Chapter Fourteen.

Chapter Fourteen.Zulina: a Homeless Waif and Stray.Just a few weeks after this, and while reading a letter at breakfast, my master’s face flushed with joy.There was nobody in the room but me, for the old lady did not come down to breakfast very early.“Why, pussy Shireen, what do you think?” he cried.Of course, I couldn’t tell what the matter might be.“My regiment—the 78th Highlanders—has been ordered to Persia, to give the Persians a drubbing for insolence to our Government, and if I am well enough I must join forthwith. Hurrah! Of course I’m well enough.“There will be many regiments there as well as ours, but oh, Shireen! won’t it be joyful, and you must come too, pussy. It may seem strange for the captain of a gallant regiment to have a cat as a pet, but what care I? Many a brave soldier has loved his pussy, so you come along with me, and I’ll chance it.“Now,” he added, “I’ll just write a letter to the War Office, saying that I am well, and burning to join my regiment, then I’ll go down the hill and post it before auntie is up. That will settle it.”Well, of course, children, Mrs Clifford was very sorry to lose her dear Edgar, as she called him, so soon again; but she was a brave old lady, and though she cried a little, she gave him a blessing and bade him go.“Duty must be obeyed, Edgar,” she said, “even though hearts should break. Go, my boy, your country calls you.”I don’t think, children, there was a much happier cat than pussy Shireen on the day my master left Waterloo Station for Portsmouth, to take passage for Bombay in a ship of war, especially when the brave soldier told me that this ship was to be commanded by Captain Beecroft himself. Indeed, hearing that we were going to India to join our regiment for service in Persia, Captain Beecroft had written to us, offering us a passage, and saying he would be very glad indeed to have master once more on board his vessel. And, he added, as master knew none of the officers in the wardroom, he would be happy to have him as a guest in his own apartments.We had not gone straight to London, I may tell you, Warlock, from Yorkshire. We had a run over to Dublin first to see a friend, and on board the steamer I astonished everybody by my perfect coolness. I even ran right up the rigging into the foretop, and had a look around me, and the sailors all declared I was a ship’s cat born and bred.Well, we had arrived at our hotel in the evening. I may tell you that it stood in one of the principal streets, and right in the middle of it, so that anyone going out by a back window and across the tiles, would have to go a long way round to get to the front door again.Of course, Warlock, no human being would have dreamt of going out at a back window and along the tiles, and no dog either. But it is precisely what I did when master shut me in the room, and locked me in for safety till he should post a letter.When he returned, behold! no Shireen was there, and he called me from the window in vain.The truth is, I had never been to Ireland before, and wanted to see what the Irish cats were like; so I determined to spend a night on the tiles and go home with the milk in the morning.I can’t say, however, that I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I found the Dublin cats a rather disreputable gang. They serenaded nervous old gentlemen, and had water and brushes and lumps of coal and the boot-jack thrown at them; they scratched up beds of choice flowers, and they broke into pigeon-lofts, and dove-cotes, and killed and ate the pigeons. Moreover, they boasted of all these exploits as if they had been the greatest fun in the world. So, on the whole, I was somewhat disgusted. However, it opened up a new phase of life before me, and so I gained some experience.But, children, you must not suppose that I, a silken-coated Persian and a brave soldier’s cat, kept with this gang all night. I did not, but retired into a garden arbour early in the evening to have a quiet talk with a lady-cat who, it was evident from her voice and manners, had seen better days.She was a very pretty half-bred Angora, or rather, I should say, she had been pretty once upon a time, but at present her face was thin and worn, her eyes looked world-weary, and her coat hung around her in mats and tatters.“And so,” she said, after we had settled down face to face, “and so you have been far travelled, and come all the way from across the seas?”“Yes,” I answered, “and I am going all the way back again. The fact is, I have no real home, except where master is, and I do not care where that may be, whether on the lonesome moorland, amidst the city’s bustle, din, and strife, or far away upon the lone blue sea, I say, that if he be with me I am at home.”“Ah!” sighed the poor waif in front of me. “I wish I had a kind master or mistress, if so you wouldn’t find me here to-night. Why, I haven’t even a name now, though they used to call me Zulina.”“A pretty name,” I said; “but tell me, Zulina, how did so ladylike-looking and evidently amiable a pussy as you become a nomad and a wanderer?”“Oh, don’t call me amiable,” she answered: “indeed, I am not. All my amiability, and ever, love, for the human race, has been crushed out of me. Well, once I had a home in the outskirts of this very city, and many home-ties too. It was a pretty house, with gardens all around it, and custom and long residence thereat had much endeared me to it. I knew every hole and corner of it. Knew every mouse-run, the cupboards, and the cosy nooks where I could have a quiet snooze when I needed such refreshment, and the places in which I could hide when hiding became an absolute necessity. I was acquainted with the manner of egress and ingress, so that I felt free and untrammelled, and I was familiar with every sound so that my rest was never disturbed by night, nor my nerves jarred by day.“And out of doors too, Shireen, everything about the dear old place was familiar to me; the trees on which the sparrows perched, the field where I often found an egg, the meadow where the wild rabbits played, and the paths by which I could reach it in safety.“But I was taken away from this home by a mistress who used to profess such love for me, and removed to a town more than twenty miles from Dublin. My new home too, was right in the centre of the town, and everything about it looked strange and foreign to me. But so long as I felt sure my mistress loved me, I did not care, so I began to learn the place by heart, as it were, and all the outs and ins of it.“But lo! what was my astonishment to hear my mistress say one day:“‘I don’t think we can put up with that cat now in this new house. I think we had better give a boy sixpence to drown it to-morrow morning.’“That night I left the house, and the ungrateful mistress I had loved so well and dearly. I left the house, and the town too, and wandered on and on nearly all night, and at early dawn I was back again at my dear-loved home.“I had forgotten there were strangers there now. And they treated me as a stray cat, and drummed me out when I dared to put my nose over the threshold.“What could I do, Shireen? I could not endure the pangs of hunger, and though I hung about the garden of my old home for days, and made many a plaintive but useless appeal to the new-comers, I was forced at last to cast aside the mantle of virtue and become a thief. Yes, I even broke into the new people’s pigeon-loft and stole a bird. Then I took to this evil existence, and since then, alas! I have never been inside a human habitation except to steal.”“Well, Zulina, it is very sad,” I said; “but I think you should try to reform even yet, and some kind lady might take pity on you.”“No, no, no,” sighed Zulina, “I am but a homeless waif and stray, and my fate, I fear, will be to die in the street, or be torn to pieces by dogs.”“I’m going to hope for better things for you, Zulina,” I insisted. “But good-bye. Yonder is the grey dawn stealing up into the sky, and I think I hear the milkman’s cry in a distant street. I must try to find my master’s hotel. Good-bye.”It was a long distance round, but my instinct was unerring, and finally I found myself trotting up the correct street, and soon after sitting in the area doorway.Down came the milkman with his rattling cans, and in a minute or two, Biddy, with her hair in papers, and looking very sleepy, opened the door.While Biddy and the milkman were interchanging a few courtesies, I slipped quietly into the house and made my way as fast as I could upstairs to the second floor.I soon spied my master’s boots, and mewed at the door.It was opened in a moment, and in I popped, purring as loudly as I knew how to.“Oh! pussy, pussy,” he cried, as he picked me up, “I thought I would never see you more, and I was quite disconsolate. You went out by the back and over the tiles, and now you’ve come in at the front; how did you find your way round?“It is instinct, instinct, I suppose,” he added. “He who guides the great fur seals back through the stormy seas, through hundreds of miles of darkness and mist to their far northern islands in June, He guided you.“‘Reason raise o’er instinct if we can,In this ’tis God directs, in that ’tis man.’”Well, Warlock, we left Dublin, and at last found ourselves at Waterloo Station.The train was in, and I was in also. I was in a basket, and I didn’t half like it.I heard my master say to a railway porter, “Take charge of that basket for a few minutes, porter, till I go and buy some newspapers.”Five minutes after this, when Edgar returned, he met that railway porter, and he was looking very disconsolate indeed.His hands were bleeding, and he carried an empty basket.“Oh! sir,” he cried, “your cat has gone. The basket was not securely fastened, and as soon as you left she wriggled out.”“But why, man, didn’t you stick to her?” cried master.“I tried to all I could, I do assure you, sir; but she bit me and tore my hands, then jumped down and disappeared in the crowd.”“Well, come along and take my things out of the compartment where we put them, for I shan’t go by this train.”“I’m so sorry, sir. But she’s only a cat, sir. You could get another.”“Do as you’re told, porter, please,” said my master imperiously.Without another word the porter followed him to the first-class compartment, and there they found me cosily snuggled up among the rugs!(This incident occurred just as described, thedramatis personaebeing the author and his own far-travelled cat Muffie Two.)Master was delighted, and gave the porter half-a-sovereign to heal his wounded dignity, and his still more wounded fingers.My children, I travelled many and many a thousand miles with master after that both by sea and by land, but never again did he insult myamour propreby putting me in a creel.At this moment Lizzie and Tom joined the group of old friends on the lawn. Tom threw himself down on the grass, and began to twine the garland of gowans he had been making around the neck of Vee-Vee, the Pomeranian dog.Vee-Vee was Tom’s favourite, and never a night would the boy go to bed without him.No, Vee-Vee did not sleepinthe bed, but on a couch in the same cosy little room. He was exceedingly fond of the boy, a proof that love begets love, and of course the doggie would be always first awake in the morning, but he would not stir until Tommy did. As soon, however, as the little lad sighed, his first waking sigh, Vee-Vee jumped joyfully up on the bed, and his delight was simply wonderful.How nice to be awakened thus by one who loves you, even if it be but a dog.Vee-Vee was quite as rapturous in the welcome with which he used to greet Tommy’s home-coming, if he happened to be away all day.During the lad’s absence the dog would refuse all food, and simply lie in the hall with eyes open and ears erect until he heard his little master’s voice or footstep; then he would spring up quite beside himself with joy, his bark having a kind of half hysterical ring in it, as if tears were hindering its clearer utterance.Vee-Vee now seemed rejoiced to get the garland of gowans. It was a mark of favour on the part of Tommy that he acknowledged by licking his hands and cheek.Meanwhile Lizzie had brought out a rug to place on the grass, that she might sit thereon, and so save herself from the damp.As she was spreading it on the green sward something tumbled out.That something was Chammy.“Oh, Chammy, Chammy!” cried Lizzie delighted, “we thought you were dead. Wherewillyou hide next?”But Chammy gathered himself slowly up and crawled away, one leg at a time, to look for a fly.

