Adventures in Many Lands | Page 2

settle down in the west, he was aroused by the sound of
laughter not far away.
For the moment he thought his followers had found him, and were
amused to find him taking his difficulties so comfortably; but hearing
the laugh repeated he realised at once that no human being ever gave
utterance to quite such a sound; in fact, his trained ear told him it was
the cry of the spotted hyena. Now thoroughly awake, he sat up and saw

a couple of the ugly brutes about fifty yards away on his left. They
were sniffing at the air, and calling. He knew that they had scented him,
but had not yet perceived him.
In such a position, as sure a shot and one so well armed as Spencer was,
a man who knew less about wild animals and their habits would
doubtless have sent the two brutes to earth in double quick time, and
thus destroyed himself. But Spencer very well knew from their manner
that they were but the advance-guard of a pack. The appearance of the
pack, numbering about one hundred, coincided with his thought. To
tackle the whole party was, of course, utterly out of the question; to
escape by flight was equally out of the question, for hyenas are
remarkably fast travellers.
His only possible chance of escape, therefore, was to hoodwink them, if
he could, by feigning to be dead; for it is a characteristic of the hyena to
reject flesh that is not putrid. He threw himself down again, and
remained motionless, hoping the beasts would think him, though dead,
yet unfit for food. It was an off-chance, and he well knew it; but there
was nothing else to be done.
In a couple of seconds the advance-guard saw him, and, calling to their
fellows, rushed to him. The pack answered the cry and instantly
followed. Spencer felt the brutes running over him, felt their foul breath
on his neck, as they sniffed at him, snapping, snarling, laughing; but he
did not move. One of them took a critical bite at his arm; but he did not
stir. They seemed nonplussed. Another tried the condition of his leg,
while many of them pulled at his clothes, as if in impotent rage at
finding him so fresh. But he did not move; in an agony of suspense he
waited motionless.
Presently, to his amazement, he was lifted up by two hyenas, which
fixed their teeth in his ankle and his wrist, and, accompanied by the rest,
his bearers set off with him swinging between them, sometimes fairly
carrying him, sometimes simply dragging him, now and again dropping
him for a moment to refix their teeth more firmly in his flesh. Believing
him to be dead, they were conveying him to their retreat, there to
devour him when he was in a fit condition. He fully realised this, but he

was powerless to defend himself from such a fate.
How far they carried him Spencer could not tell, for from the pain he
was suffering from his wounds, and the dreadful strain of being carried
in such a manner, he fell into semi-consciousness from time to time;
but the distance must have been considerable, for night was over the
land and the sky sparkling with stars before the beasts finally halted;
and then they dropped him in what he knew, by the horrible and
overpowering smell peculiar to hyenas, was the cavern home of the
pack. Here he lay throughout the awful night, surrounded by his captors,
suffering acutely from his injuries, thirst, and the vile smell of the
place.
When morning broke he found that the pack had already gone out in
search of more ready food, leaving him in charge of two immense
brutes, which watched him narrowly all through the day; for, unarmed
as he was, and exhausted, he knew it would be suicide to attempt to
tackle his janitors. He could only wait on chance. Once or twice during
the day the beasts tried him with their teeth, giving unmistakable signs
of disgust at the poor progress he was making. At nightfall they tried
him again, and, being apparently hungry, one of them deserted its post
and went off, like the others, in search of food.
This gave the wretched man a glimmering of hope, for he knew that the
hyena dislikes its own company, and that the remaining beast would
certainly desert if the pack remained away long enough. But for hour
after hour the animal stayed on duty, never going farther than the
mouth of the cave. When the second morning broke, however, the
hyena grew very restless, going out and remaining away for brief
periods. But it always returned, and every time it did so Spencer
naturally imagined it