
light all right."




 "Yes, but I
don't care about being locked in alone like this."




 "Don't
you?" I heard his hearty, chuckling laugh. "You won't be alone
long."




 "Let me out,
sir!" I repeated angrily. "I tell you I don't allow practical jokes
of this sort."




 "Practical is
the word," said he, with another hateful chuckle. And then suddenly I
heard, amidst the roar of the storm, the creak and whine of the winch-handle
tuming and the rattle of the grating as it passed through the slot. Great God,
he was letting loose the Brazilian cat! In the light of the lantern I saw the
bars sliding slowly before me. Already there was an opening a foot wide at the
farther end. With a scream I seized the last bar with my hands and pulled with
the strength of a madman. I was a madman with rage and horror. For a minute or
more I held the thing motionless. I knew that he was straining with all his
force upon the handle, and that the leverage was sure to overcome me. I gave
inch by inch, my feet sliding along the stones, and all the time I begged and
prayed this inhuman monster to save me from this horrible death. I conjured him
by his kinship. I reminded him that I was his guest; I begged to know what harm
I had ever done him. His only answers were the tugs and jerks upon the handle,
each of which, in spite of all my stnxggles, pulled another bar through the
opening. Clinging and clutching, I was dragged across the whole front of the
cage, until at last, with aching wrists and lacerated fmgers, I gave up the
hopeless struggle. The grating clanged back as I released it, and an instant
later I heard the shutfle of the Turkish slippers in the passage, and the slam
of the distant door. Then everything was silent.




 The creature had
never moved during this time. He lay still in the corner, and his tail had
ceased switching. This apparition of a man adhering to his bars and dragged
screaming across him had apparently filled him with amazement. I saw his great
eyes staring steadily at me. I had dropped the lantem when I seized the bars,
but it still bumed upon the floor, and I made a movement to grasp it, with some
idea that its light might protect me. But the instant I moved, the beast gave a
deep and menacing growl. I stopped and stood still, quivering with fear in
every limb. The cat (if one may call so fearful a creature by so homely a name)
was not more than ten feet from me. The eyes glimmered like two disks of
phosphorus in the darkness. They appalled and yet fascinated me. I could not
take my own eyes from them. Nature plays strange tricks with us at such moments
of intensity, and those glimmering lights waxed and waned with a steady rise
and fall. Sometimes they seemed to be tiny points of extreme brilliancy -
little electric sparks in the black obscurity - then they would widen and widen
until all that comer of the room was filled with their shifting and sinister
light. And then suddenly they went out altogether.




 The beast had closed
its eyes. I do not know whether there may be any truth in the old idea of the
dominance of the human gaze, or whether the huge cat was simply drowsy, but the
fact remains that, far from showing any symptom of attacking me, it simply
rested its sleek, black head upon its huge forepaws and seemed to sleep. I
stood, fearing to move lest I should rouse it into malignant life once more.
But at least I was able to think clearly now that the baleful eyes were off me.
Here I was shut up for the night with the ferocious beast. My own instincts, to
say nothing of the words of the plausible villain who laid this trap for me,
warned me that the animal was as savage as its master. How could I stave it off
until morning? The door was hopeless, and so were the narrow, barred windows.
There was no shelter anywhere in the bare, stone-flagged room. To cry for
assistance was absurd. I knew that this den was an outhouse, and that the
corridor which connected it with the house was at least a hundred feet long.
Besides, with that gale thundering outside, my cries were not likely to be
heard. I had only my own courage and my own wits to trust to.




 And then, with a
fresh wave of horror, my eyes fell upon the lantern. The candle had burned low,
and was already beginning to gutter. In ten minutes it would be out. I had only
ten minutes then in which to do something, for I felt that if I were once left
in the dark with that fearful beast I should be incapable of action. The very
thought of it paralysed me. I cast my despairing eyes round this chamber of
death, and they rested upon one spot which seemed to promise I will not say
safety, but less immediate and imminent danger than the open floor.




 I have said that the
cage had a top as well as a front, and this top was left standing when the
front was wound through the slot in the wall. It consisted of bars at a few
inches interval, with stout wire netting between, and it rested upon a strong
stanchion at each end. It stood now as a great barred canopy over the crouching
figure in the corner. The space between this iron shelf and the roof may have
been from two to three feet. If I could only get up there, squeezed in between
bars and ceiling, I would have only one vulnerable side. I should be safe from
below, from behind, and from each side. Only on the open face of it could I be
attacked. There, it is true, I had no protection whatever; but at least, I
should be out of the brute's path when he began to pace about his den. He would
have to come out of his way to reach me. It was now or never, for if once the
light were out it would be impossible. With a gulp in my throat I sprang up,
seized the iron edge of the top, and swung myself panting on to it. I writhed
in face downwards, and found myself looking straight into the terrible eyes and
yawning jaws of the cat. Its fetid breath came up into my face like the steam
from some foul pot.