Just a few weeks after this, and while reading a letter at breakfast, my master’s face flushed with joy.

There was nobody in the room but me, for the old lady did not come down to breakfast very early.

“Why, pussy Shireen, what do you think?” he cried.

Of course, I couldn’t tell what the matter might be.

“My regiment—the 78th Highlanders—has been ordered to Persia, to give the Persians a drubbing for insolence to our Government, and if I am well enough I must join forthwith. Hurrah! Of course I’m well enough.

“There will be many regiments there as well as ours, but oh, Shireen! won’t it be joyful, and you must come too, pussy. It may seem strange for the captain of a gallant regiment to have a cat as a pet, but what care I? Many a brave soldier has loved his pussy, so you come along with me, and I’ll chance it.

“Now,” he added, “I’ll just write a letter to the War Office, saying that I am well, and burning to join my regiment, then I’ll go down the hill and post it before auntie is up. That will settle it.”

Well, of course, children, Mrs Clifford was very sorry to lose her dear Edgar, as she called him, so soon again; but she was a brave old lady, and though she cried a little, she gave him a blessing and bade him go.

“Duty must be obeyed, Edgar,” she said, “even though hearts should break. Go, my boy, your country calls you.”

I don’t think, children, there was a much happier cat than pussy Shireen on the day my master left Waterloo Station for Portsmouth, to take passage for Bombay in a ship of war, especially when the brave soldier told me that this ship was to be commanded by Captain Beecroft himself. Indeed, hearing that we were going to India to join our regiment for service in Persia, Captain Beecroft had written to us, offering us a passage, and saying he would be very glad indeed to have master once more on board his vessel. And, he added, as master knew none of the officers in the wardroom, he would be happy to have him as a guest in his own apartments.

We had not gone straight to London, I may tell you, Warlock, from Yorkshire. We had a run over to Dublin first to see a friend, and on board the steamer I astonished everybody by my perfect coolness. I even ran right up the rigging into the foretop, and had a look around me, and the sailors all declared I was a ship’s cat born and bred.

Well, we had arrived at our hotel in the evening. I may tell you that it stood in one of the principal streets, and right in the middle of it, so that anyone going out by a back window and across the tiles, would have to go a long way round to get to the front door again.

Of course, Warlock, no human being would have dreamt of going out at a back window and along the tiles, and no dog either. But it is precisely what I did when master shut me in the room, and locked me in for safety till he should post a letter.

When he returned, behold! no Shireen was there, and he called me from the window in vain.

The truth is, I had never been to Ireland before, and wanted to see what the Irish cats were like; so I determined to spend a night on the tiles and go home with the milk in the morning.

I can’t say, however, that I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I found the Dublin cats a rather disreputable gang. They serenaded nervous old gentlemen, and had water and brushes and lumps of coal and the boot-jack thrown at them; they scratched up beds of choice flowers, and they broke into pigeon-lofts, and dove-cotes, and killed and ate the pigeons. Moreover, they boasted of all these exploits as if they had been the greatest fun in the world. So, on the whole, I was somewhat disgusted. However, it opened up a new phase of life before me, and so I gained some experience.

But, children, you must not suppose that I, a silken-coated Persian and a brave soldier’s cat, kept with this gang all night. I did not, but retired into a garden arbour early in the evening to have a quiet talk with a lady-cat who, it was evident from her voice and manners, had seen better days.

She was a very pretty half-bred Angora, or rather, I should say, she had been pretty once upon a time, but at present her face was thin and worn, her eyes looked world-weary, and her coat hung around her in mats and tatters.

“And so,” she said, after we had settled down face to face, “and so you have been far travelled, and come all the way from across the seas?”

“Yes,” I answered, “and I am going all the way back again. The fact is, I have no real home, except where master is, and I do not care where that may be, whether on the lonesome moorland, amidst the city’s bustle, din, and strife, or far away upon the lone blue sea, I say, that if he be with me I am at home.”

“Ah!” sighed the poor waif in front of me. “I wish I had a kind master or mistress, if so you wouldn’t find me here to-night. Why, I haven’t even a name now, though they used to call me Zulina.”

“A pretty name,” I said; “but tell me, Zulina, how did so ladylike-looking and evidently amiable a pussy as you become a nomad and a wanderer?”

“Oh, don’t call me amiable,” she answered: “indeed, I am not. All my amiability, and ever, love, for the human race, has been crushed out of me. Well, once I had a home in the outskirts of this very city, and many home-ties too. It was a pretty house, with gardens all around it, and custom and long residence thereat had much endeared me to it. I knew every hole and corner of it. Knew every mouse-run, the cupboards, and the cosy nooks where I could have a quiet snooze when I needed such refreshment, and the places in which I could hide when hiding became an absolute necessity. I was acquainted with the manner of egress and ingress, so that I felt free and untrammelled, and I was familiar with every sound so that my rest was never disturbed by night, nor my nerves jarred by day.

“And out of doors too, Shireen, everything about the dear old place was familiar to me; the trees on which the sparrows perched, the field where I often found an egg, the meadow where the wild rabbits played, and the paths by which I could reach it in safety.

“But I was taken away from this home by a mistress who used to profess such love for me, and removed to a town more than twenty miles from Dublin. My new home too, was right in the centre of the town, and everything about it looked strange and foreign to me. But so long as I felt sure my mistress loved me, I did not care, so I began to learn the place by heart, as it were, and all the outs and ins of it.

“But lo! what was my astonishment to hear my mistress say one day:

“‘I don’t think we can put up with that cat now in this new house. I think we had better give a boy sixpence to drown it to-morrow morning.’

“That night I left the house, and the ungrateful mistress I had loved so well and dearly. I left the house, and the town too, and wandered on and on nearly all night, and at early dawn I was back again at my dear-loved home.

“I had forgotten there were strangers there now. And they treated me as a stray cat, and drummed me out when I dared to put my nose over the threshold.

“What could I do, Shireen? I could not endure the pangs of hunger, and though I hung about the garden of my old home for days, and made many a plaintive but useless appeal to the new-comers, I was forced at last to cast aside the mantle of virtue and become a thief. Yes, I even broke into the new people’s pigeon-loft and stole a bird. Then I took to this evil existence, and since then, alas! I have never been inside a human habitation except to steal.”

“Well, Zulina, it is very sad,” I said; “but I think you should try to reform even yet, and some kind lady might take pity on you.”

“No, no, no,” sighed Zulina, “I am but a homeless waif and stray, and my fate, I fear, will be to die in the street, or be torn to pieces by dogs.”

“I’m going to hope for better things for you, Zulina,” I insisted. “But good-bye. Yonder is the grey dawn stealing up into the sky, and I think I hear the milkman’s cry in a distant street. I must try to find my master’s hotel. Good-bye.”

It was a long distance round, but my instinct was unerring, and finally I found myself trotting up the correct street, and soon after sitting in the area doorway.

Down came the milkman with his rattling cans, and in a minute or two, Biddy, with her hair in papers, and looking very sleepy, opened the door.

While Biddy and the milkman were interchanging a few courtesies, I slipped quietly into the house and made my way as fast as I could upstairs to the second floor.

I soon spied my master’s boots, and mewed at the door.

It was opened in a moment, and in I popped, purring as loudly as I knew how to.

“Oh! pussy, pussy,” he cried, as he picked me up, “I thought I would never see you more, and I was quite disconsolate. You went out by the back and over the tiles, and now you’ve come in at the front; how did you find your way round?

“It is instinct, instinct, I suppose,” he added. “He who guides the great fur seals back through the stormy seas, through hundreds of miles of darkness and mist to their far northern islands in June, He guided you.

“‘Reason raise o’er instinct if we can,In this ’tis God directs, in that ’tis man.’”

“‘Reason raise o’er instinct if we can,In this ’tis God directs, in that ’tis man.’”

Well, Warlock, we left Dublin, and at last found ourselves at Waterloo Station.

The train was in, and I was in also. I was in a basket, and I didn’t half like it.

I heard my master say to a railway porter, “Take charge of that basket for a few minutes, porter, till I go and buy some newspapers.”

Five minutes after this, when Edgar returned, he met that railway porter, and he was looking very disconsolate indeed.

His hands were bleeding, and he carried an empty basket.

“Oh! sir,” he cried, “your cat has gone. The basket was not securely fastened, and as soon as you left she wriggled out.”

“But why, man, didn’t you stick to her?” cried master.

“I tried to all I could, I do assure you, sir; but she bit me and tore my hands, then jumped down and disappeared in the crowd.”

“Well, come along and take my things out of the compartment where we put them, for I shan’t go by this train.”

“I’m so sorry, sir. But she’s only a cat, sir. You could get another.”

“Do as you’re told, porter, please,” said my master imperiously.

Without another word the porter followed him to the first-class compartment, and there they found me cosily snuggled up among the rugs!

(This incident occurred just as described, thedramatis personaebeing the author and his own far-travelled cat Muffie Two.)

Master was delighted, and gave the porter half-a-sovereign to heal his wounded dignity, and his still more wounded fingers.

My children, I travelled many and many a thousand miles with master after that both by sea and by land, but never again did he insult myamour propreby putting me in a creel.

At this moment Lizzie and Tom joined the group of old friends on the lawn. Tom threw himself down on the grass, and began to twine the garland of gowans he had been making around the neck of Vee-Vee, the Pomeranian dog.

Vee-Vee was Tom’s favourite, and never a night would the boy go to bed without him.

No, Vee-Vee did not sleepinthe bed, but on a couch in the same cosy little room. He was exceedingly fond of the boy, a proof that love begets love, and of course the doggie would be always first awake in the morning, but he would not stir until Tommy did. As soon, however, as the little lad sighed, his first waking sigh, Vee-Vee jumped joyfully up on the bed, and his delight was simply wonderful.

How nice to be awakened thus by one who loves you, even if it be but a dog.

Vee-Vee was quite as rapturous in the welcome with which he used to greet Tommy’s home-coming, if he happened to be away all day.

During the lad’s absence the dog would refuse all food, and simply lie in the hall with eyes open and ears erect until he heard his little master’s voice or footstep; then he would spring up quite beside himself with joy, his bark having a kind of half hysterical ring in it, as if tears were hindering its clearer utterance.

