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Chapter Three
“Oh! Kill me Quick and put me out of Pain.”
The story of my life? Was that what you asked me for, my little foster son? I see Warlock pricking one ear. He is going to listen too, is he?
Ah! well, my friends, my life has been a very long and a very eventful one, for I have travelled very far and seen much, and you all know I am getting old. Dick is laughing and chuckling to himself. Of course, he thinks that I am centuries old, but that is only because he himself is so young.
Chammy, the chameleon, looks down at Shireen with one of his droll eyes, while he watches a fly on the ceiling with the other. He holds up a hand, too, opening and shutting it as he remarks —
“Don’t give yourself airs about your age, Shireen. Look at me. It is a hundred years yesterday since I came to life again.”
“Came to life again, Chammy,” says Warlock, winking to Dick. “Why, what are you telling us?”
“The truth,” said the chameleon. “One thousand one hundred years ago yesterday – and it doesn’t seem very long to look back to – after a good dinner on butterflies I retired into the hollow of a young banian tree in an African forest to have a nap. I had dined heartily, and I slept long, so long that the tree grew up over me. And it grew and grew and grew for a thousand years till it became the most wonderful tree in all the forest. But one day it was rent in twain by a lightning flash, and – I awoke and crawled out and found a moth and swallowed it.”
“Tse, tse, tse!” said Dick.
“We can’t be expected to swallow your story though, Chammy,” said Warlock.
Chammy did not reply, for the fly had come down from the ceiling, and settling in front of the chameleon began to wash its face.
Chammy turned both eyes in towards his nose, and focused the fly, then his mouth slowly opened, and presently out darted a long round tongue, more like a slug than anything else, and the fly never finished washing its face.
Well, as I was saying, continued Shireen, when interrupted by our dear and excessively old friend Chammy, I am getting on! Twenty years, you know, children, is a long, long life for a cat, if not for a chameleon, and oh! what ups and downs I have seen in that time!
My very earliest recollections take me back to scenes in beautiful Persia, “the land of the lion and the sun.”
“Some day,” said Dick, the starling, making pretence to bathe himself in tabby’s glittering fur – “some day I mean to fly there. None of you fellows have wings, so you can’t do that sort of thing. It would take poor old dummy yonder fully another thousand years to wriggle that length. Better he should go to sleep again in an old log of wood!”
“Yes,” continued Dick, while Shireen sat thoughtfully washing her face and gazing at the fire. “I shall go to Persia. I had quite a long talk the other day with the cuckoo about it. He says that Persia in the South is no end of a nice place, with flies and things to be found all throughout the winter. He says he wouldn’t come here at all if it wasn’t that there is less danger in this country in summer-time to his eggs, and the climate is more bracing for the mother and the young. The Mother Cuckoo, you must remember, is very delicate, and wouldn’t think of rearing her own family, so she employs a nurse, or maybe three or four nurses; and the more fools they, I say, for accepting the situation, for they toil away all the best part of the summer, leaving their own little families to starve and never get a thank-you for their pains. But Mother Cuckoo is a knowing old bird; she finds a nest nicely hidden – it may be a robin’s, it may be a tit-lark’s, or a water wagtail’s – and then a conversation begins at once.
“‘Nice little place you’ve got here,’ says Mother Cuckoo to the little bird, smiling all down both sides of her head as she speaks, for you know, Warlock, you couldn’t make a cuckoo’s mouth much bigger without cutting her head off. ‘Nice little place!’
“‘Yes,’ says the little bird, feeling much flattered.
“‘And such a cosy warm well-lined nest!’
“‘Yes,’ says the little bird again, ‘my husband and I did that.’
“‘How clever. And the nest is so well hidden!’
“‘Oh, yes, that is the best of it. There are no cats about, and wicked schoolboys would never think of looking here for a nest.’
“‘It isn’t a very large nest!’
“‘Oh, it is big enough for our little family.’