 It appeared, however,
to be rather curious than angy. With a sleek ripple of its long, black back it
rose, stretched itself, and then rearing itself on its hind legs, with one
forepaw against the wall, it raised the other, and drew its claws across the
wire meshes beneath me. One sharp, white hook tore through my trousers - for I
may mention that I was still in evening dress - and dug a furrow in my knee. It
was not meant as an attack, but rather as an experiment, for upon my giving a
sharp cry of pain he dropped down again, and springing lightly into the room,
he began walking swiftly round it, looking up every now and again in my
direction. For my part I shuffled backwards until I lay with my back against
the wall, screwing myself into the smallest space possible. The father I got
the more difficult it was for him to attack me.




 He seemed more
excited now that he had begun to move about, and he ran swiftly and noiselessly
round and round the den, passing continually underneath the iron couch upon
which I lay. It was wonderful to see so great a bulk passing like a shadow,
with hardly the softest thudding of velvety pads. The candle was buming low -
so low that I could hardly see the creature. And then, with a last flare and
splutter it went out altogether. I was alone with the cat in the dark!




 It helps one to face
a danger when one knows that one has done all that possibly can be done. There
is nothing for it then but to quietly await the result. In this case, there was
no chance of safety anywhere except the precise spot where I was. I stretched
mpself out, therefore, and lay silently, almost breathlessly, hoping that the
beast might forget my presence if I did nothing to remind him. I reckoned that
it must already be two o'clock. At four it would be full dawn. I had not more
than two hours to wait for daylight.




 Outside, the storm
was still raging, and the rain lashed continually against the little windows.
Inside, the poisonous and fetid air was overpowering. I could neither hear nor
see the cat. I tried to think about other things - but only one had power
enough to draw my mind from my terrible position. That was the contemplation of
my cousin's villainy, his unparalleled hypocrisy, his malignant hatred of me.
Beneath that cheerful face there lurked the spirit of a mediaeval assassin. And
as I thought of it I saw more clearly how cunningly the thing had been
arranged. He had apparently gone to bed with the others. No doubt he had his
witnesses to prove it. Then, unknown to them, he had slipped down, had lured me
into this den and abandoned me. His story would be so simple. He had left me to
finish my cigar in the billiard room. I had gone down on my own account to have
a last look at the cat. I had entered the room without observing that the cage
was opened, and I had been caught. How could such a crime be brought home to
him! Suspicion, perhaps - but proof, never!




 How slowly those
dreadful two hours went by! Once I heard a low, rasping sound, which I took to
be the creature licking its own fur. Several times those greenish eyes gleamed
at me through the darkness, but never in a fixed stare, and my hopes grew
stronger that my presence had been forgotten or ignored. At last the least
faint glimmer of light came through the windows - I first dimly saw them as two
grey squares upon the black wall, then grey turned to white, and I could see my
terrible companion once more. And he, alas, could see me!




 It was evident to me
at once that he was in a much more dangerous and aggressive mood than when I
had seen him last. The cold of the moming had irritated him, and he was hungry
as well. With a continual growl he paced swiftly up and down the side of the
room which was faahest from my refuge, his whiskers bristling angrily, and his
tail switching and lashing. As he tumed at the comers his savage eyes always
looked upwards at me with a dreadful menace. I knew then that he meant to kill
me. Yet I found myself even at that moment admiring the sinuous grace of the
devilish thing, its long, undulating, rippling movements, the gloss of its
beautiful flanks, the vivid, palpitating scarlet of the glistening tongue which
hung from the jet-black muzzle. And all the time that deep, threatening growl
was rising and rising in an unbroken crescendo. I knew that the crisis was at
hand.




 It was a miserable
hour to meet such a death - so cold, so comfortless, shivering in my light
dress clothes upon this grid-iron of torment upon which I was stretched. I
tried to brace myself to it, to raise my soul above it, and at the same time,
with the lucidity which comes to a perfectly desperate man, I cast round for
some possible means of escape. One thing was clear to me. If that front of the
cage was only back in its position once more, I could find a sure refuge behind
it. Could I possibly pull it back! I hardly dared to move for fear of bringing
the creature upon me. Slowly, very slowly, I put my hand forward until it
grasped the edge of the front, the final bar which protruded through the wall.
To my surprise it came quite easily to my jerk. Of course the difficulty of
drawing it out arose from the fact that I was clinging to it. I pulled again,
and three inches of it came through. It ran apparently on wheels. I pulled
again ... and then the cat sprang!




 It was so quick, so
sudden, that I never saw it happen. I simply heard the savage snarl, and in an instant
afterwards the blazing yellow eyes, the flattened black head with its red
tongue and flashing teeth, were within reach of me. The impact of the creature
shook the bars upon which I lay, until I thought (as far as I could think of
anything at such a moment) that they were coming down. The cat swayed there for
an instant, the head and front paws quite close to me, the hind claws clawing
to find a grip upon the edge of the grating. I heard the claws rasping as they
clung to the wire-netting, and the breath of the beast made me sick. But its
bound had been miscalculated. It could not retain its position. Slowly,
grinning with rage, and scratching madly at the bars, it swung backwards and
dropped heavily upon the floor. With a growl it instantly faced round to me and
crouched for another spring.