Vee-Vee now seemed rejoiced to get the garland of gowans. It was a mark of favour on the part of Tommy that he acknowledged by licking his hands and cheek.

Meanwhile Lizzie had brought out a rug to place on the grass, that she might sit thereon, and so save herself from the damp.

As she was spreading it on the green sward something tumbled out.

That something was Chammy.

“Oh, Chammy, Chammy!” cried Lizzie delighted, “we thought you were dead. Wherewillyou hide next?”

But Chammy gathered himself slowly up and crawled away, one leg at a time, to look for a fly.

Chapter Fifteen.“When the Fur begins to Fly.”Nobody had ever been heard to call Cracker a pretty dog or a bonnie dog. He was sturdy and strong, and nearly, if not quite, as large as a Collie. His legs were as straight as darts, and as strong as the sapling pine tree. Then his coat—ah! well, there is no way of describing that with pen and ink or in print either. It was rough though not shaggy, and every hair was as hard apparently as pin-wire.In the matter of coats, in fact, Nature had, while dressing Cracker, adhered to the useful rather than the ornamental. He had apparently come in the afternoon for his coat, and nearly all the other dogs had been before him. Collie had been fitted with his flowing toga, the Poodle with his cords and tassels, the Yorkshire terrier with his doublet of silk, and many others with coats as soft and smooth as that of a carriage horse, and poor Cracker, the Airedale terrier, had almost been forgotten.“Your coat, Cracker?” Nature had said. “Oh, certainly. I’m really afraid, however, that you have come rather late in the day to be dressed with anything like elegance.”“Oh!” Cracker had put in, “I ain’t a bit particular. Anything’ll do for Cracker, so as it is thick enough to keep out a shower with a shake.”So Nature had simply gathered up the sweepings of the shop, the cabbage and clippings, so to speak, and mixed them all up into a kind of shoddy, and dabbed Cracker all over with that, going in, however, for a few finishing touches of gold about the muzzle, the chest, and legs.And good honest Cracker had given himself a shake, and said, “This’ll do famous,” then trotted off to do his duty and his work, which, to his credit be it said, every dog of this breed knows well how to get through.Well, one sunshiny day, when the old friends, including even Chammy, who was lying in the limb of a dwarf holly, were assembled on Uncle Ben’s lawn, Ben himself and the Colonel blowing clouds in their straw chairs, and Lizzie lying with a book in Ben’s hammock, who should come through the gateway but towsy Cracker himself.He was a brave dog this, and just as modest as brave, for the two good qualities always go hand-in-hand. So he advanced in a bashful, hesitating kind of way, as if he felt he ought to apologise for his presence on the lawn at all, but didn’t know exactly how to begin. He was smiling too, a very broad smile that seemed to extend halfway down both sides.Vee-Vee and Warlock jumped up at once growling and barking, and ready to defend the family circle with their lives if there was any occasion, but seeing it was only Cracker, they ran to meet him, and give him a hearty welcome.Then Cracker advanced, shaking his droll old stump of a tail, and Shireen herself arose and rubbed her back against his legs.“No,” she said, “you certainly don’t intrude, Cracker, and we only wish you would come oftener than you do.”“Well, seeing as that’s the case,” said Cracker, “I’ll make one this afternoon at your little garden party. But I’m not much used to refined society, I bet you. More at home in a stable than in a drawing-room; the riverside and moor or the forest is more in old Cracker’s way than fountain, lawn, and shrubbery. But, la! Shireen, whatever is that lying along that branch? It isn’t a big snail and it ain’t a large slug, sometimes grey and sometimes green. Well, of all the ugly—”“It’s a friend of ours,” said Shireen, interrupting Cracker, “and, I assure you, Chammy won’t hurt anything or anybody except the flies and mealworms.”“Well, well,” said Cracker, “wonders ’ll never cease, but if I had met a beast like that in the woods, I’d have bolted quick, you bet, and never turned tail till safe in my kennel again.”“And now, Mother Shireen, let us have some more of your story,” said Vee-Vee.“Ah! yes,” said Tabby; “but what a pity Cracker didn’t hear the first part.”Well, said Shireen, we arrived at Portsmouth, I and my master as safe as anything, and after dinner proceeded on board.TheHydrawas the name of the war ship on which we were to sail for India’s distant shore. She was a fine craft of the kind human beings call a corvette. I was not long in perceiving that she carried many long black guns, but was glad to learn soon after my arrival, that as we were going to make a very quick passage out to Bombay, these awful guns would hardly ever be fired.TheHydrawas much larger than the oldVenom, had fine open decks, and tall, raking masts, with a low, wide funnel of jet, up which went the crimson copper steampipe. Her decks were as white as ivory, and I could see my face in the polished woodwork, to say nothing of the brass that shone like gold.I trotted along by my master’s side towards the quarter-deck.Captain Beecroft in uniform, and looking young and happy, came forward with a smile to bid us welcome.“So you haven’t parted with your beautiful cat?” said the captain, as we walked to the companion.“No, Beecroft, nothing, I hope, will ever part me from her.”“I wonder,” said Beecroft, “if she’ll remember her old pal, the hero, Tom Brandy.”“What? Have you still got Tom?”“Yes. It isn’t likely I’d sail without black Tom. That would be to throw away my luck, you know, and I’d never become an Admiral.”“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed master; “but how superstitious sailors are!”“And some soldiers too, ain’t they? ha, ha!”Then both laughed, and Beecroft led the way to his quarters, a sentry at the door saluting as we passed by.I declare to you, children, when I saw honest Tom Brandy lying there on a skin rug in front of the stove—for it was almost winter now, and very cold—you could have knocked me down with a sledge hammer.I felt all over in a whirl with joy, and for a moment I didn’t know whether my top or my toes were uppermost.Tom jumped up with a fond cry, and ran to meet me, and the two of us ran round and round the table in order to allay our feelings, like a pair of three-month-old kittens.But we both settled down on the skin in a few minutes, and commenced singing a duet together, to the accompaniment of a coffee-urn that simmered above the stove.“Just like old times, isn’t it, soldier?” said Beecroft, looking down at me and Tom.“Just like old times, sailor,” said master.Then the two shook hands once more.And down they sat to talk and smoke.The ship sailed in a day or two, heading away down channel on a beam wind. Tom told me it was a beam wind, else I wouldn’t have known, for it was just the same colour as any other wind. Tom also told me we were under close-reefed topsails and storm jib, and that if it came on to blow a bit more, we should be scudding under bare poles.I said, “Oh, indeed!” But I didn’t know in the least what Tom meant.You will observe, children, that Tom was dreadfully learned and nautical.He was looking far more respectable and beautiful than when I saw him last. He had a new coat of jetty black, and there wasn’t a single burnt hole in it. He was rounder in the face, too, and more brilliant in eye.When I remarked upon these improvements.“Oh,” he said, “it is like this, Shireen, I have been living in the bosom of the Captain’s own family on shore, and on the fat of the land, as you might say.“I’ve turned over a new leaf too,” he added, looking pensively at the blazing, caking coal, and swaying to and fro with the motion of the ship. “When I came on board the oldVenomI wasn’t what you might have called strictly honest. I would have laid hands on a herring at any time; and I once tried to eat the cook’s canary, and was beautifully basted in consequence. But I’ve seen the error of my ways, and now that I am the Captain’s cat, I consider it is more honourable to beg than to steal. But my eyes, Shireen, how beautiful you’re looking! And to think I’ve got you back again. Won’t we have some jolly larks, and won’t we catch some flying fish. A few, eh? But mind you, Shireen, no going to sleep on the bulwarks and tumbling into the sea, this cruise.”“Oh, it makes me shudder to think of that wild adventure, Tom,” I said.“Yes, those sharks pretty nearly had us, hadn’t they, Shireen? If they hadn’t set to quarrelling among themselves as to which would have the white cat and which the black, they’d have eaten us both.”“Heigho!” I sighed, and looked at Tom.“Heigho!” sighed Tom, and looked at me.Then we went on with the duet.The weather soon grew so warm and balmy, and beautiful, that there was no longer any need for a fire in the stove, and the captain’s steward took away the skin, and put down a clean straw mat, and covered the sofa with coolest white and blue chintz, and the ports were carried open all day long, so that we could feel the breeze, and see the dark rippling ocean rushing past us, all bespangled with splashes of sunshine.I was of course quite an old sailor, though I couldn’t speak nautical like Tom, and I enjoyed this cruise even more than the last.So I ought to. Was not every day taking me nearer and nearer to my dear little mistress Beebee? And the shorter the time, the more I seemed to love her.“Instead of going away from home,” said dear master to me one day in the cabin, “I seem to be going to my home, and going to happiness. Oh, I do hope, Shireen, that something will turn up for our good. The fortunes of war are so changeable, you know, Shireen, and we may see Beebee, may be able even to save her from her fate; but alas! we may not.”We rounded the Cape in wild weather. The waves were mountains high, children; thunder roared and shook the ship, and lightning flash, quickly following flash, played around us, till all the ocean looked like a vast sea of fire. I was almost as much afraid of the thunder as I had been of the great guns on board the saucyVenom.But soon we got out of this region of storms, and went north and away, the weather getting warmer day after day.We were soon in the delightful regions of the flying fish; but I took great care not to fall asleep again on the bulwarks.Everything looked the same in this great turquoisine sea; the bonitoes, the flying fish, the dancing, cooing dolphins, and even those terrible sly-eyed tigers of the sea—the sharks.On and on and north and north we went. Sometimes we passed a green island, that seemed to hang in the air, rather than float on the ocean; and sometimes the surface of the water was patched here and there with glass-green or pearl-grey, and I knew, or rather Tom told me, that we were sailing over shoals, and at night extra look-outs had to be set, lest we should strike the coral rocks, and the ship break up, when we should all be drowned, and I should never see my mistress more.It was what they call the cool season when we reached Bombay at last. But such a bustling, busy scene, never did I see before in all my life!It was baggage and stores here, there, and everywhere, and soldiers all about, and boats skimming the water in every direction; and drums beating, bugles blowing, and great Highland bagpipes screaming, till I declare to you, children, it made me quite dizzy. The worst of it was, that for some days now I didn’t see so much of my master, though you may be sure I took good care to be at his side whenever I could.I was sorry when the time came to part with Tom again, but we plighted our troth, and promised never to forget the happy cruise in theHydra.When it was all over and we were once more at sea,en routefor the Persian Gulf, I gave a great sigh of relief. But I did feel a little lonely without Tom Brandy, and kept all the more closely to my master in consequence.I was now to become a soldier’s cat in downright earnest, and know something about the horrors of war. Shireen paused for a moment. “Cracker,” she said, “do you like the story?”“It’s a beauty,” said Cracker, “and I’ll like it still better when the fighting commences and the fur begins to fly.”