“‘Let me see,’ says Mother Cuckoo, ‘you have three eggs laid already. How clever of you!’
“‘Yes, and I’m going to lay another.’
“‘Your husband’s from home to-day, isn’t he?’
“‘He has gone to the woods for a certain kind of beetle that I’ve set my heart upon.’
“‘Oh, dear!’ says sly Mother Cuckoo, ‘I do feel so faint; all over of a tremble. Do, like a dear little mite, go and find my husband. He is in the copse down by the miller’s pond. I’ll sit here and keep your eggs warm till you return.’
“But the little bird never finds Father Cuckoo, and when she comes back, lo! old Mother Cuckoo has gone, but the sly bird has left an egg bigger and different from any in the nest. And that egg seems to throw a glamour over the little bird; she feels compelled to hatch it, and to rear the little one when it comes out to the neglect of her own family, for the young cuckoo is such a powerful eater that it takes both the little bird and her husband all their time to gather insects for it and stuff them down its gaping throat, and – ”
“Now, Dick,” cried Warlock, “if you’re quite done we would like to hear Shireen’s story; you may fly to Persia with the cuckoos in August if you like, and – ”
“And perhaps never come home again,” said Tabby; “don’t you go, Dick, don’t you go.”
From all I can recollect of Persia, said Shireen, it is a very beautiful country in summer-time, although away high up in the mountain fastnesses of the North, terrible snowstorms sometimes blow, and here dwell tribes and clans of wild Persian Highlanders that are at war with all the world.
Yet, strange to say, these wild men are kind to their cats, and pussy in these regions is looked upon as quite one of the family.
But it was not in these wilds that I first saw the light of day, or any other light, children, but far away in what my mother called the sunny South.
“Much game there, mother?” asked Warlock, pricking both his ears.
“I’ll come to that presently, Warlock, you mustn’t interrupt, you know.”
My very earliest recollections then, you must know, are all centred in my mother. This is only natural. Besides, my mother was very beautiful indeed. My little brother and I – we were both born at the same time – disagreed about many matters connected with domestic life and family arrangements, but we were both of the same opinion concerning mother’s beauty. I was very young when I first opened my eyes, but I have only to close them again now, and mother rises up before me in all her loveliness. White were the snows that capped the jagged hills of the Zarda Koo, no snows could be whiter, but more spotless still, I thought, was the coat of my dam. Blue were the rifts between the clouds in the autumn, but bluer and brighter my mother’s eyes. Then every movement she made was graceful and easy. Was it any wonder that brother and I loved her, or that we sometimes fought for the best place in her arms?
Looking back through the long vista of years, I cannot help thinking that perhaps my mother loved my brother better than me. I am sure she spent more time in licking him, but then I may be wrong, for I was restless, and would at any time rather have romped with mother’s tail than submitted to her caresses when they took the shape of licking my face and ears with her tongue. Besides, brother had a black spot on his brow, which mother thought she would succeed in licking off. So she would lick and lick and lick until she fell back tired and exhausted on the cushion of crimson silk that formed our bed.
I did not know then the value that human beings attached to a cushion like this. Nor the value of anything around me.
Everything, brother and I believed, belonged to mother, the whole universe, as far as we had yet seen it, belonged to her, and the slaves that came softly stealing across the thick carpets and placed mother’s food before her in dishes of solid gold and silver, were, in our opinion, if we thought about the matter at all, only creatures of common clay that lived and moved and had their beings merely to minister to mother’s wants and needs.
I am much wiser now, children, and I can tell you that the splendid apartments where mother lived when we were very young, were furnished with splendour and elegance, unknown to this land of cloudy skies and misty rain.