 I knew that the next
few moments would decide my fate. The creature had learned by experience. It
would not miscalculate again. I must act promptly, fearlessly, if I were to
have a chance for life. In an instant I had formed my plan. Pulling off my
dress-coat, I threw it down over the head of the beast. At the same moment I
dropped over the edge, seized the end of the front grating, and pulled it
frantically out of the wall.




 It came more easily
than I could have expected. I rushed across the room, bearing it with me; but,
as I rushed, the accident of my position put me upon the outer side. Had it
been the other way, I might have come off scatheless. As it was, there was a
moment's pause as I stopped it and tried to pass in through the opening which I
had left. That moment was enough to give time to the creature to toss off the
coat with which I had blinded him and to spring upon me. I hurled myself
through the gap and pulled the rails to behind me, but he seized my leg before
I could entirely withdraw it. One stroke of that huge paw tore off my calf as a
shaving of wood curls off before a plane. The next moment, bleeding and
fainting, I was lying among the foul straw with a line of friendly bars between
me and the creature which ramped so frantically against them.




 Too wounded to move,
and too faint to be conscious of fear, I could only lie, more dead than alive,
and watch it. It pressed its broad, black chest against the bars and angled for
me with its crooked paws as I have seen a kitten do before a mousetrap. It
ripped my clothes, but, stretch as it would, it could not quite reach me. I
have heard of the curious numbing effect produced by wounds from the great
camivora, and now I was destined to experience it, for I had lost all sense of
personality and was as interested in the cat's failure or success as if it were
some game which I was watching. And then gradually my mind drifted awav into
strange vague dreams, always with that black face and red tongue coming back
into them, and so I lost myself in the nirvana of delirium, the blessed relief
of those who are too sorely tried.




 Tracing the course of
events afterwards, I conclude that I must have been insensible for about two
hours. What roused me to consciousness once more was that sharp metallic click
which had been the precursor of my terrible experience. It was the shooting
back of the spring lock. Then, before my senses were clear enough to entirely
apprehend what they saw, I was aware of the round, benevolent face of my cousin
peering in through the open door. What he saw evidently amazed him. There was
the cat crouching on the floor. I was stretched upon my back in my shia-sleeves
within the cage, my trousers torn to ribbons and a great pool of blood all
round me. I can see his amazed face now, with the morning sunlight upon it. He
peered at me, and peered again. Then he closed the door behind him, and
advanced to the cage to see if I were really dead.




 I cannot undertake to
say what happened. I was not in a fit state to witness or to chronicle such
events. I can only say that I was suddenly conscious that his face was away
from me - that he was looking towards the animal.




 "Good old
Tommy!" he cried. "Good old Tommy!"




 Then he came near the
bars, with his back still towards me.




 "Down, you
stupid beast!" he roared. "Down, sir! Don't you know your
master?"




 Suddenly even in my
bemuddled brain a remembrance came of those words of his when he had said that
the taste of blood would turn the cat into a fiend. My blood had done it, but
he was to pay the price.




 "Get away!"
he screamed. "Get away, you devil! Baldwin! Baldwin ! Oh, my God!"




 And then I heard him
fall, and rise, and fall again, with a sound like the ripping of sacking. His
screams grew fainter until they were lost in the worrying snarl. And then,
after I thought that he was dead, I saw, as in a nightmare, a blinded,
tattered, blood-soaked figure running wildly round the room - and that was the
last glimpse which I had of him before I fainted once again.




I was many months in my recovery - in fact, I cannot say
that I have ever recovered, for to the end of my days I shall carry a stick as
a sign of my night with the Brazilian cat. Baldwin, the groom, and the other servants
could not tell what had occurred, when, drawn by the deathcries of their
master, they found me behind the bars, and his remains - or what they
afterwards discovered to be his remains - in the clutch of the creature which
he had reared. They stalled him off with hot irons, and afterwards shot him
through the loophole of the door before they could finally extricate me. I was
carried to my bedroom, and there, under the roof of my would-be murderer, I
remained between life and death for several weeks. They had sent for a surgeon
from Clipton and a nurse from London, and in a month I was able to be carried
to the station, and so conveyed back once more to Grosvenor Mansions.




 I have one
remembrance of that iliness, which might have been part of the ever-changing
panorama conjured up by a delirious brain were it not so definitely fixed in my
memory. One night, when the nurse was absent, the door of my chamber opened,
and a tall woman in blackest mourning slipped into the room. She came across to
me, and as she bent her sallow face I saw by the faint gleam of the night-light
that it was the Brazilian woman whom my cousin had married. She stared intently
into my face, and her expression was more kindly than I had ever seen it.




 "Are you
conscious?" she asked.




 I feebly nodded - for
I was still very weak.