Nobody had ever been heard to call Cracker a pretty dog or a bonnie dog. He was sturdy and strong, and nearly, if not quite, as large as a Collie. His legs were as straight as darts, and as strong as the sapling pine tree. Then his coat—ah! well, there is no way of describing that with pen and ink or in print either. It was rough though not shaggy, and every hair was as hard apparently as pin-wire.

In the matter of coats, in fact, Nature had, while dressing Cracker, adhered to the useful rather than the ornamental. He had apparently come in the afternoon for his coat, and nearly all the other dogs had been before him. Collie had been fitted with his flowing toga, the Poodle with his cords and tassels, the Yorkshire terrier with his doublet of silk, and many others with coats as soft and smooth as that of a carriage horse, and poor Cracker, the Airedale terrier, had almost been forgotten.

“Your coat, Cracker?” Nature had said. “Oh, certainly. I’m really afraid, however, that you have come rather late in the day to be dressed with anything like elegance.”

“Oh!” Cracker had put in, “I ain’t a bit particular. Anything’ll do for Cracker, so as it is thick enough to keep out a shower with a shake.”

So Nature had simply gathered up the sweepings of the shop, the cabbage and clippings, so to speak, and mixed them all up into a kind of shoddy, and dabbed Cracker all over with that, going in, however, for a few finishing touches of gold about the muzzle, the chest, and legs.

And good honest Cracker had given himself a shake, and said, “This’ll do famous,” then trotted off to do his duty and his work, which, to his credit be it said, every dog of this breed knows well how to get through.

Well, one sunshiny day, when the old friends, including even Chammy, who was lying in the limb of a dwarf holly, were assembled on Uncle Ben’s lawn, Ben himself and the Colonel blowing clouds in their straw chairs, and Lizzie lying with a book in Ben’s hammock, who should come through the gateway but towsy Cracker himself.

He was a brave dog this, and just as modest as brave, for the two good qualities always go hand-in-hand. So he advanced in a bashful, hesitating kind of way, as if he felt he ought to apologise for his presence on the lawn at all, but didn’t know exactly how to begin. He was smiling too, a very broad smile that seemed to extend halfway down both sides.

Vee-Vee and Warlock jumped up at once growling and barking, and ready to defend the family circle with their lives if there was any occasion, but seeing it was only Cracker, they ran to meet him, and give him a hearty welcome.

Then Cracker advanced, shaking his droll old stump of a tail, and Shireen herself arose and rubbed her back against his legs.

“No,” she said, “you certainly don’t intrude, Cracker, and we only wish you would come oftener than you do.”

“Well, seeing as that’s the case,” said Cracker, “I’ll make one this afternoon at your little garden party. But I’m not much used to refined society, I bet you. More at home in a stable than in a drawing-room; the riverside and moor or the forest is more in old Cracker’s way than fountain, lawn, and shrubbery. But, la! Shireen, whatever is that lying along that branch? It isn’t a big snail and it ain’t a large slug, sometimes grey and sometimes green. Well, of all the ugly—”

“It’s a friend of ours,” said Shireen, interrupting Cracker, “and, I assure you, Chammy won’t hurt anything or anybody except the flies and mealworms.”

“Well, well,” said Cracker, “wonders ’ll never cease, but if I had met a beast like that in the woods, I’d have bolted quick, you bet, and never turned tail till safe in my kennel again.”

“And now, Mother Shireen, let us have some more of your story,” said Vee-Vee.

“Ah! yes,” said Tabby; “but what a pity Cracker didn’t hear the first part.”

Well, said Shireen, we arrived at Portsmouth, I and my master as safe as anything, and after dinner proceeded on board.

TheHydrawas the name of the war ship on which we were to sail for India’s distant shore. She was a fine craft of the kind human beings call a corvette. I was not long in perceiving that she carried many long black guns, but was glad to learn soon after my arrival, that as we were going to make a very quick passage out to Bombay, these awful guns would hardly ever be fired.

TheHydrawas much larger than the oldVenom, had fine open decks, and tall, raking masts, with a low, wide funnel of jet, up which went the crimson copper steampipe. Her decks were as white as ivory, and I could see my face in the polished woodwork, to say nothing of the brass that shone like gold.

I trotted along by my master’s side towards the quarter-deck.

Captain Beecroft in uniform, and looking young and happy, came forward with a smile to bid us welcome.

“So you haven’t parted with your beautiful cat?” said the captain, as we walked to the companion.

“No, Beecroft, nothing, I hope, will ever part me from her.”

“I wonder,” said Beecroft, “if she’ll remember her old pal, the hero, Tom Brandy.”

“What? Have you still got Tom?”

“Yes. It isn’t likely I’d sail without black Tom. That would be to throw away my luck, you know, and I’d never become an Admiral.”

“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed master; “but how superstitious sailors are!”

“And some soldiers too, ain’t they? ha, ha!”

Then both laughed, and Beecroft led the way to his quarters, a sentry at the door saluting as we passed by.

I declare to you, children, when I saw honest Tom Brandy lying there on a skin rug in front of the stove—for it was almost winter now, and very cold—you could have knocked me down with a sledge hammer.

I felt all over in a whirl with joy, and for a moment I didn’t know whether my top or my toes were uppermost.

Tom jumped up with a fond cry, and ran to meet me, and the two of us ran round and round the table in order to allay our feelings, like a pair of three-month-old kittens.

But we both settled down on the skin in a few minutes, and commenced singing a duet together, to the accompaniment of a coffee-urn that simmered above the stove.

“Just like old times, isn’t it, soldier?” said Beecroft, looking down at me and Tom.

“Just like old times, sailor,” said master.

Then the two shook hands once more.

And down they sat to talk and smoke.

The ship sailed in a day or two, heading away down channel on a beam wind. Tom told me it was a beam wind, else I wouldn’t have known, for it was just the same colour as any other wind. Tom also told me we were under close-reefed topsails and storm jib, and that if it came on to blow a bit more, we should be scudding under bare poles.

I said, “Oh, indeed!” But I didn’t know in the least what Tom meant.

You will observe, children, that Tom was dreadfully learned and nautical.

He was looking far more respectable and beautiful than when I saw him last. He had a new coat of jetty black, and there wasn’t a single burnt hole in it. He was rounder in the face, too, and more brilliant in eye.

When I remarked upon these improvements.

“Oh,” he said, “it is like this, Shireen, I have been living in the bosom of the Captain’s own family on shore, and on the fat of the land, as you might say.

“I’ve turned over a new leaf too,” he added, looking pensively at the blazing, caking coal, and swaying to and fro with the motion of the ship. “When I came on board the oldVenomI wasn’t what you might have called strictly honest. I would have laid hands on a herring at any time; and I once tried to eat the cook’s canary, and was beautifully basted in consequence. But I’ve seen the error of my ways, and now that I am the Captain’s cat, I consider it is more honourable to beg than to steal. But my eyes, Shireen, how beautiful you’re looking! And to think I’ve got you back again. Won’t we have some jolly larks, and won’t we catch some flying fish. A few, eh? But mind you, Shireen, no going to sleep on the bulwarks and tumbling into the sea, this cruise.”

“Oh, it makes me shudder to think of that wild adventure, Tom,” I said.

“Yes, those sharks pretty nearly had us, hadn’t they, Shireen? If they hadn’t set to quarrelling among themselves as to which would have the white cat and which the black, they’d have eaten us both.”

“Heigho!” I sighed, and looked at Tom.

“Heigho!” sighed Tom, and looked at me.

Then we went on with the duet.

The weather soon grew so warm and balmy, and beautiful, that there was no longer any need for a fire in the stove, and the captain’s steward took away the skin, and put down a clean straw mat, and covered the sofa with coolest white and blue chintz, and the ports were carried open all day long, so that we could feel the breeze, and see the dark rippling ocean rushing past us, all bespangled with splashes of sunshine.

I was of course quite an old sailor, though I couldn’t speak nautical like Tom, and I enjoyed this cruise even more than the last.

So I ought to. Was not every day taking me nearer and nearer to my dear little mistress Beebee? And the shorter the time, the more I seemed to love her.

“Instead of going away from home,” said dear master to me one day in the cabin, “I seem to be going to my home, and going to happiness. Oh, I do hope, Shireen, that something will turn up for our good. The fortunes of war are so changeable, you know, Shireen, and we may see Beebee, may be able even to save her from her fate; but alas! we may not.”

We rounded the Cape in wild weather. The waves were mountains high, children; thunder roared and shook the ship, and lightning flash, quickly following flash, played around us, till all the ocean looked like a vast sea of fire. I was almost as much afraid of the thunder as I had been of the great guns on board the saucyVenom.

But soon we got out of this region of storms, and went north and away, the weather getting warmer day after day.

We were soon in the delightful regions of the flying fish; but I took great care not to fall asleep again on the bulwarks.

Everything looked the same in this great turquoisine sea; the bonitoes, the flying fish, the dancing, cooing dolphins, and even those terrible sly-eyed tigers of the sea—the sharks.

On and on and north and north we went. Sometimes we passed a green island, that seemed to hang in the air, rather than float on the ocean; and sometimes the surface of the water was patched here and there with glass-green or pearl-grey, and I knew, or rather Tom told me, that we were sailing over shoals, and at night extra look-outs had to be set, lest we should strike the coral rocks, and the ship break up, when we should all be drowned, and I should never see my mistress more.

It was what they call the cool season when we reached Bombay at last. But such a bustling, busy scene, never did I see before in all my life!

It was baggage and stores here, there, and everywhere, and soldiers all about, and boats skimming the water in every direction; and drums beating, bugles blowing, and great Highland bagpipes screaming, till I declare to you, children, it made me quite dizzy. The worst of it was, that for some days now I didn’t see so much of my master, though you may be sure I took good care to be at his side whenever I could.

I was sorry when the time came to part with Tom again, but we plighted our troth, and promised never to forget the happy cruise in theHydra.

