The lions and tigers and leopards cannot bring libel suits or arrange duels. So men can call them cowards with impunity, and often do; but it is not fair, and surely all who have been long enough in the woods to know better should do justice to the beasts that are dumb. Besides, there is a real joy in telling the downright truth. It is apt to have the merit of novelty, for one thing. That is why it seems right to tell in 1909 an adventure that befell three gallant officers in Upper Burma, a little more than a dozen years ago.

Three real ornaments of the British army, and one of them so highly placed that in confidential moments after dinner he spoke to me not of his debts, but of his savings and investments, were riding abreast together through a forest. Three finer specimens of “Britishers abroad” the army could not have furnished. They combined all its best qualities—the wild daring of the Irish scallawag, [160] the steadiness of the Englishman, and the cunning of the Jew. If they had all been of one kind, whether scallawags, Englishmen, or Jews, they might have come out of this adventure less perfectly. Great is the advantage of a judicious mixture!

What happened was that a leopard was looking for a meal as they came along. He was not hunting men. He was crouching among the bushes beside the road and watching, as a cat watches sparrows, a crowd of monkeys gambolling among the trees, and unconsciously coming near him. He is at home in the trees, and very fond of monkeys; but they are too nimble for him, if they have a chance. So he was biding his time, till one of them would be within reach of a sudden spring; and none of them had noticed him, when the three officers came riding past.

Now, whatever the attraction was, probably curiosity, what is certain is that the advent of our gallant three caused a sensation in the little world aloft; and, as the miniature men and women of the woods crowded to see the very latest samples of British officers, they saw the leopard too! And with wild hullabaloo they hurried far away.

The leopard was angry. Had he not cause? Who were these men to come and spoil his sport? They, on their noisy iron-shod horses, prancing [161] along, with their orderlies clattering behind them, coming as if the world belonged to them? He felt like another Jonah, who could answer the Lord inquiring, “Doest thou well to be angry?” with a heart-whole emphasis, saying, “I do well!”

So he came boldly upon the road on which they were galloping and stood upon it, facing them. He took no pains to hide himself. He was no longer in the mood for crouching. He waited for them; but he did not lie in wait. His lips were ajar, and every muscle tight—a pretty picture!

“Good God! There’s a leopard!” cried the son of Jacob. See how deeply rooted is piety in the Semitic soul! Men have known that man for nearly twenty years, and never heard him mention God at any other time.

They all drew bridle and dismounted. Even the scallawag consented to do that. The Englishman called for his gun. An orderly handed it to him.

“By all that’s holy, you’re not going to provoke him by peppering him with snipe-shot?”

The Englishman agreed not to fire, as they had no ball-cartridges. But the leopard was not aware of that. The road was along the side of a slope. The ground went steeply up on one side of it; steeply down on the other. So the leopard, “lightly and without apparent effort,” like a cat [162] leaping upon a chair, sprang upwards, and sat behind a bush, 15 or 20feet above the level of the road.

“Slight as the cover for him was, it would have been ample, if we had not seen him go behind it,” said one of the men to me afterwards. “We remarked how well he knew to hide himself. Till he went behind that bush we would not have believed it could have covered anything. Once he was there, it was only because we had seen him go that we knew he was there. But for that, we would have seen nothing. The ground being above us was a help to us, and, knowing where to look, we could see the outline of the leopard plainly through the leaves. He had not allowed for that.”

No; he had not reckoned on the watchfulness of three men resolute that the Élite of the British army should not be made into cat’s-meat. They held each other back, so to speak, without any difficulty. They could see that where the enemy sat was like a magnificent spring-board. If he had selected the eldest of them, and leapt with his usual accuracy, he and his chosen one would have been a hundred yards down the glen together in a few seconds; and the excitement in army circles would have been very great. Half a dozen men would have “got steps.”

But these three were too wary. They—felt [163] their value to the Commonwealth. They would not pass in front of him. Nothing would induce them. It was, “You first, sir,” for a long time, till the leopard was tired of it, and saw the game was up. He leapt down lightly and crossed the road before their faces, with a deliberate swinging stride, looking round at them as he passed.

“There really seemed to me to be something of a swagger in his walk,” said one of the officers, naturally imputing to the leopard the feelings of a man and an officer; but in truth the leopard had no swagger in his mind. He looked at them in passing, as at creatures he had to keep an eye upon; but, far from thinking of impressing them, he was as indifferent to their feelings as the rocks. In Hamlet’s phrase, they were less than Hecuba to him. They were merely passing animals, that had disturbed his hunting, and he was now quitting them as he would a herd of deer that had got wind of him and held aloof.

What seemed his swagger was the unconscious dignity of his gait. I have seen it in a tiger, crossing a road in the moonlight, when he thought he was unobserved. Many men have remarked it. It may be seen in the common cat occasionally, and has been explained in various ways. The swift movement by long strides and the silent [164] footfalls are easily noticed; but there is more than that. The dignity of cats is one of Nature’s effects, which we can see and admire, but not reproduce. How could we, standing up on our hind legs and to that manner born, ever do more than mimic it? The most puissant of potentates may call himself the son of the sun, the cousin of the moon, and the father or grandfather of all the stars; he may be named in sheepskins and figure in sheeps’ heads as the King of kings and Lord of lords, the Emperor of emperors and Czar of czars; but he is first cousin to the monkey all the time. His gold lace and purple cloaks, his tinsel hats and thrones maybe as high as pyramids, cannot make him cease to be funny when he swaggers; and, at the best, you half expect a wink. Nothing can give us the born dignity of the feline fellows. But we need not envy them. Soon, very soon, in a century or, at the latest, a millennium or two, there will be none of them left, except perhaps the household toms and tabbies. “So runs the world away.”

Thus it was without any thought about the officers, who were standing abashed, that the leopard moved down the steep slope into the depths of the glen, abandoning all hope of well-fed British beef, and perhaps deciding to try once more for the monkeys.

[165] It is only needful to add that this adventure was told me by one of the three. I have not been able to get leave to give the names; but that does not matter, for the leopard did not know the names himself. It was enough for him, and must be enough for us, to know that they were strong and healthy men, and their orderlies the same; and to the leopard the iron-shod horses may have appeared to be equally formidable. Yet, with just cause of offence and an empty stomach to stimulate him, he faced them all, and departed only because he saw it was useless to wait for them to pass. They would not go in front of him. Was ever leopard so honoured before? These men would not have deferred so much to a British lord, much less to an Italian pope or common emperor.

If leopards dealt in art, that would be a scene for a picture; and fain would I have sent the men’s photos to an R.A. of my acquaintance; but to ask them for that purpose would have been as hopeless as to ask leave to give their names. So any inspired artist who pictures this scene must paint the officers’ faces from his fancy. All that I am permitted to certify is the truth of the adventure.

Bravo, MrSpots!!!