 "Well, then, I
only wished to say to you that you have yourself to blame. Did I not do all I
could for you! From the beginning I tried to drive you from the house. By every
means, short of betraying my husband, I tried to save you from him. I knew that
he had a reason for bringing you here. I knew that he would never let you get
away again. No one knew him as I knew him, who had suffered from him so often.
I did not dare to tell you all this. He would have killed me. But I did my best
for you. As things have turned out, you have been the best friend that I have
ever had. You have set me free, and I fancied that nothing but death would do
that. I am sorry if you are hurt, but I cannot reproach myself. I told you that
you were a fool - and a fool you have been." She crept out of the room,
the bitter, singular woman, and I was never destined to see her again. With
what remained from her husband's property she went back to her native land, and
I have heard that she afterwards took the veil at Pemambuco.




 It was not until I
had been back in London for some time that the doctors pronounced me to be well
enough to do business. It was not a very welcome permission to me, for I feared
that it would be the signal for an inrush of creditors; but it was Summers, my
lawyer, who first took advantage of it.




 "I am very glad
to see that your lordship is so much better," said he. "I have been
waiting a long time to offer my congratulations."




 "What do you
mean, Summers! This is no time for joking."




 "I mean what I
say," he answered. "You have been Lord Southerton for the last six
weeks, but we feared that it would retard your recovery if you were to leam
it."




 Lord Southerton ! One
of the richest peers in England! I could not believe my ears. And then suddenly
I thought of the time which had elapsed, and how it coincided with my injuries.




 "Then Lord
Southerton must have died about the same time that I was hurt?"




 "His death
occurred upon that very day." Summers looked hard at me as I spoke, and I
am convinced - for he was a very shrewd fellow - that he had guessed the true
state of the case. He paused for a moment as if awaiting a confidence from me,
but I could not see what was to be gained by exposing such a family scandal.




 "Yes, a very
curious coincidence," he continued, with the same knowing look. "Of
course, you are aware that your cousin Everard King was the next heir to the
estates. Now, if it had been you instead of him who had been torn to pieces by
this tiger, or whatever it was, then of course he would have been Lord
Southerton at the present moment."




 "No doubt,"
said I.




 "And he took
such an interest in it," said Summers. "I happen to know that the
late Lord Southerton's valet was in his pay, and that he used to have telegrams
from him every few hours to tell him how he was getting on. That would be about
the time when you were down there. Was it not strange that he should wish to be
so well informed, since he knew that he was not the direct heir?"




 "Very
strange," said I. "And now, Summers, if you will bring me my bills
and a new cheque-book, we will begin to get things into order."

Vintage Video: Kangaroo Thrashes Trainers

The narration is a bit corny, but this clip does show the mechanics of a kangaroo attack. 

Photography by D'Arcy

Photographer D'Arcy Allison-Teasley has helped behind the scenes of this blog since the beginning. Here are some of the fascinating images she's contributed. (My favorite set is "June Bug.")



Butterflies and Moths



Extreme Close-Up: Monarch Butterfly

Pandora Sphinx

Butterflies and Moths of Wisconsin

A Gleaming Wasp Moth

Design





Other Insects

June Bug



Wasp

Ant on Flower

Ants Inside a Morning Glory

Cicada Country









Spiders



The Spider and the Rose

Parson Spider

Spider vs. Grasshopper

Assassin Bug vs. Spider

Breakfast Wrap

Spider Webs in the Pines





Miscellaneous





Tree Frog on Window

Extreme Close-Up: Tree Frog

Death of a Mule

Crow

Northern Red-Bellied Snake

Crawdad

The Rabbits of Spring

Fly Amanita

Redback Spider vs. Golfer

Fir0002/Flagstaffotos




A golfer has suffered a bite from a spider that may or may not have been a widow spider (presumably a redback). Such bites are hardly newsworthy, so I suppose the golfer must be famous, though I have never heard of her. In fact, I have never understood how it’s possible to achieve fame through an activity dentists do on weekends. George Carlin’s take on golf:

“I’ve got just the place for low-cost housing. I have solved this problem. I know where we can build housing for the homeless: golf courses! It’s perfect! Just what we need. Plenty of good land, in nice neighborhoods, land that is currently being wasted on a meaningless, mindless activity engaged in primarily by white, well-to-do male businessmen who use the game to get together to make deals to carve this country up a little finer amongst themselves.”

He had more to say on the matter, much of it in words of four letters. But he was talking about golf in the US. I’m sure it’s hunky-dory in Australia.




Anyway, the golfer said she was feeling pretty bad by the end of the course. Despite that, I much prefer the stories of golfers attacked by alligators, like this one. Or this one. Golfers have also faced the wrath of hawks, kangaroos, and even geese. 