When it was all over and we were once more at sea,en routefor the Persian Gulf, I gave a great sigh of relief. But I did feel a little lonely without Tom Brandy, and kept all the more closely to my master in consequence.

I was now to become a soldier’s cat in downright earnest, and know something about the horrors of war. Shireen paused for a moment. “Cracker,” she said, “do you like the story?”

“It’s a beauty,” said Cracker, “and I’ll like it still better when the fighting commences and the fur begins to fly.”

Chapter Sixteen.The Fight was Hand to Hand and Horrible!Well, Cracker, my dear friend, the fighting did begin in earnest, and soon too after we landed, though I’m sure I was very much puzzled indeed, and tried in vain to make out what it all meant.How I wished that Tom had been there to help me, for I think Tom knew nearly everything worth knowing.For the first time now I saw my master in full fighting array. He called his fine clothes his war-paint, and he drew a huge long knife out of a holder, and showed me how sharp it was, and said he was going to do and die in his country’s cause.I wasn’t quite sure what doing and dying in a country’s cause was. But from the very commencement I knew that those soldier-men made a terrible din.My master, in his gallant uniform and long sharp knife, belonged to the gay Highlanders, and they were the first sent on shore, and marched about in line and wheeled and tacked to the sound of the skirling bagpipes, with no other idea, I thought, than just to show off their fine clothes.War, I began to think, must be very nice indeed.Ah! but Cracker, the fur hadn’t begun to fly yet.Well, master’s servant was a very tall fighting-man of the Highlanders, whom his comrades called Jock McNab.“McNab,” said my master one day.The red-faced, big pleasant man saluted.“What’s your wull?” said Jock McNab.“Shireen knows you well by this time.”“Ah! ’deed she does,” said Jock, “and lo’es me too.”“Well, Mac, we’ve both got to look after her. Do you think when we get into grips with the enemy, that Shireen would sit on top of your knapsack?”“Weel,” said Jock, “if you’ll gie me leave, sir, I’ll soon drill her to that.”So Jock took me in hand that very evening after we reached camp, and began to teach me what he called “knapsack drill.”It was very simple. I was put on top of the knapsack and Jock fixed the bayonet on his gun and commenced plunging about up and down, and high and low, as if in front of the enemy. But I set my nails firmly into the knapsack and nothing could shake me off.“That’ll do fine for a beginning,” said Jock.There were British soldiers in the entrenched camp before Bushire, when we landed there, and marched to it, and right hearty welcome they made us.The camp was in the middle of a vast plain, on which grew here and there some clumps of palm trees, and here and there a ruin stood. To our left was the blue sea, with the far-off shipping. Some distance in front of us was the walled town itself, built upon a long spit of land, and washed nearly all round by the sea. Far away behind the town were the lofty mountains, their snowy heads rising-high into the azure sky.“Poetry again!” said Warlock.“A spice of poesy,” said Shireen grandly, “sometimes adds attraction to a scene. Don’t you think so, Cracker?”“Well, Shireen, to tell you the truth I can’t say I understand it like. My mother used to say to me ‘Cracker,’ she said, ‘in your journey through this vale of tears, always make a better use of your teeth than your tongue.’”“Very good,” said Warlock. “Your mother must have been a brick, Cracker.”“A brick, Warlock. What a funny idea! No, no, my mother was a Bingley terrier. But go on, Shireen, when did the fur begin to fly?”Not yet a bit, Cracker. Well, at night, I found my way to master’s tent, and was glad to snuggle up in his arms, for though the days were warm the nights were bitterly cold.Just before I fell asleep, Jock McNab came to the tent.“I’m sayin’, sir,” he said.“Yes, Mac, what is it?”“Is Shireen wi’ you?”“That she is. Thank you, McNab, for being so mindful.”“That’s a’ richt then,” said Jock. “Good-nicht.”And away the faithful fellow went.Now although we were lying in camp here before Bushire, we weren’t going to attack this town. Indeed, the people seemed very glad to see us, and sold us all kinds of nice things. So our brave General Outram soon got ready to make a terrible attack upon an entrenched camp of the Persians, fifty miles distant, and we had to walk all the way.What a beautiful sight it was, I thought, to see all those brave soldiers in lines and lines, outside the camp; horses, Highlanders, and even fighting sailors and artillerymen. Of course you won’t understand all I am saying, Cracker, but I am a soldier’s cat, you know, and cannot help feeling a little martial ardour when I think of that splendid campaign.Well, off we marched at last, my master at the head of his company, and I, perched on Jock McNab’s knapsack, but keeping master in my eye all the time.What a long weary, dreary march that was to Char Kota!“Eh? Eh? What is it?” said the starling. “What d’ye say?”“I said Char Kota, Dick, but I’m not going to use any hard names if I can help it, you may be sure.”Well, continued Shireen, the village I mentioned is twenty-six miles from the shore, but after a long halt we fell in again, and it was ten o’clock at night before we got to the place where we were to rest till morning.Oh, how tired and weary the poor fellows were, for all the afternoon a cruel high cold wind had been raising dust-clouds around us, and buffeting us till we could hardly get on!During a great part of the march I trotted by my master’s side.The night turned out bitterly cold, and as we lay on the ground the rain fell in torrents. The thunder roared and lightning flashed, till I thought surely we would be all drowned. As it was we were drenched to the skin.Firing took place next morning, and I was a bit frightened; but Jock told me the men were only tiring off their pieces to make sure they were all right, after the heavy night of drenching rain.The fight was to begin to-day, this very forenoon, for the enemy with all his guns was but five miles away, in his fortified camp at Brásjòon.“The fur would soon fly,” said Cracker, beginning to get much interested.“Ah! but, Cracker, the fur didn’t fly, for the enemy did.”“They weren’t real terriers,” Cracker said, “you bet.”No, and so they ran, and we took their camp, and their guns, and a lot of other things, and settled down for a bit, after destroying all the stores we didn’t want.It was a cold, clear night, with the moon shining very brightly on the plain and camp, and on the great mountains rising in rocky terraces high into the starry sky, and not very far from us. We expected the great battle would be fought next day, at least the men said so, and I listened eagerly to all their conversation.But the fur didn’t fly next day after all, and now we set out to walk back to Bushire, after doing the enemy’s camp all the damage we could. We started on the march towards the shore at eight o’clock, and marched on and on, singing and talking till midnight came.Then, Cracker, the fun commenced, and the fur did begin to fly at last.“Tell us! Tell us!” cried Cracker.Oh, it is evident, Cracker, you are not a soldier’s dog, else you would know that no single person can see more than a very little bit of a battle, although he may be right in the midst of it. But if I didn’t see much I heard plenty.It was sometime past midnight, and the moon was shining, though sand was blowing and getting into our eyes, when shouting and yelling, and awful firing was heard in the rear of our army. In less than half-an-hour the moonlight battle was raging its very fiercest. Horsemen were galloping here and there, yelling forth words of command, big guns roared out on the night air, bugles rang, and musketry roared, and fire flashed in every direction.Of course, Cracker, being only a cat, I was terribly afraid, and sometimes I could not see my dear master at all for the smoke, only his flashing sword; but I often heard his brave voice high above the din of the battle, and this gave me courage and hope.But my greatest trial came when the wild horsemen of the enemy came dashing on towards the Highlanders, and attempted to break their ranks.Even at this terrible moment poor Jock McNab put up his hand and smoothed me.“Hold on, pussy,” he said. “Dinna be feared. The tulzie will soon be ower when the grim-faced foreigners get a taste o’ Highland steel.”And a terrible tulzie that was, Cracker, and I saw much blood, and flashing of fire and steel, and cries and groans and shrieks. Oh, it was awful!Then the heat of the fight seemed to surge away from us, and Jock found time to put up his hand once more and say,—“Are ye still there, Shireen? Bravo! pussy.”The firing of the foe was much farther away now, and kept on thus all night long, till day at length broke pink and blue over the lovely snow-clad mountains.Since the fierce raging of the battle, all throughout the cold hours of night, we had lain where we had stood, without fire or without covering, and showing never a light. But away in the West the pale moon began to sink at last in a cloudy haze, and at daylight nothing could be seen for the grey mists that covered hills and plain.Master came round and I rose to meet him. He asked Jock McNab as he smoked and patted my head, whether I had shown any fear during the fight.“Never a morsel, sir,” said Jock; “any more than yourself, sir.”Master went back to his place smiling at Jock’s way of paying a compliment.The firing of the enemy had by this time slackened, and it was greatly feared by our fine soldier lads that they had drawn off, and not waited “to get their licks,” as Jock phrased it.Breakfast was now hastily served out, I sharing with master, who had come round and sat down beside Jock and me.Then by degrees the morning mists gathered up and up, till they lay only like a grey cloud on the snow-clad mountain peaks, and we beheld the Persian army drawn up in battle array ready and waiting for us.It was a grand sight, Cracker, for the sun now shone gaily down on their soldiers, in serried ranks of horse and foot.They had not long to wait for us, children. But there was a lot of marching and counter-marching of regiments and brigades, that I could not understand, unless it was that our fellows were just showing off their fine clothes.But the tulzie soon commenced, and as I stuck to my seat on brave Jock’s back, my ears were deafened with the yelling and shouting and rattling of musketry, and with the awful roar of the enemy’s dread artillery.On we marched, or rushed, and soon the fight was almost hand to hand, and so horrible!But the enemy could not stand the onslaught of our forces. They began to give way and retire, and soon the battle became a rout. The Persians left nearly a thousand dead on the field, and many more bodies lay in every conceivable position along the route they had taken towards the hills.After our cavalry had chased them afar they returned, and the march was commenced back towards Bushire.It was a long, cold, wet, and weary one, but we saw the sea at last, and never did soldiers stretch their tired limbs in camp, or make their tea with greater pleasure, than did our poor fellows when they found themselves once more in their entrenched position.Some of our officers were buried next day, but I was so glad to think that neither my dear master, nor Jock, nor I, were among the wounded.Jock McNab was loud in his praises of what he was kind enough to call my pluck and coolness in the presence of the foe.“I wadna gie pussy for onything,” he said, “and I’m sure enough she brought us luck, for never a man fell near me, either dead or wounded.”This was my first battle then, Cracker, but it wasn’t my last by any means.As master said, the enemy was beaten, but being beaten doesn’t by any means signify that they were conquered.We remained quiet enough in camp now for many long monotonous days, during which the enemy did not think of disturbing us.More troops began to arrive from India. The ships lay out yonder at anchor, but a high tumbling sea rolled in upon the beach, and it was difficult indeed to communicate with the vessels, so that the poor horses in camp began to suffer from hunger, and our own rations were sometimes scant enough.The north-west wind too, blew loud and fierce, and brought with it clouds of dust, and a fine sort of sand that nothing on earth could keep out of camp. The cold at night was still bitter, but we had tents now, and I was cosy enough in master’s arms.They tell me that British soldiers and sailors are born grumblers. Well, I suppose there is some truth in this; but I must say, Cracker, our men never grumbled at the scantiness of their own rations, though they pitied the horses, but they did grumble a little because the time was passing on so monotonously, and there seemed no early chance of having another fight with the Persian foe.In fact, Cracker, the foe was getting insolent. By night we now began to see his fires on the hills around, and, although he had not the courage to attack us, he fired upon our outposts.My master, I knew, was getting impatient as well as his men.“I want to get farther on up country, pussy,” he whispered to me one evening; “up nearer the bonnie woods and bills where your heart and mine dwell, Shireen, with your dear mistress Beebee.”I purred and sang, and that seemed to give him heart.But soon after this Britain’s great hero Havelock arrived, and we all hoped then for a speedy change, and we weren’t disappointed either, Cracker.“More fur was going to fly, Shireen?”Yes, dear Cracker, more fur was going to fly, for in a week or two we were embarked in a transport, and sailing up the Euphrates river to attack the Shah’s great army at Mohammerah.This stronghold was said to be occupied by the very pink and pith of the Persian forces, in number about fifteen thousand in all.Among the chief regiments behind the formidable earthworks were seven of the Shah’s best and bravest including his guards, and the very flower of his army. Some of these were commanded by a Prince of the blood royal, and somehow or other my master found out that Beebee’s father was there also.When my dear master told me this his eyes were sparkling with joy.“It is just possible, Shireen,” he said, “that Beebee herself may be there, if so—”He did not finish the sentence, but I knew what he meant.And now, said Shireen, here come the children, so my little story must end for a time. But you’ll come again, won’t you, Cracker?“Oh, like a shot, Shireen,” said Cracker, “you bet.”“Oh!” cried Tom, running up. “Come quick, Lizzie. Here is Cracker, the dog that saved Shireen’s life, and gave the butcher’s bull-terrier such a shaking. Poor doggie Cracker. Poor dear doggie, you won’t bite, will you?”The towsy tyke looked up into the boy’s face and wagged his thick, short stump of a tail at a terrible rate, and there was so much kindness and affection in those brown eyes of his, that Tom at once bent down and threw his arms about his rough and grizzled neck.Then Lizzie, who had been to fetch some milk, came and placed it down before Cracker.Cracker really didn’t want it, but he drank it rather than anybody should think him ungrateful.“Mind,” said Tom, “you must come to the Castle to-morrow afternoon. It is Shireen’s birthday, and we are going to give a party.”Once more Cracker wagged his tail, then he went trotting away to the gate, gave one kindly look behind, and so disappeared.