That silk cushion, children, on which mother lay, was richly embroidered with threads of gold, and tasselled with pearls and precious stones. The room itself was lofty, and hung everywhere with curtains of rarest value. Great punkahs, moved by invisible hands, depended from the roof, and, waving to and fro, kept us cool. Costly vases and musical instruments stood here and there, and couches of pale-blue silk and silver were ranged along the walls. There was a dim religious light throughout, and from an arched window we could catch glimpses of gardens filled with lovely flowers and fruit, and watered by cool fountains that threw their snow-white spray far up against the blue of the sky. And everywhere the air was laden with the rich and rare odour of orange and citron blooms.
Then on the soft Persian carpets, I was afterwards told, my brother and I used to play with rubies as large as marbles.
“Something to eat?” said Dick, thoughtfully.
“No, Dick, a ruby is nothing to eat, but it is something held so sacred by human beings, that one such precious stone would buy all the fine things a man could use in a long, long lifetime.”
Now, some weeks after brother and I opened our eyes, we learned to lap milk. It was difficult to do this at first, though we wanted to, because our eyes were not yet strong enough to judge distances, and sometimes when we thought we were licking the milk we were only lapping the air; then when we put our heads further down our noses went into the silver saucer up to the eyes, and we thought we were drowned, and sprang up and sneezed.
While trying one day to lap some milk, we noticed that mother was singing to a very pretty human being, who sat cross-legged upon a low ottoman. Mother was singing, and she was also rubbing her head backwards and forwards against this lovely human creature’s bare arm. Brother and I sat back and looked up in astonishment, although looking up made our heads so light that we nearly tumbled.
“Oh! aren’t they funny, funny, funny?” cried a voice. It was that of the beautiful human being.
The words only sounded to us like rippling music then, music such as the birds in their golden cages made, and the spray of the fountain splashing down and falling into its marble basin. But mother afterwards translated the language to us.
Day after day now this human being sat there cross-legged on the ottoman, and we soon began to like her as much as mother did.
She was very young and very beautiful, her little mouth was a rosebud, her eyes were very large, but jetty black, not blue like mother’s. She was dressed in robes of flowing silk of many colours, and when she walked, glittering chains of gold and precious stones jangled and rang. Beside her often stood a tall and powerful man-human, as dark as night, with fierce red eyes, white flashing teeth, and a girdle around his waist, from which hung an ugly half-moon knife. Brother and I were much afraid of this man-human. He was an ogre, and we ran backwards, raised our hair, and spat aloud at him when he came near us. But the young and lovely lady was not at all afraid of the ogre, but used to play with his knife and tease him.
Mother told us then that we must love the beautiful girl. She was our mistress and our queen.
Well, this would not have made brother and me love the queen one little bit, for we did not want any queen but mother. But the queen was so fond and so gentle, and used to smooth us so tenderly with her white and taper fingers, which were all bedecked with rings and sparkling stones, that we came to love her as much in time as mother seemed to do.
One day we had an adventure that I shall never forget.
Far, in through the open window, sprang a splendid lion-looking cat, just like mother, only bigger and bolder. He advanced to where we all lay with a fond and loving cry; but mother sprang up in a rage. All her hair was raised from end to end, her back was arched, and her eyes flashed like glowing lights.
Brother and I got up and tried to follow her example, but we both tumbled over on the cushion and lay there in most inglorious attitudes.
“Mrrrak, mrr – mrr – mrrk!” That is what father said. Yes, Warlock, I must tell you at once this lion-like cat was our father.
At first mother advanced to meet him growling like a volcano, but he threw himself on his back and behaved in a fashion altogether so ridiculous, and with so many droll attitudes of blandishment, that mother finally softened, all her hair flowed backwards again, and she began to sing. Then she ran back to the cushion and picked my brother up, and, throwing herself on her back, held him high in her arms for father to admire.
“Mrr – wrr – wrr – wurruk!” cried father, and gently tapped brother on the back.
This so pleased mother that she jumped up and ran round and round the room. Then she came back and slapped father with a gloved hand. Then father slapped her and sent her flying half-way across the room. In a moment she sprang up and leapt on top of him, and the two rolled over and over on the carpet in mimic warfare, but so like a real battle was it, that for some time brother and I were very much afraid indeed.