Daniela Holmqvist plays through spider bite in Australia - ESPN: 
"CANBERRA, Australia -- Swedish golfer Daniela Holmqvist says she was bitten by a spider and used a tee to extract what she thought was potentially fatal venom before finishing her round during qualifying for the LPGA Tour's season-opening Women's Australian Open.
The Swedish Golf Federation reported on its website that Holmqvist was hitting out of the rough on the fourth hole at Royal Canberra Golf Club when she felt a sharp pain on her ankle."

Thanks to Dee and Dan for the news tip. 

Classic Story: A Dreadful Night

A Dreadful Night




By Edwin Lester Arnold







Only he who has been
haunted by a dream, a black honor of the night so real and terrible that many
days of repugnance and effort are needed to purge the mind of its ugly details,
can understand how a dream that was a fact - a horrible waking fantasy,
grotesque and weird, a repetition in hard actuality of the ingenious terrors of
sleep - clings to him who, with his faculties about him, and all his senses on
the alert has experienced it.




Some five years ago I
was hunting in the southwest corner of Colorado, where the great mountain-spurs
slope down in rocky ravines and gullies from the inland ranges towards the
green plains along the course of the Rio San Juan. I had left my camp, late one
afternoon, in charge of my trusty comrade, Will Hartland and had wandered off
alone into the scrub. Some five or six miles from the tents I stalked and
wounded a buck. He was so hard hit that I already smelt venison in the
supper-pot and followed the broad trail he had left with the utmost eagerness.
He crossed a couple of stony ridges with their deep intervening hollows, and
came at last into a wild desolate gorge, full of loose rocks and bushes, and
ribboned with game tracks, but otherwise a most desolate and Godforsaken place,
where no man had been, or might come for fifty years. Here I sighted my venison
staggering down the glen, and dashed after him as fast as I could, through the
bushy tangled, and the dry, slippery, summer grass. In a few hundred yards the
valley became a pass, and in a score more the steep, bare sides had drawn in
until they were walls on either hand, and the way trailed along the bottom of
what was little better than a knife cleft in the hills.




I was a good runner,
and the hunter blood was hot within me; my moccasins flashed through the yellow
herbage; my cheeks burnt with excitement I dropped my gun to be the freer - the
quarry was plunging along only ten yards ahead, and seemed a certain victim! In
front was the outing of that narrow ravine-long reaches of the silver San Juan
twining in countless threads through interminable leagues of green pasture and
forest - I saw it all like a beautiful pictue in the narrow black frame of the
rocks; the evening wind was blowing softly up the cañon, and the sky was
already gorgeous and livid with the streaks of sunset. Another ten yards and we
were flying down the narrowest part of the defile, the beast-path under our
feet hardly a foot wide, and almost hidden by long, wiry, dead grass.




Suddenly the wounded
buck, now within my grasp, staggered up on to its hind legs, in a mad fit of
terror, just as, with a shout of triumph, I leapt up to it and in half a
breathing space I and the stag were reeling on the very brink of a horrible
funnel, - a slippery yellow slope that had opened suddenly before us, leading
down to a cavernous mouth gaping dark and dreadful in the heart of the earth.
With a scream louder than my shout of triumph I threw up my hands and tried to
stop; it was too late; I felt my feet slip from under me, and in a second,
shouting and plunging, and clutching at the rotten herbage, I was flying
downwards. I caught a last glimpse of the San Juan and the blaze of the sky
overhead and then I was spinning into darkness, horrible stygian darkness,
through which I fell for a giddy, senseless moment or two, and then landed with
a thud which ought to have killed me, bruised and nearly senseless, on a soft,
quaggy, mound of something that seemed to sink under me like a feather bed. I
passed out.




My first, sensation
on recovering consciousness was that of an overpowering smell, a sickly, deadly
taint in the air that there was no growing accustomed to, and which, after a
few gasps,seemed to have run its deadly venom into every corner of my frame,
and. turning my blood yellow, to have transformed my constibation into keeping
with its own accursed natirre. It was a damp, musty, charnel-house smell,
sickly and wicked, with the breath of the slaughter-pit in it— an aroma of
blood and corruption. I sat up and glared, gasped about in the gloom, and then
I carefully felt my limbs up and down. All were safe and sound, and I was
unhurt, though as sore and bruised as if my body had stood a long day's
pummelling. Then I groped about me in the pitch dark,. and soon touched the
still warm body of the dead buck I had shot, and on which indeed I was sitting.
Still feeling about I found on the other side something soft and furry too. I
touched and patted it and in a minute recognized with a start that my fingers
were deep in the curly mane of a bull bison. I pulled, and the curly mane came
off in stinking tufts. That bull bison had been lying there six months or more.
All about me, wherever I felt was cold, clammy fur and hair and hoofs and bare
ribs and bones mixed in wild confusion, and as thatwildemess of death unfolded
itself in the darkness to me, and the foetid, close atmosphere mounted to my
head, my nerves began to tremble like harp-strings in a storm, and my heart
that I had always thought terror-proof, to patter like a girl's.