Well, Cracker, my dear friend, the fighting did begin in earnest, and soon too after we landed, though I’m sure I was very much puzzled indeed, and tried in vain to make out what it all meant.

How I wished that Tom had been there to help me, for I think Tom knew nearly everything worth knowing.

For the first time now I saw my master in full fighting array. He called his fine clothes his war-paint, and he drew a huge long knife out of a holder, and showed me how sharp it was, and said he was going to do and die in his country’s cause.

I wasn’t quite sure what doing and dying in a country’s cause was. But from the very commencement I knew that those soldier-men made a terrible din.

My master, in his gallant uniform and long sharp knife, belonged to the gay Highlanders, and they were the first sent on shore, and marched about in line and wheeled and tacked to the sound of the skirling bagpipes, with no other idea, I thought, than just to show off their fine clothes.

War, I began to think, must be very nice indeed.

Ah! but Cracker, the fur hadn’t begun to fly yet.

Well, master’s servant was a very tall fighting-man of the Highlanders, whom his comrades called Jock McNab.

“McNab,” said my master one day.

The red-faced, big pleasant man saluted.

“What’s your wull?” said Jock McNab.

“Shireen knows you well by this time.”

“Ah! ’deed she does,” said Jock, “and lo’es me too.”

“Well, Mac, we’ve both got to look after her. Do you think when we get into grips with the enemy, that Shireen would sit on top of your knapsack?”

“Weel,” said Jock, “if you’ll gie me leave, sir, I’ll soon drill her to that.”

So Jock took me in hand that very evening after we reached camp, and began to teach me what he called “knapsack drill.”

It was very simple. I was put on top of the knapsack and Jock fixed the bayonet on his gun and commenced plunging about up and down, and high and low, as if in front of the enemy. But I set my nails firmly into the knapsack and nothing could shake me off.

“That’ll do fine for a beginning,” said Jock.

There were British soldiers in the entrenched camp before Bushire, when we landed there, and marched to it, and right hearty welcome they made us.

The camp was in the middle of a vast plain, on which grew here and there some clumps of palm trees, and here and there a ruin stood. To our left was the blue sea, with the far-off shipping. Some distance in front of us was the walled town itself, built upon a long spit of land, and washed nearly all round by the sea. Far away behind the town were the lofty mountains, their snowy heads rising-high into the azure sky.

“Poetry again!” said Warlock.

“A spice of poesy,” said Shireen grandly, “sometimes adds attraction to a scene. Don’t you think so, Cracker?”

“Well, Shireen, to tell you the truth I can’t say I understand it like. My mother used to say to me ‘Cracker,’ she said, ‘in your journey through this vale of tears, always make a better use of your teeth than your tongue.’”

“Very good,” said Warlock. “Your mother must have been a brick, Cracker.”

“A brick, Warlock. What a funny idea! No, no, my mother was a Bingley terrier. But go on, Shireen, when did the fur begin to fly?”

Not yet a bit, Cracker. Well, at night, I found my way to master’s tent, and was glad to snuggle up in his arms, for though the days were warm the nights were bitterly cold.

Just before I fell asleep, Jock McNab came to the tent.

“I’m sayin’, sir,” he said.

“Yes, Mac, what is it?”

“Is Shireen wi’ you?”

“That she is. Thank you, McNab, for being so mindful.”

“That’s a’ richt then,” said Jock. “Good-nicht.”

And away the faithful fellow went.

Now although we were lying in camp here before Bushire, we weren’t going to attack this town. Indeed, the people seemed very glad to see us, and sold us all kinds of nice things. So our brave General Outram soon got ready to make a terrible attack upon an entrenched camp of the Persians, fifty miles distant, and we had to walk all the way.

What a beautiful sight it was, I thought, to see all those brave soldiers in lines and lines, outside the camp; horses, Highlanders, and even fighting sailors and artillerymen. Of course you won’t understand all I am saying, Cracker, but I am a soldier’s cat, you know, and cannot help feeling a little martial ardour when I think of that splendid campaign.

Well, off we marched at last, my master at the head of his company, and I, perched on Jock McNab’s knapsack, but keeping master in my eye all the time.

What a long weary, dreary march that was to Char Kota!

“Eh? Eh? What is it?” said the starling. “What d’ye say?”

“I said Char Kota, Dick, but I’m not going to use any hard names if I can help it, you may be sure.”

Well, continued Shireen, the village I mentioned is twenty-six miles from the shore, but after a long halt we fell in again, and it was ten o’clock at night before we got to the place where we were to rest till morning.

Oh, how tired and weary the poor fellows were, for all the afternoon a cruel high cold wind had been raising dust-clouds around us, and buffeting us till we could hardly get on!

During a great part of the march I trotted by my master’s side.

The night turned out bitterly cold, and as we lay on the ground the rain fell in torrents. The thunder roared and lightning flashed, till I thought surely we would be all drowned. As it was we were drenched to the skin.

Firing took place next morning, and I was a bit frightened; but Jock told me the men were only tiring off their pieces to make sure they were all right, after the heavy night of drenching rain.

The fight was to begin to-day, this very forenoon, for the enemy with all his guns was but five miles away, in his fortified camp at Brásjòon.

“The fur would soon fly,” said Cracker, beginning to get much interested.

“Ah! but, Cracker, the fur didn’t fly, for the enemy did.”

“They weren’t real terriers,” Cracker said, “you bet.”

No, and so they ran, and we took their camp, and their guns, and a lot of other things, and settled down for a bit, after destroying all the stores we didn’t want.

It was a cold, clear night, with the moon shining very brightly on the plain and camp, and on the great mountains rising in rocky terraces high into the starry sky, and not very far from us. We expected the great battle would be fought next day, at least the men said so, and I listened eagerly to all their conversation.

But the fur didn’t fly next day after all, and now we set out to walk back to Bushire, after doing the enemy’s camp all the damage we could. We started on the march towards the shore at eight o’clock, and marched on and on, singing and talking till midnight came.

Then, Cracker, the fun commenced, and the fur did begin to fly at last.

“Tell us! Tell us!” cried Cracker.

Oh, it is evident, Cracker, you are not a soldier’s dog, else you would know that no single person can see more than a very little bit of a battle, although he may be right in the midst of it. But if I didn’t see much I heard plenty.

It was sometime past midnight, and the moon was shining, though sand was blowing and getting into our eyes, when shouting and yelling, and awful firing was heard in the rear of our army. In less than half-an-hour the moonlight battle was raging its very fiercest. Horsemen were galloping here and there, yelling forth words of command, big guns roared out on the night air, bugles rang, and musketry roared, and fire flashed in every direction.

Of course, Cracker, being only a cat, I was terribly afraid, and sometimes I could not see my dear master at all for the smoke, only his flashing sword; but I often heard his brave voice high above the din of the battle, and this gave me courage and hope.

But my greatest trial came when the wild horsemen of the enemy came dashing on towards the Highlanders, and attempted to break their ranks.

Even at this terrible moment poor Jock McNab put up his hand and smoothed me.

“Hold on, pussy,” he said. “Dinna be feared. The tulzie will soon be ower when the grim-faced foreigners get a taste o’ Highland steel.”

And a terrible tulzie that was, Cracker, and I saw much blood, and flashing of fire and steel, and cries and groans and shrieks. Oh, it was awful!

Then the heat of the fight seemed to surge away from us, and Jock found time to put up his hand once more and say,—

“Are ye still there, Shireen? Bravo! pussy.”