Well, father came nearly every day after this, and he nearly always brought a little bird, warm but dead, and perhaps, with a little spot of blood on its breast. I’m afraid it was sometimes a bulbul, or nightingale, and more than once it was a canary.
But it did not matter to mother one whit. She ate it, feathers and all, except the tail and the wings, growling awfully all the time she was devouring it. Meanwhile father stood aside and seemed so pleased that he did not know what to do with himself.
When she had finished the bird, brother and I had the wings and tail to play with, and we pretended to be mother, and growled like little wild beasts. Then mother would sit down and wash her face. As soon as she had done so she jumped merrily off the cushion and slapped father, and then the fun began.
One day father came into the room looking much more like a lion than ever, and he had something in his mouth.
He was growling, too, and I think mother was half afraid of him. But he came right up to the spot where brother and I were playing with our ruby, and placed a strange and weird-looking creature down right in front of us.
We had never seen such a little animal before. It wasn’t a bird, for it had no wings, only feet, and fur as soft as mother’s, but dark in colour. It lay on its side, and, dreadfully frightened though we were, brother and I both put up our backs and spat and growled most bravely.
The little vision in fur, which I now know to have been a harmless mouse, lay on its side quite paralysed with fear, but father stretched out his gloved hand and pushed it. Then it jumped up and ran away.
Oh, what a fright brother and I got when we saw that the wild mouse was alive! And how brave we thought father was when he sprang after it and brought it back.
But we soon regained our courage, and father and mother stood aside to see us play with it. Whenever it escaped they brought it back.
At last the poor little morsel, all wet and bedraggled, stood up on its hind legs in front of father, and wagged its two wee naked hands in front of its nose. Mother told me afterwards what it was saying.
“Oh, kill me please,” it pleaded. “Kill me quick and put me out of pain.”
Chapter Four
“You Must have a Name, My Lovely Flower.”
Hitherto, continued Shireen, shifting her position on the footstool to one of greater comfort, hitherto, my children, the life of brother and myself had been all indoors. We knew of no other world than that bounded by the four walls of the room around us, and it never occurred to me to wonder where our lion-like father obtained the birds which he never forgot to bring mother daily.
À propos of Shireen’s father bringing the mother pussy the birds, I have a little anecdote to tell that is not without its humorous side. Some years ago I possessed a very large and handsome half-Persian white Tom, whom the children called Jujube. This cat, being allowed to roam the world at the freedom of his own will, formed an attachment with a neighbour’s lady-cat, and married her. I was not invited to the marriage, so do not know when it took place, nor what speeches were made at the wedding-breakfast. However, in course of time, Mrs G – ’s cat was about to have kittens, and, not having any knowledge of how cats should be treated under such circumstances, she rather cruelly turned her out of doors. It happened at this time that Mrs G – had also twenty-one young chickens. And now they began to disappear at the rate of one every day, and so on for nineteen days. Her cat had also disappeared, and could not be found. But on the nineteenth day the mystery was explained, for walking in my orchard I happened to look between two tall hedges, and there, on a nest of dry leaves was the mother cat, with five beautiful kittens. Poor Ju had brought her here, had made the warm nest for her, and gone every day back to her old home and brought her a chicken. Ju had evidently reasoned that although Mrs G – had turned her out, she ought to be well-fed at the expense of her mistress. Hence, the robbery of the chicken-roost.
He did not come in through the curtained doorway that led out into the orangery with its fountains and its flowers, but leapt down from a window that was too high for us to reach.
One day, the door leading into the garden was left open, and mother, discovering this, determined to take us out.
If I should live to be as old as Chammy yonder, my children, I shall never forget that morning. We followed mother timidly, fearfully, and on rather shaky legs I must admit, for we were not yet very strong.
And every time a leaf fell, or went fluttering past us we started and trembled, nay, I am not sure we did not even start at our own shadows in the strong sunlight.
