VIII. THE CRYING OF THE PUMA.
MONTGOMERY interrupted my tangle of mystification and suspicionabout one o'clock, and his grotesque attendant followed himwith a tray bearing bread, some herbs and other eatables,a flask of whiskey, a jug of water, and three glasses and knives.I glanced askance at this strange creature, and found him watchingme with his queer, restless eyes. Montgomery said he would lunchwith me, but that Moreau was too preoccupied with some workto come.
"Moreau!" said I. "I know that name."
"The devil you do!" said he. "What an ass I was to mention it to you!I might have thought. Anyhow, it will give you an inklingof our--mysteries. Whiskey?"
"No, thanks; I'm an abstainer."
"I wish I'd been. But it's no use locking the doorafter the steed is stolen. It was that infernalstuff which led to my coming here,--that, and a foggy night.I thought myself in luck at the time, when Moreau offered to get me off.It's queer--"
"Montgomery," said I, suddenly, as the outer door closed, "why hasyour man pointed ears?"
"Damn!" he said, over his first mouthful of food. He stared at mefor a moment, and then repeated, "Pointed ears?"
"Little points to them," said I, as calmly as possible, with a catchin my breath; "and a fine black fur at the edges?"
He helped himself to whiskey and water with great deliberation."I was under the impression--that his hair covered his ears."
"I saw them as he stooped by me to put that coffee you sent to meon the table. And his eyes shine in the dark."
By this time Montgomery had recovered from the surprise of my question."I always thought," he said deliberately, with a certainaccentuation of his flavouring of lisp, "that there _was_ somethingthe matter with his ears, from the way he covered them.What were they like?"
I was persuaded from his manner that this ignorance was a pretence.Still, I could hardly tell the man that I thought him a liar."Pointed," I said; "rather small and furry,--distinctly furry.But the whole man is one of the strangest beings I ever seteyes on."
A sharp, hoarse cry of animal pain came from the enclosure behind us.Its depth and volume testified to the puma. I saw Montgomery wince.
"Yes?" he said.
"Where did you pick up the creature?"
"San Francisco. He's an ugly brute, I admit. Half-witted, you know.Can't remember where he came from. But I'm used to him, you know.We both are. How does he strike you?"
"He's unnatural," I said. "There's something about him--don'tthink me fanciful, but it gives me a nasty little sensation,a tightening of my muscles, when he comes near me. It's a touch--ofthe diabolical, in fact."
Montgomery had stopped eating while I told him this. "Rum!" he said."I can't see it." He resumed his meal. "I had no idea of it,"he said, and masticated. "The crew of the schooner must havefelt it the same. Made a dead set at the poor devil. You sawthe captain?"
Suddenly the puma howled again, this time more painfully.Montgomery swore under his breath. I had half a mind to attack himabout the men on the beach. Then the poor brute within gave ventto a series of short, sharp cries.
"Your men on the beach," said I; "what race are they?"
"Excellent fellows, aren't they?" said he, absentmindedly,knitting his brows as the animal yelled out sharply.
I said no more. There was another outcry worse than the former.He looked at me with his dull grey eyes, and then took somemore whiskey. He tried to draw me into a discussion about alcohol,professing to have saved my life with it. He seemed anxiousto lay stress on the fact that I owed my life to him. I answeredhim distractedly.
Presently our meal came to an end; the misshapen monster withthe pointed ears cleared the remains away, and Montgomery leftme alone in the room again. All the time he had been in a stateof ill-concealed irritation at the noise of the vivisected puma.He had spoken of his odd want of nerve, and left me to theobvious application.
I found myself that the cries were singularly irritating,and they grew in depth and intensity as the afternoon wore on.They were painful at first, but their constant resurgence at lastaltogether upset my balance. I flung aside a crib of Horace Ihad been reading, and began to clench my fists, to bite my lips,and to pace the room. Presently I got to stopping my ears withmy fingers.
The emotional appeal of those yells grew upon me steadily,grew at last to such an exquisite expression of suffering that Icould stand it in that confined room no longer. I steppedout of the door into the slumberous heat of the late afternoon,and walking past the main entrance--locked again, I noticed--turnedthe corner of the wall.
The crying sounded even louder out of doors. It was as if all the painin the world had found a voice. Yet had I known such pain was inthe next room, and had it been dumb, I believe--I have thought since--Icould have stood it well enough. It is when suffering finds a voiceand sets our nerves quivering that this pity comes troubling us.But in spite of the brilliant sunlight and the green fans of the treeswaving in the soothing sea-breeze, the world was a confusion,blurred with drifting black and red phantasms, until I was out of earshotof the house in the chequered wall.