Plunging and slipping
I got upon my feet and then became conscious of a dim circle of twilight far
above, representing the hole through which I had fallen. The twilight was
fading outside every moment and it was already so faintly luminous that my
hand, held, in front of me, looked ghostly and scarcely discernible. I began to
explore slowly round the walls of my prison. With a heart that grew sicker and
sicker, and sensations that you can imagine better than I can describe, I traced
the jagged but unbroken circle of a great chamber in the underground, hundred
feet long, perhaps, by fifty across, with cruel, remorseless walls that rose
sloping gently inwards from an uneven horrible floor of hides and bones to that
narrow neck far overhead, where the stars were already twinkling in a cloudless
sky. By this time I was fairly frightened, and the cold paspration of dread
began to stand in beads upon my forehead.




A fancy then seized
me that some one might be within hearing distance above. I shouted again and
again, and listening acutely each time as the echoes of my shout died away, I
could have sworn something like the clash of ghostly teeth on teeth, something
like the rattle of jaws in an ague fit fell on the silence behind, With beating
heart and an unfamiliar dread creeping over me, I crouched down in the gloom
and listened. There was water dripping out in the dark, monotonous and dismal,
and something like the breath from a husky throat away in the distance of the
cavern came fitfully to my ears, though so uncertain that at first I thought it
might have been only the rustle of the wind in the grass far overhead.




Again mastering all
my resolution I shouted until the darkness rang, then listened eagerly with
every faculty on stretch; and again from the dimness came that tremulous
gnashing of teeth, and that wavering, long-drawn breath. Then my hair literally
stood on end, and my eyes were fixed with breathless wonder in front of me, for
out of the remotest gloom, where the corruption of the floor was already
beginning to glow with pale blue wavering phosphorescent light as the night
fell, rose glimmering itself with that ghastly lustre, somethng slim and tall
and tremulous. It was full of life and yet was not quite of human form.. and
reared itself against the dark wall, all agleam, until its top, set with hollow
eyes, was nine or ten feet from the ground, and oscillated and wavered, and
seemed to feet about as I had done, for an opening - and then on a sudden
collapsed in a writhing heap upon the ground, and I distinctly heard the fall
of its heavy body as it disappeared into the blue inferno that burnt below.




Again that spectral
thing rose laboriously, this time many paces nearer to me, to twice the height
of a man, and wavered and felt about and then sank down with a fall like the
fall of heavy draperies, as though the energy that had lifted it suddenly
expired. Nearer and nearer it came, travelling round the circuit of the walls
in that strange way, and awed and bewildered I crept out into the open to let
that dreadful thing go by. And presently, to my infinite relief, it travelled
away, still wavering and writhing and I breathed again.




As that luminous
shadow faded into the remote corners of the cave, I shouted once more, for the
pleasure, it must have been, of hearing my own voice, - again there was that
gnashing of teeth - and the instant afterwards such a hideous chorus of yells
from the other side of the cavern, such a commingled howl of lost spirits, such
an infernal moan of sorrow and shame and misery, that rose and fell on the
stillness of the night that for an instant lost to everything but that dreadful
sound, I leapt to my feet with the stagnant blood cold as ice within me, my
body pulseless for the moment, and mingled my mad shouting with the voices of
those unseen devils in a hideous chorus. Then my manhood came back with a rush
upon me, and judgment and sense, and I recognised in the trembling echoes a cry
that I had often listened to in happier circumstances. That uproar came from
the throats of wolves that had been trapped like myself. But were they alive? I
thought in fascinated wonder, - how could they be in this horrible pit? and if
they were not, picture oneself cornered in such a trap with a pack of wolfish sprits
- it would not bear thinking of; already my fancy saw constellations of fierce
yellow eyes everywhere, and herds of wicked grey backs racing to and fro in the
shadows. With a tremulous hand I felt in my pocket for a match, and found I had
two - and two only!




By this time the moon
was up and a great band of silver light, broad and bright, was creeping down
the walls of our prison, but I would not wait for it. I struck the match with
feverish eagerness, and held it overhead. It burnt brightly for a moment, and I
saw I was in a great natural crypt, with no outlet anywhere but by the narrow
neck above, and all chance of reaching that was impossible, as the walls sloped
inwards everywhere as they rose to it. All the floor was piled thigh-deep with
a ghastly tangle of animal remains, in every state of return to their native
earth, from the bare bones, that would have crumbled at a touch, to the hide,
still glossy and sleek, of the stag that had fallen in only a week or two
before. Such a carnage place I never saw, - such furs, such trophies, such
heads and horns there were all round, as raised the envy of my hunter spirit,
even in that emergency.




But what held me
spell-bound and rooted my eyes into the shadows was - twenty paces off, lying
full stretch along the glossy, undulating path which the incessant feet of new
victims had worn, month after month, over the hill and valley of dead bodies
under the walls - a splendid eighteen-foot python. It was this creatures
ghostly rambles and ineffectual attempt to scale the walls that had first
scared me in that place of horrors. I turned round, for the match was short and
scarcely noticing a scare or two of dejected rats, who squeaked and scrambled
amongst lesser snakes and strange reptiles, looked hard across the cave.