We gathered a little more confidence at last, but everything was so new and so strange and so unaccountable that it seemed like walking in a dream. I looked up for a moment at the sun, but quickly withdrew my gaze; then all was suddenly dark around me. I thought the earth had opened and swallowed us all up, and mewed in terror. But things soon became light once more, mother licked the top of my head, and on we went, now with more confidence.
There were birds singing here, and flitting to and fro through the spray of the gurgling fountains; light and colour and beauty were everywhere. Then the air was strong and fresh and balmy, and, oh, so delightfully warm, that we soon felt perfectly at home, and bold enough even to chase the fluttering leaves.
But for all this we would not venture far away from mother. And when at last we were tired of romping, and our beautiful mother went trotting back into the room again, we were all glad enough to follow. What with the exceeding brightness of the sun out of doors, we could not see anything at all when we went inside. Night seemed to have descended and enveloped us all in its darksome folds. But mother, wiser than we, led us back to our cushion, and no sooner did we lie down than we fell into a sound and dreamless slumber.
So ended our first outing.
It became a regular thing now, however, this walk in the garden, and seeing we enjoyed it so much, our mistress and queen, whom the tall, black, red-eyed savage called Beebee, took us out to revel among the sunshine and the flowers every day; and every day brother and I seemed to grow stronger and bigger.
I began to love Beebee very much too, and it was she who named me Shireen.
Yes, Warlock, it is a strange name, and so would yours appear to the people of Persia.
But one day, Beebee took me on her lap, and told me why she had named me Shireen. “You must have a name, my lovely flower,” she said, in her sweet child voice, “so it shall be Shireen. For know ye, that this was the name held by the wife of a very great king and lord of Persia, who lived ages and ages and ages ago, when this lovely land was even greater than it is now.”
I fear, my children, that I did not pay very much heed to all Beebee was telling me, for I was very much taken up with a string of pearls and rubies that she wore around her beautiful arm just above the elbow, and all the time she was speaking, I was chewing at it. But mother listened and told me the tale of the Queen Shireen over again when we were all by ourselves.
“I remember it,” said a voice which wasn’t Warlock’s. It was a voice that seemed to come from the clouds, and a strange, sepulchral tone it had. “Yes, I remember it. Just wait till I get down the chimney.”
To say that every member of that circle of old friends round the fire was startled would be a poor way of describing the general consternation.
A strange voice coming down the chimney! A weird, sepulchral voice! And the owner of that voice was going to follow it. He, she, or it, was coming down the chimney!
Would the lights burn blue when the ghostly thing – the dread apparition appeared?
“Eh? eh?” cried the starling. “What is it? What is it? Tse, tse, tse!” (These were favourite expressions of my starling.)
Tabby’s hair stood on end from tail to crown. Vee-Vee’s hair would have followed suit, only a Pomeranian’s hair is always on end, and fright even couldn’t fix it a bit higher. Shireen herself, being slightly imbued with superstition, confessed afterwards that she felt a trifle uneasy as she gazed at the chimney and waited.
The only really brave individual in the whole circle was Warlock. There was nothing belonging to this world, or even to a much worse world than ours, that could have frightened Warlock. So he sprang up, faced the fire, and barked.
“Don’t be alarmed, any of you,” said the voice in the chimney. “It’s only me. I’m coming down to tell you the story of Shireen, Queen of Persia. Bless you, I remember her. It’s only a matter of a thousand and a half years – ”
Here the creature was seized apparently with a fit of coughing, and next moment he, she, or it, landed all in a heap close to Shireen’s footstool.
It was only Chammy after all, and everybody felt so relieved.
“I daresay,” he explained, “I’ve changed colour a bit. Nothing unusual in a chameleon changing colour, is there, Shireen, my furry dear?”
“No, Chammy, and you really have changed colour. Why, you are as black as a sweep. Whatever made you creep up the chimney?”
