Chapter III

Long did the keepers, in Colonel Lymington's woods and along the hedges, search with dog and gun for Pharaoh, and many traps did they set. The dogs truly found a cat--two cats, and the guns stopped them, but one had a nice blue ribbon round his neck, and the other had kittens; the traps were found by one cat--and that was the pet of the colonel's lady--one stoat, one black "Pom"--and that was the idol of the parson's daughter--and one vixen--and she was buried secretly and at night--but Pharaoh remained where he had chosen to remain, and he remained also an enigma.

Then the colonel's rare birds began to evaporate in real earnest. Hawkley's little efforts at depleting them were child's-play to those of Pharaoh that followed, although, of course, Pharaoh himself did not know, or care the twitch of a whisker, whether the birds he slew were rare or not.

Now, if there was one thing more than another about which the colonel prided himself in his bird sanctuary, it was the presence of the bittern. I don't know where the bittern came from, nor does the colonel. Perhaps the head-keeper knew. Bitterns migrate sometimes, but--well, that keeper was no fool, and knew his master's soft spot.

It was a night or two later that Pharaoh surmounted the limit, so to speak, and "sprung all mines in quick succession." He had been curled up all day in his furze fortress, that vast stretch of prickly impenetrability which, even if a dog had been found with pluck enough to push through to its heart, would still, in its massed and tangled boughs, have given a cat with Pharaoh's fighting prowess full chance to defy any dog.

He was beautifully oblivious of the stir his previous doings had kicked up, and of the winged words the colonel had used to the head-keeper; of the traps set all about, of the gins doubled and trebled in the wood and round the park, and of the under-keepers who, with guns and tempting baits, took up their positions to wait for him as night fell.

No one seemed to have suspected the furze a mile away, and still less the marsh and the coverless bleak shore of the estuary, as his home. Indeed, no one looks for a cat on a wind-whipped marsh when woods are near at all. Yet this open, wet country seemed to be a peculiarly favorite hunting-ground of Pharaoh's.

It was a night of rain-squalls and moonlit streaks when Pharaoh, wandering devious among the reeds, first became aware of the bittern, in the shape of reptilian green eyes steadily regarding him from the piebald shadows. Possibly the cat's whiskers first hinted at some new presence by reason of the "ancient and fish-like smell" which pervaded this precise reed jungle.

Pharaoh stopped dead. Pharaoh, with cruel, thin ears pressed back, sank like a wraith into the soft ground. Pharaoh ceased to be even a grayish-yellow, smoky something, and became nothing but eyes--eyes floating and wicked. A domestic cat, after one frozen interval, would have crept away from the foe it could not fathom, but Pharaoh had other blood in his veins.

To begin with, he was wondering what manner of beast the owner of those saurian-like orbs might be. To go on with, he was hungry, and--smelt fish. But though he was looking full at the big bird, he could not see it, which is the bittern's own private little bit of magic.

Nature has given him a coat just like a bunch of dried reeds and the shadows between, and he does the rest by standing with his bead stuck straight up and as still as a brass idol. Result--invisibility.

None know how long those two sought to "outfreeze" the "freezer," while the rain-showers came up and passed hissing, and the moon played at hide-and-seek. None knew when Pharaoh, flat as a snake, first began that deadly, silent circling, which was but acting in miniature the ways of the lion. None knew, either, at what point of bittern first begun to sink and sink, till he crouched, and puffed, his neck curved on his back like a spring ready set, his beak, like a sharpened assegai, upright.

Only the short-eared owl, with his wonderful eyes, beheld Pharaoh make his final rush; watched that living spring _sprung_ quick as light, shooting out straight at the cat's glaring eyes, and saw--greatest miracle of all the lot--Pharaoh dodge his head aside in the twentieth of a second, and blink, letting the blow that spelt death whiz by.

And only those same owl's ears--sharpest of all the ears of the wild--heard the diabolical yell of Pharaoh as the long, sharp beak pierced through the loose skin of his shoulders, and, thanks to that same looseness, came out again an inch or two farther on, transfixing him; or listened to the devilish noise of the "worry," as the cat turned in agony on himself and buried his fangs where he could behind those expressionless green reptilian eyes; or caught the stupendous flurry and whirl of wings and fur and gripping claws and scaly legs, as a cloud put out the moon and darkness fell with silence, like the falling curtain that ends a play.

* * * * * *

The very last pale rays of a watery setting sun slid bar-like through the cottage window, and fell, twirling, aslant the floor.

A late spider had spun a web across the fireplace, and the one last fly that always lingers sat in the sunbeam. It was Hawkley's cottage, dismantled and derelict.

Something like a furry round hassock, lying motionless in a far corner, moved at the sound of rain, and lifted a round head with round eyes that glared with so terrible an expression that one caught one's breath. There was blood--dried blood--by the furry shape, and drops of dried blood across the floor from the window in the next room, that it had been nobody's business to shut.

The day went out in gloom and howling rain-rushes. Darkness took possession of the room. And--_the gate clicked_.

Truly, it might only have been the wind, but--Pharaoh was on his feet in a flash, growling, and there was a glint of green-yellow light as his eyes whipped round.

Followed a pause. Then, in a lull, once, twice, the unmistakable crunch of a shod foot on gravel.

Another pause. Pharaoh was crouching close now, trembling from head to foot.

"Pharaoh! Pharaoh! Pharaoh, old cat, are--are you in there?"

The voice, strained and husky, came in at the open window. In the last lingering afterglow of dying day, a face, haggard and set, showed there, framed in the lead casement.

"Phar---- Ah!"

Pharaoh was up. Pharaoh had given a strange, coaxing little cry, such as a she-cat gives to her kittens. Pharaoh, lame and stiff, but with tail straight as a poker, was running to the window in the next room, was up on the sill, was rubbing against and caressing the haggard face like a mad thing.

There was a long, tense pause, broken only by a continuous purring. Then the creaking sound as of the lid of a wicker basket being opened. The purring ceased. The creaking came again, as if the lid were being shut. There came the crunch once more of stealthy shod feet on gravel, the click of the gate, and--silence!

Hawkley had come for, and found, his cat.