There, on their
haunches, in a huddle against the far wall, staring at me with dull cold eyes,
were five of the biggest, ugliest wolves ever mortal saw. I had often seen
wolves, but never any like those. All the pluck, grace and savage vigour of
their kind had gone from them; their bodies, gorged with carrion were vast,
swollen, and hideous, their shaggy fur was hanging in taters from their red and
mangy skins, the saliva streamed from their jaws in yellow ribbons, their
bleary eyes were drowsy and chill, their great throats, as they opened them to
howl in sad chorus at the handful of purple night above, were dry and yellow,
and there was about them such an air of disgusting misery and woebegoneness,
that, with a shudder and a cry I could not suppress, I let the last embers of
the burning math fall to the ground.




How long I crouched
in the darkness against the wall, with those hideous serenaders grinding their
foam-flecked teeth and bemoaning our common fate in hideous unison, I do not
know. Nor have I space to tell the wild horrible visions which filled my mind
for the next hour or two, but presently the moonlight had come down off the
wall, and was spread at my feet in a silver carpet, and as I sullenly watched
the completion of that arena of light, I was aware that the wolves were moving.
Very slowly they came forward out of the darkness, led by the biggest and
ugliest until they were all in the silver circle, gaunt, spectral, and vile,
every mangy tuft of loose hair upon their sore-speckled backs clear as
daylight. Then those pot-bellied phosphorescent undertakers began the strangest
movements, and after watching them for a moment or two in fascinated wonder, I
saw they had come to me in their despair to solicit my companionship and
countenance. I could not have believed it possible that dumb brutes could have
made their meaning so clear, as those poor shaggy scoundrels did. They halted
ten yards off, and with humble heads sagged down, and averted eyes, slowly
wagged their mud-locked tails. Then they came a few steps further and whined
and fawned, and then another pace, and lay down upon their stomachs, putting
their noses between their paws like dogs who watch and doze, while they
regarded me steadfastly with sad, great eyes, forlorn and terrible.




Foot by foot, grey
and silver in the moonlight, they advanced with the offer of their dreadful
friendship, until at last I was fairly bewitched, and when the big wolf came
forward till he was at my knees, a horrible epitome of corruption, and licked
my hand with his great burning tongue, I submitted to the caress as readily as
though he were my favourite hound. Henceforth the pack seemed to think the
compact was sealed, and thrust their odious company upon me, trotting at my
heels, howling when I shouted, and muzzling down to me, putting their heavy
paws upon my feet, and their great steaming jaws upon my chest whenever, in
despair and weariness, I tried to snatch a moment's sleep.




But it would be
impossible to go step by step through the infinitely painful hours of that
night. Not only was the place full of spectral forms and strange cries, but
presently legions of unclean things of a hundred kinds, that had lived on those
dead beasts when they too were living, swarmed in thousands and assailed us,
adding a new terror to the inferno, ravaging us who still kept body and soul
together, till our flesh seemed burning on our bones.




There was no rest for
man or brute; the light was a mockery and the silence hideous. Round and round
we pattered, I and the gaunt wolves, over the dim tracks worn by the feet of
disappointment and suffering; we waded knee-deep through a wavering sea of
steamy blue flame, that rose from the remains and bespattered us from head to
heel, stumbling and tripping and groping, and cursing our fates, each in his
separate tongue, while the night waned, the dew fell clammy and cold into our
prison, and the Stars, who looked down upon us from the free purple sky
overhead, made a dim twilight in our cell.




I was blundering and
staggering round the walls for the hundredth time, feeling about with my hands
in a hopeless search for some cleft or opening, when the grimmest thing of the
whole evening happened. In a lonely comer of the den, in a little recess not
searched before, pattering about in the dark, I suddenly touched with my hand -
think with what a shock it thrilled me - the cloth-clad shoulder of a man! With
a gasp and a cry I leapt back, and stood trembling and staring into the
shadows, scarcely daring to breathe. Much as I had suffered in that hideous
place, nothing affected me half so much as dropping my hand upon that dreadful
shoulder. Heaven knows we were all cowards down there, but for a minute I was
the biggest coward of us, and felt full of those strange throes of superstitious
terror that I had often wondered before to hear weaker men describe.




Then I mustered my
wavering spirit, and with the gaunt wolves squatting in a luminous circle
around me, went into the recess again, and put my hand once more upon my grim
companion. The coat upon him was dry and rough with age, and beneath it - I
could tell by the touch - there was nothing but bare, rattling bones! I stood
still, grimly waiting for the flutter of my physical cowardice to subside, and
then I thought of that second match, and in a moment of keen intensity, with
such care as you may imagine, struck it against the wall. It lit, and at my
feet, in ragged miner's garb, sitting against the wall with his knees drawn up
and his chin upon them, was the skeleton of a man so bleached and dry, that it
must have been there for fifty years at least. At his side lay his miner's pick
and pannikin, an old dusty pocket-Bible, the fragment of a felt hat and a pair
of heavy boot, still neatly side by side, just as the luckless fellow had
placed the well-worn things when, for some reason, he last took them off.