I may observe here, parenthetically, that Chammy was sometimes found in the queerest places. You see, he had the run of the room, and made strange use of it at times.
Once, for example, he disappeared for a whole week, and was found at last hiding behind a large cobweb in Colonel Clarkson’s study. The Colonel was a humane sort of man, you must know, and this particular cobweb belonged to his pet spider, and was never touched. Oh, no, Chammy had not eaten the spider; Chammy knew better than that. The fact is, he had been studying that pet spider for weeks perhaps before he carried his scheme into execution.
I notice he must have said to himself, “That that big spider never wants plenty of flies, and that she repairs her web, after it has been broken by a blue-bottle fly, overnight, and has it nice and new and fresh next morning fit for another day’s sport. Well, why should she have all the blue-bottles? The blue-bottles are as much mine as hers. Now, I can’t build a web and catch them, but I can sit snugly enough near hers, and when a blue-bottle comes I can just touch him off. That sort of life will suit me far better than catching my own flies, for I’m not so young as I used to be a thousand years ago.”
Another time Chammy had been away a whole month, after partaking of about five-and-twenty mealworms. The Colonel felt sure he would never see his droll favourite again; but one day he told the servant to put a little fire in his study, and half an hour after that, Chammy was found sitting on the fender, holding up his fingers and palms to woo the welcome blaze.
In the sweet summer-time, Chammy was taken out of doors and allowed to crawl on a grizzled old apple tree that grew near to the study window. This used to please Chammy very much, and he stalked flies with unerring skill, and had plenty of exercise at the same time. The strange point of the story is this: the tree was for the most part grey and gnarled, so was Chammy, and a fly would often alight right in front of him. Out would go Chammy’s tongue, slowly and steadily at first, then – pop! and the fly would wonder where in all the world he had got to. But there were large patches of green moss on the apple tree, and Chammy dearly loved these because they were warm and soft for his feet; but when resting on one, he took the precaution to change colour to a beautiful sea-green, and so the flies got licked in just the same. Well, one evening, when Colonel Clarkson went to fetch Chammy in, he couldn’t find him high nor low; he looked on the grey and gnarled parts of the tree, and he carefully examined the patches of moss, and he even focussed his lorgnettes and scanned the tree up and down; but no Chammy was to be seen, green or grey. So the Colonel put up his glasses with a sigh, saying to himself, “Some vagrant cat has no doubt taken my poor pet away.”
Weeks flew by, and one evening while the kindly old soldier sat alone with his wife in the drawing-room, both very still, because they were reading and the children were away in the woods, lo! the cottage piano in the corner suddenly began to play.
Colonel Clarkson looked at his wife and his wife looked at the Colonel. Both, I think, were a little frightened, for when they glanced towards the piano there was nobody there.
But the ghostly music continued. It was strange, it was unaccountable and wonderful! The music was all on the descending scale, and chords were struck chiefly fifths. But the keys of the piano did not move, and the notes sounded far away. Presently the performance was concluded with a series of groans emitted by the bass strings.
“I have it,” the Colonel cried, “it is Chammy. Dear old Chammy.”
Me jumped up and opened the instrument wide, and there sure enough was the chameleon. He had been asleep in there for three weeks or more, and had awakened hungry and lively – poor Chammy.
“Whatever made you get up the chimney, Chammy?” said Shireen again.
“Just to find a cosy corner,” replied the chameleon, “for lor’, bless your pretty face, Shireen, now that the days are getting shorter, my poor old toes do be that wondrous cold sometimes, you wouldn’t believe.”
“But you wanted to hear the story of Queen Shireen, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Chammy, if you won’t take long to tell it.”
“Oh, not more’n a hundred years or so. Time is nothing to me, you know.”
But time was a good deal to these old friends around the fire, so it ended after all in Chammy climbing up into his perch again, and apparently going to sleep there, with his droll eyes open, and Shireen herself having to tell the story.