The firing of the foe was much farther away now, and kept on thus all night long, till day at length broke pink and blue over the lovely snow-clad mountains.

Since the fierce raging of the battle, all throughout the cold hours of night, we had lain where we had stood, without fire or without covering, and showing never a light. But away in the West the pale moon began to sink at last in a cloudy haze, and at daylight nothing could be seen for the grey mists that covered hills and plain.

Master came round and I rose to meet him. He asked Jock McNab as he smoked and patted my head, whether I had shown any fear during the fight.

“Never a morsel, sir,” said Jock; “any more than yourself, sir.”

Master went back to his place smiling at Jock’s way of paying a compliment.

The firing of the enemy had by this time slackened, and it was greatly feared by our fine soldier lads that they had drawn off, and not waited “to get their licks,” as Jock phrased it.

Breakfast was now hastily served out, I sharing with master, who had come round and sat down beside Jock and me.

Then by degrees the morning mists gathered up and up, till they lay only like a grey cloud on the snow-clad mountain peaks, and we beheld the Persian army drawn up in battle array ready and waiting for us.

It was a grand sight, Cracker, for the sun now shone gaily down on their soldiers, in serried ranks of horse and foot.

They had not long to wait for us, children. But there was a lot of marching and counter-marching of regiments and brigades, that I could not understand, unless it was that our fellows were just showing off their fine clothes.

But the tulzie soon commenced, and as I stuck to my seat on brave Jock’s back, my ears were deafened with the yelling and shouting and rattling of musketry, and with the awful roar of the enemy’s dread artillery.

On we marched, or rushed, and soon the fight was almost hand to hand, and so horrible!

But the enemy could not stand the onslaught of our forces. They began to give way and retire, and soon the battle became a rout. The Persians left nearly a thousand dead on the field, and many more bodies lay in every conceivable position along the route they had taken towards the hills.

After our cavalry had chased them afar they returned, and the march was commenced back towards Bushire.

It was a long, cold, wet, and weary one, but we saw the sea at last, and never did soldiers stretch their tired limbs in camp, or make their tea with greater pleasure, than did our poor fellows when they found themselves once more in their entrenched position.

Some of our officers were buried next day, but I was so glad to think that neither my dear master, nor Jock, nor I, were among the wounded.

Jock McNab was loud in his praises of what he was kind enough to call my pluck and coolness in the presence of the foe.

“I wadna gie pussy for onything,” he said, “and I’m sure enough she brought us luck, for never a man fell near me, either dead or wounded.”

This was my first battle then, Cracker, but it wasn’t my last by any means.

As master said, the enemy was beaten, but being beaten doesn’t by any means signify that they were conquered.

We remained quiet enough in camp now for many long monotonous days, during which the enemy did not think of disturbing us.

More troops began to arrive from India. The ships lay out yonder at anchor, but a high tumbling sea rolled in upon the beach, and it was difficult indeed to communicate with the vessels, so that the poor horses in camp began to suffer from hunger, and our own rations were sometimes scant enough.

The north-west wind too, blew loud and fierce, and brought with it clouds of dust, and a fine sort of sand that nothing on earth could keep out of camp. The cold at night was still bitter, but we had tents now, and I was cosy enough in master’s arms.

They tell me that British soldiers and sailors are born grumblers. Well, I suppose there is some truth in this; but I must say, Cracker, our men never grumbled at the scantiness of their own rations, though they pitied the horses, but they did grumble a little because the time was passing on so monotonously, and there seemed no early chance of having another fight with the Persian foe.

In fact, Cracker, the foe was getting insolent. By night we now began to see his fires on the hills around, and, although he had not the courage to attack us, he fired upon our outposts.

My master, I knew, was getting impatient as well as his men.

“I want to get farther on up country, pussy,” he whispered to me one evening; “up nearer the bonnie woods and bills where your heart and mine dwell, Shireen, with your dear mistress Beebee.”

I purred and sang, and that seemed to give him heart.

But soon after this Britain’s great hero Havelock arrived, and we all hoped then for a speedy change, and we weren’t disappointed either, Cracker.

“More fur was going to fly, Shireen?”

Yes, dear Cracker, more fur was going to fly, for in a week or two we were embarked in a transport, and sailing up the Euphrates river to attack the Shah’s great army at Mohammerah.

This stronghold was said to be occupied by the very pink and pith of the Persian forces, in number about fifteen thousand in all.

Among the chief regiments behind the formidable earthworks were seven of the Shah’s best and bravest including his guards, and the very flower of his army. Some of these were commanded by a Prince of the blood royal, and somehow or other my master found out that Beebee’s father was there also.

When my dear master told me this his eyes were sparkling with joy.

“It is just possible, Shireen,” he said, “that Beebee herself may be there, if so—”

He did not finish the sentence, but I knew what he meant.

And now, said Shireen, here come the children, so my little story must end for a time. But you’ll come again, won’t you, Cracker?

“Oh, like a shot, Shireen,” said Cracker, “you bet.”

“Oh!” cried Tom, running up. “Come quick, Lizzie. Here is Cracker, the dog that saved Shireen’s life, and gave the butcher’s bull-terrier such a shaking. Poor doggie Cracker. Poor dear doggie, you won’t bite, will you?”

The towsy tyke looked up into the boy’s face and wagged his thick, short stump of a tail at a terrible rate, and there was so much kindness and affection in those brown eyes of his, that Tom at once bent down and threw his arms about his rough and grizzled neck.

Then Lizzie, who had been to fetch some milk, came and placed it down before Cracker.

Cracker really didn’t want it, but he drank it rather than anybody should think him ungrateful.

“Mind,” said Tom, “you must come to the Castle to-morrow afternoon. It is Shireen’s birthday, and we are going to give a party.”

Once more Cracker wagged his tail, then he went trotting away to the gate, gave one kindly look behind, and so disappeared.

Chapter Seventeen.And Chammy never came again.As the weather grew colder, Chammy hugged the fire more, so to speak, and was less and less inclined to run away.Perhaps to talk of Chammy’s pedal progression as “running” is slightly to exaggerate. But, nevertheless, when Chammy made up his mind to go anywhere, whether it were on an expedition to the top of a curtain, or the extreme point of a poplar tree, he got there all the same. He would probably take a considerable time to make up his mind about it, however, and he would focus the spot he meant to reach with one eye for an hour or two to begin with. Probably, during this survey, his other eye would be wandering all round the room at Shireen, at Warlock, or at Lizzie and Tom. With one eye he was calculating the height of his ambition, as it were, with the other he was counting the chances there were against his ever reaching it at all. These chances had to be reckoned with, for first and foremost he had to descend from his perch or the branch in the ingle-nook. Having reached the floor, he would have to make for the wall of the room and creep along by the foot of the dado, perhaps changing colour once or twice so as to match the hue of the carpet, and thus do his best to escape observation. For Tabby might be there, and might sing out to Warlock:“Oh, Warlock, here is Chammy just racing off as fast as lightning. Let us have some fun with him, and turn him over and over a few times.”And they would do it too. And, although the cat and dog meant no harm, their attentions were somewhat disconcerting, to say the very least of it.Or Lizzie and Tom might be on the floor and spy him, and Lizzie call to Tom, saying,—“Oh, Tom, here is poor Chammy. I’m sure he is cold. Let us take him and nurse him by the fire a little.”And Lizzie might roll him in a Shetland-wool shawl, and sit down before the blaze to warm him, shawl and all, being very much astonished, perhaps, when she opened the shawl to have a peep, to find no Chammy there at all.“Oh, Tom! Tom!” she would say, looking half afraid, “I’m sure I had Chammy in my hands, and I’m sure I rolled him up; and now, why, he is clean gone!”Or the cockatoo might see him, if Uncle Ben were there, and raise a terrible alarm, shrieking and crying, “Scray! Scray! Scray!” till all the prismatic crystals in the old-fashioned chandelier jingled to the sound.Or the Colonel himself might find him.“Oh, you’re on the hop, are you?” the Colonel would say. “Now you just come back to your perch by the ingle-nook.”And he would lift him by the crest that was over his head and carry him back to the branch.Chammy was a good-tempered kind of a chameleon at most times, though he could bite a little, and give a good pinch too if he saw any occasion; but there was nothing in the world made him more indignant than being lifted up by the crest.It was a handy way of lifting him certainly, but Chammy used to get pea-green with anger when you did so, and his little nimble eyes would look directly back at you; or, I should rather say, one of them would, for very seldom indeed did he send them both to duty at the same time.“Put me down at once, sir,” he would say, or seem to say, “this is an indignity I do not feel called upon tamely to submit to. You would not dare to lift a crocodile of the Nile thus. Yet I, too, belong to the ancient family of the Saurians, and I bid you beware.”I have said that Chammy could bite. This is true; but if the weather were extra cold, he would stand any amount of teasing rather than be bothered turning his head or opening his mouth to pinch you. One of Chammy’s mottoes was “Perceverantia vincit” (Perseverance overcomes), and if his master put him back on his perch a hundred and fifty times after he, Chammy, had made up his mind to reach the top of that curtain, or get out at the window to climb a tree, he would watch his chance, bide his time, and begin all over again.That is the sort of chameleon Chammy was.The deliberation manifested in all the droll animal’s movements was something to watch and wonder at, and afforded no end of amusement to Lizzie and Tom. He never lifted more than one leg at a time. Not he. Four legs in four seconds. That was the speed of his pedal progression, and you didn’t need a stop-watch either to determine it. But he studied periodically on the march. He might be slow, but he was also wondrous sure, and when it came to the turn of say a left hind leg, to move it had to come to time, else Chammy would slightly turn his head and focus one goggle backwards, as much as to say:“What’s the hitch along down there? Why on earth don’t you move instead of delaying the procession?”When Chammy saw a fly that he had taken a fancy to, he would stalk cautiously along towards it, one leg at a time of course, and if the fly was fool enough to wait there long enough, why, it got caught and swallowed, that was all. If it didn’t, why Chammy evinced no great degree of disappointment, another fly would be sure to come. Everything comes to the chameleon who waits. So he would wait.There was a deal to be done, mind you, before a fly could be caught, he must first judge the distance, being well acquainted with the length of his own tongue. Then the jaws began to open, which they did as slowly as the minute hand of a watch. After the jaws were opened and both goggles focussed, the tongue, which looked like a garden snail, went slowly straight out. Pop! Where is the fly? And where is the tongue? Well, the tongue went back like a bit of india-rubber, and evidently the fly was there too, for Chammy immediately began to move his jaws like a cow chewing the cud, only infinitely slower.When flies were scarce, Lizzie or Tom fed Chammy with mealworms. They would take up one at a time with a pair of forceps and put it on Chammy’s plate.Chammy’s plate, by the way, was the lid of a pill-box, and sometimes he would eat a dozen good big fat mealworms at one sitting, and perhaps refuse food for ten days or more after it. If presented with a mealworm when not hungry, Chammy would focus it with one eye for about a dozen seconds, then slowly turn his head away in the drollest manner possible.“Excuse me,” he would seem to say, “but I couldn’t touch it. No good eating if you’re not hungry, is there? Take it away. Take it away.”Chammy’s attitudes were droll in the extreme while on his tree-branch. Sometimes he would be quite perpendicular against a topmost twig, which he held for all the world as an old, old man holds his long staff, his chin resting on his two clasped hands. When he had warmed both his hands at the fire on a wintry day, he used to slowly turn round his back to the blaze to entice a little heat into his chilly old spine.But Chammy got many a tumble, and sometimes he would stupidly catch his own tail to prevent himself from falling. So that if he had lived for hundreds of years, and he certainly gave one that impression, he had not gained a very great amount of wisdom in that time.But he was wise enough to know that the flies were to be found mostly on the window panes, though for the life of him he never could discover why he couldn’t catch one when it was on the other side of the glass, he would have a shot at such a fly again and again, then turn pea-green with anger and disappointment, and crawl slowly away.The Colonel was a very humane man, and when the frost became very hard, he placed a small but elegant oil-stove in a corner for the comfort of the chameleon. It had crimson glass in front, and as this glass got warm, Chammy used to stand up against it, the whole forming a very pretty picture.Then Lizzie got a box and lined it with red flannel, and Chammy was put to bed in it every night. But the oil-stove had to be lit before he could be prevailed upon to stir of a morning. When Chammy felt certain, from his feelings, that the room was well-aired, then he gathered himself slowly up and took up a position on the edge of the box and in the front of the stove, and there he stood for hours, warming first one hand and then another.Well, I have been writing about this queer pet all the time as if it had been a male. But the truth is, it turned out to be as Tommie said, a “her chameleon,” for lo! and behold it was discovered one morning that Chammy had laid some eggs. She put them all together in a heap in the corner and appeared to be employed all the time lifting and counting them and feeling them over. There were five altogether, about the size and shape of small beans, and pink in colour.Chammy ate no food after this. She didn’t even seem to care to come any more to warm her toes at the stove. And, on going to take off the lid of her box one morning, Lizzie found poor Chammy immovable and colder than ever she had been before.Then Lizzie sat down on the floor beside the red-lined box and burst into tears.They made Chammy a grave near the sweet-scented syringa-tree, and when spring-time came, they planted it with forget-me-nots, and Chammy never came again.