And overhead
something scratched upon a flat face of the rock. Hastily I snatched a scrap of
paper from my pocket and, lighting it at the expiring match, read on the stone,
-




'Monday,'

'Tuesday,'

'Wednesd-'

-there was nothing
but that and even the 'Wednesday' was unfinished, dying away in a shaky,
uncertain scratch, that spoke infinitely more plainly than many words would
have done, of the growing feebleness of the hand that traced it - and then all
was darkness again.




I crept back to my
distant corner, and crouched like the dead man against the wall, with my chin
upon my knees, and kept repeating to myself the horrible simplicity of that
diary - 'Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday!' 'Poor nameless Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday! And was this to be my fate?' I laughed bitterly, - I would begin
such another record with the first streak of dawn, and in the meantime I would
sleep, whatever befell, and sleep I did, with those restless blue wolves
cantering round the well-worn paths of the charnel-house, to their own hideous
music, the silent unknown away in the distance, and the opal eyes of the great
serpent staring at me like baleful planets, cold, sullen, and cruel, from
between the dead man's feet.







It was a shout that
woke me next morning, a clear ringing shout, that jerked me from dreadful
dreams. I scrambled to my feet and saw from the bright light about me that it
was day above, and while I still staggered and wandered stupidy, again came
that shout. I stared up overhead where the sunlight was making the neck of the
trap a disc of intolerable brightness and there, when my eyes grew accustomed
to that shining, was a round something that presently resolved itself into the
blessed face of my steadfast chum, Will Hartland.




There is little need
to say more. With the help of his strong cow-rope, at his saddle-bow, and a
round point of earth-embedded rock as purchase, he had me out of that accursed
hole in an incredibly, ridiculously short space of time. And there I was,
leaning on his shoulder, free again, in the first flush of as glorious a
morning as you could wish for, with the San Juan away in the distance, winding
in a sapphire streak through miles of emerald forests, a sweet blue sky above,
and underfoot the earth wet with morning mist, smelling like a wine cooler, and
every bent and twig underfoot gemmed with glittering prismatic dewdrops. I sat
down on a stone, and after a long pull at Will's flask, told him something like
the narrative I have just given. And when the tale was done I paused a minute,
and then said somewhat shyly, 'And now I am going back, Will, old man! back for
those poor devils down yonder, who haven't a chance for their lives unless I
do.' Will, who had listened to my narrative with horror and wonder flitting
across his honest brown face, started up at this as though he thought the
nights adventure had fairly turned my head. But he was a good fellow,
chivalrous and tender of heart under his Mexican jacket, and speedily
acknowledging that I was right, set to work to help me.




Down I went back into
the pit, the very sight and shadow of which now made me sick, and with the
noose end of Will's lasso (he holding the other end above) set to work to
secure those poor beasts, who whined and crowded round my legs in hideous glee
to have me back again amongst them. 'Twas easy work; they were stupid and
heavy, and seemed to have time, and when a wolf was fast, shouted to Will, who
hauled some idea of my intentions, and thus I noosed them one at a away with
scant ceremony, and up the grey ghoul went into that sunshine he had not seen
for many weeks, until he and all his comrades were free once more, spinning,
and struggling, and yelping - truly a wonderful sight.




But nothing would
move the python. I followed him round and round, trying all I knew to get his
cruel, cynical head through the noose, and then, when he had refused it a dozen
times, I grew angry and cursed him and gathering up all the tortoises, lizards,
and lesser beasts I could find into my waistband, ascended into the sweet outer
air once more.




A very few hours
afterwards a heavy blasting-charge, fetched from a neighbouring mine, was
dangling by a string just inside the mouth of the detestable trap, with its
fuse burning brightly. A few minutes of suspense, a mighty crash, a cloud of
white smoke hanging over the green hill-top, and one of the most treacherous
places that ever marred the face of nature's sweet earth was a harmless heap of
dust and tumbled stones.

World’s Largest Crocodile Dies

Lolong, the saltwater crocodile certified by Guinness as the largest living, has died. It had been a captive since September 2011. Locals captured it after it was implicated in attacks on humans.



World’s Largest Crocodile Dies, Leaving Town in Mourning | TIME.com: "The 1-ton crocodile was declared dead Sunday a few hours after flipping over with a bloated stomach in a pond in an eco-tourism park in Bunawan town, Philippines."



There will be an autopsy.



Related Post: Guinness Certifies Largest Captive Crocodile

Beyond Peter Parker: Grice’s Seductive Natural Killers

Beyond Peter Parker: Grice’s Seductive Natural Killers - prismguard - Open Salon:


A nice--and, if I may be allowed an opinion, perceptive--review of The Red Hourglass: Lives of the Predators.