As the weather grew colder, Chammy hugged the fire more, so to speak, and was less and less inclined to run away.

Perhaps to talk of Chammy’s pedal progression as “running” is slightly to exaggerate. But, nevertheless, when Chammy made up his mind to go anywhere, whether it were on an expedition to the top of a curtain, or the extreme point of a poplar tree, he got there all the same. He would probably take a considerable time to make up his mind about it, however, and he would focus the spot he meant to reach with one eye for an hour or two to begin with. Probably, during this survey, his other eye would be wandering all round the room at Shireen, at Warlock, or at Lizzie and Tom. With one eye he was calculating the height of his ambition, as it were, with the other he was counting the chances there were against his ever reaching it at all. These chances had to be reckoned with, for first and foremost he had to descend from his perch or the branch in the ingle-nook. Having reached the floor, he would have to make for the wall of the room and creep along by the foot of the dado, perhaps changing colour once or twice so as to match the hue of the carpet, and thus do his best to escape observation. For Tabby might be there, and might sing out to Warlock:

“Oh, Warlock, here is Chammy just racing off as fast as lightning. Let us have some fun with him, and turn him over and over a few times.”

And they would do it too. And, although the cat and dog meant no harm, their attentions were somewhat disconcerting, to say the very least of it.

Or Lizzie and Tom might be on the floor and spy him, and Lizzie call to Tom, saying,—

“Oh, Tom, here is poor Chammy. I’m sure he is cold. Let us take him and nurse him by the fire a little.”

And Lizzie might roll him in a Shetland-wool shawl, and sit down before the blaze to warm him, shawl and all, being very much astonished, perhaps, when she opened the shawl to have a peep, to find no Chammy there at all.

“Oh, Tom! Tom!” she would say, looking half afraid, “I’m sure I had Chammy in my hands, and I’m sure I rolled him up; and now, why, he is clean gone!”

Or the cockatoo might see him, if Uncle Ben were there, and raise a terrible alarm, shrieking and crying, “Scray! Scray! Scray!” till all the prismatic crystals in the old-fashioned chandelier jingled to the sound.

Or the Colonel himself might find him.

“Oh, you’re on the hop, are you?” the Colonel would say. “Now you just come back to your perch by the ingle-nook.”

And he would lift him by the crest that was over his head and carry him back to the branch.

Chammy was a good-tempered kind of a chameleon at most times, though he could bite a little, and give a good pinch too if he saw any occasion; but there was nothing in the world made him more indignant than being lifted up by the crest.

It was a handy way of lifting him certainly, but Chammy used to get pea-green with anger when you did so, and his little nimble eyes would look directly back at you; or, I should rather say, one of them would, for very seldom indeed did he send them both to duty at the same time.

“Put me down at once, sir,” he would say, or seem to say, “this is an indignity I do not feel called upon tamely to submit to. You would not dare to lift a crocodile of the Nile thus. Yet I, too, belong to the ancient family of the Saurians, and I bid you beware.”

I have said that Chammy could bite. This is true; but if the weather were extra cold, he would stand any amount of teasing rather than be bothered turning his head or opening his mouth to pinch you. One of Chammy’s mottoes was “Perceverantia vincit” (Perseverance overcomes), and if his master put him back on his perch a hundred and fifty times after he, Chammy, had made up his mind to reach the top of that curtain, or get out at the window to climb a tree, he would watch his chance, bide his time, and begin all over again.

That is the sort of chameleon Chammy was.

The deliberation manifested in all the droll animal’s movements was something to watch and wonder at, and afforded no end of amusement to Lizzie and Tom. He never lifted more than one leg at a time. Not he. Four legs in four seconds. That was the speed of his pedal progression, and you didn’t need a stop-watch either to determine it. But he studied periodically on the march. He might be slow, but he was also wondrous sure, and when it came to the turn of say a left hind leg, to move it had to come to time, else Chammy would slightly turn his head and focus one goggle backwards, as much as to say:

“What’s the hitch along down there? Why on earth don’t you move instead of delaying the procession?”

When Chammy saw a fly that he had taken a fancy to, he would stalk cautiously along towards it, one leg at a time of course, and if the fly was fool enough to wait there long enough, why, it got caught and swallowed, that was all. If it didn’t, why Chammy evinced no great degree of disappointment, another fly would be sure to come. Everything comes to the chameleon who waits. So he would wait.

There was a deal to be done, mind you, before a fly could be caught, he must first judge the distance, being well acquainted with the length of his own tongue. Then the jaws began to open, which they did as slowly as the minute hand of a watch. After the jaws were opened and both goggles focussed, the tongue, which looked like a garden snail, went slowly straight out. Pop! Where is the fly? And where is the tongue? Well, the tongue went back like a bit of india-rubber, and evidently the fly was there too, for Chammy immediately began to move his jaws like a cow chewing the cud, only infinitely slower.

When flies were scarce, Lizzie or Tom fed Chammy with mealworms. They would take up one at a time with a pair of forceps and put it on Chammy’s plate.

Chammy’s plate, by the way, was the lid of a pill-box, and sometimes he would eat a dozen good big fat mealworms at one sitting, and perhaps refuse food for ten days or more after it. If presented with a mealworm when not hungry, Chammy would focus it with one eye for about a dozen seconds, then slowly turn his head away in the drollest manner possible.

“Excuse me,” he would seem to say, “but I couldn’t touch it. No good eating if you’re not hungry, is there? Take it away. Take it away.”

Chammy’s attitudes were droll in the extreme while on his tree-branch. Sometimes he would be quite perpendicular against a topmost twig, which he held for all the world as an old, old man holds his long staff, his chin resting on his two clasped hands. When he had warmed both his hands at the fire on a wintry day, he used to slowly turn round his back to the blaze to entice a little heat into his chilly old spine.

But Chammy got many a tumble, and sometimes he would stupidly catch his own tail to prevent himself from falling. So that if he had lived for hundreds of years, and he certainly gave one that impression, he had not gained a very great amount of wisdom in that time.

But he was wise enough to know that the flies were to be found mostly on the window panes, though for the life of him he never could discover why he couldn’t catch one when it was on the other side of the glass, he would have a shot at such a fly again and again, then turn pea-green with anger and disappointment, and crawl slowly away.

The Colonel was a very humane man, and when the frost became very hard, he placed a small but elegant oil-stove in a corner for the comfort of the chameleon. It had crimson glass in front, and as this glass got warm, Chammy used to stand up against it, the whole forming a very pretty picture.

Then Lizzie got a box and lined it with red flannel, and Chammy was put to bed in it every night. But the oil-stove had to be lit before he could be prevailed upon to stir of a morning. When Chammy felt certain, from his feelings, that the room was well-aired, then he gathered himself slowly up and took up a position on the edge of the box and in the front of the stove, and there he stood for hours, warming first one hand and then another.

Well, I have been writing about this queer pet all the time as if it had been a male. But the truth is, it turned out to be as Tommie said, a “her chameleon,” for lo! and behold it was discovered one morning that Chammy had laid some eggs. She put them all together in a heap in the corner and appeared to be employed all the time lifting and counting them and feeling them over. There were five altogether, about the size and shape of small beans, and pink in colour.

Chammy ate no food after this. She didn’t even seem to care to come any more to warm her toes at the stove. And, on going to take off the lid of her box one morning, Lizzie found poor Chammy immovable and colder than ever she had been before.

Then Lizzie sat down on the floor beside the red-lined box and burst into tears.

They made Chammy a grave near the sweet-scented syringa-tree, and when spring-time came, they planted it with forget-me-nots, and Chammy never came again.

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