Patrick O'Brian - The Hundred Days

Omar, having listened very attentively indeed for other sounds and hearing none, moved on, bent double, into the cave. They could not stand upright, of course, but the front, opening on to the stream, was quite wide enough for two and they sat comfortably, their guns across their knees, gazing down at a path that grew more and more distinct as the great moon, just beyond the full, mounted higher and higher in the sky, putting out the stars.

The air was warm and most uncommonly still, and Stephen heard a pair of nightjars churring away in their unchanging voice as they wheeled about pursuing moths far down, perhaps almost as far off as the Shatt. Brighter and brighter still, and the path just beneath, somewhat constricted by Ibn Haukal’s crag, was strikingly clear, once Omar had very gently cut away some of the overhanging shrub: and on this path they saw a hyena, most distinctly a striped hyena, carefully working out a line, like a hound - their own line, in fact, the scent of their bloody shoes. And where they had turned it paused, uttered its habitual shrieking howl (Stephen noticed that its mane rose as it did so) and ran straight up into the cave. For- a moment it stood transfixed in the entrance, then turned and fled, its mad laugh echoing from one side of the valley to the other. Omar neither moved nor spoke: Stephen made no comment.

A long, long pause, interrupted only by the passage of a porcupine; and though the silent wait grew a little wearisome Stephen had the consolation of his watch, an elegant Breguet, a minute-repeater, that had travelled with him and consoled him for more years than he could easily reckon. Every quarter of an hour or so he would press a button and a tiny silver voice would tell his attentive ear the time. If Omar ever heard the minute sound he gave no sign; but just after twenty minutes past the hour he stiffened, changed his grip on the gun, and Stephen saw the large pale form of a lion pace swiftly across their field of vision from right to left.

The turn of the stream and its accompanying path, together with a scattering of low bushes hid him after a very few seconds: but Stephen was left the sharpest possible image of a great smoothly-moving creature, pale, and with a pale mane, even; shoulder-blades alternately protruding through a mass of muscle. A perfectly confident, selfcontained and concentrated animal, between nine and ten feet long, perhaps three and a half feet at the withers (though he held his head much higher than that), and weighing a good thirty stone, with that enormous chest.

‘Mahmud,’ whispered Omar, smiling: Stephen nodded, and they returned to their silence. But not for very long: far sooner than Stephen had expected, away on the left there was a crashing of branches, a wild flailing about, some high desperate shrieks, a very deep sustained growling.

Now the minutes passed very, very slowly: both men were extremely tense, and if Stephen opened his mouth to draw a deeper breath, he could hear the beating of his heart.

Then at last came the sound of jackals, very usual attendants on a lion’s kill: his furious snapping as they ventured too near: and after a long but extraordinarily expectant wait, the sound of movement among the downstream bushes.

Mahmud came clearly into sight on the left, carrying a heavy wild boar, and carrying it high, well to the left to free the stride of his leg. Nearer: nearer: and when he was just past the mid-point, just going from them, Omar rose and shot him, aiming behind the right ear. But though the lion fell he was on his feet again the next moment, roaring with fury. Omar shot him again and this time he fell forward twitching, no other movement.

But now his lioness was almost there. She lowered her head over him, licking his death-wound and moaning. Then she looked up directly into the cave with the men and charged straight for them in five prodigious bounds.

Stephen saw her eyes clear in the moonlight: it was a mere fair-ground shot and with real regret he killed her as she rose in her last leap.

The Dey’s huntsmen knew very well that Mahmud was his intended quarry, and when in the still night they heard three shots rather than one it was clear to them that something was very much amiss. Five of them came racing down the nearest path from the camp with torches, and they found their chief and his guest guarding the lions from the jackals and hyenas, drawn by even the faintest smell of death.

By the light of a great fire they, the second huntsman and his team, skinned Mahmud and his mate, while the headman lit the Dey and his companion back to the camp, Omar most solicitously giving Stephen his hand wherever the going was a little steep.

As soon as they reached the dell Jacob was summoned from his tent and desired to translate the Dey’s gratitude and congratulations, quite remarkably well-phrased and

convincing. Stephen begged Jacob to say all that was proper and smiled and bowed, with gestures that disclaimed all merit: but the force of very strong emotion so recently felt but only now fully perceived was mounting so that he wholly longed for silence and his bed.

‘And the Dey says,’ Jacob went on, ‘that a mule hardened to the task will be sent down to bring the skins up in the morning: while as for Mahmud’s cubs, they are perfectly capable of looking after themselves - have already killed several young boars and two fawns - but nevertheless he promises you that they shall be given a sheep or two every week for some months. And as for the foolish tale about gold for the Shiite heretics he assures you that not an ounce, not half an ounce, shall ever pass through Algiers while he is Dey; and he will send the Vizier a direct order to that effect, in case there should ever have been a ghost or perhaps I should say an apparition of misunderstanding or incomprehension.’

Stephen nodded, smiled and bowed yet again. Omar looked kindly at him and said to Jacob, ‘My saviour is himself in need of salvation: pray lead him very quietly away.’ He clasped Stephen, imprinted a bristly kiss on his cheek, bowed and withdrew.

For most of the next day Stephen and Amos Jacob rode well ahead of their companions, for not only did they wish to exchange their impressions of the Dey, which was better done without the confusion of many voices and the sound of many hooves, butjhey also hoped that by setting a fine brisk pace they would bring the whole group to the Vizier’s oasis before nightfall, in spite of having been obliged, by the farewell feast, to start their journey much later than they had wished.

At one time they thought they might succeed, for they had already travelled this road - the fact of its being known shortened it, and there were few fresh wonders to delay them - furthermore, their own conversation was particularly engrossing. Sometimes, it is true, they discussed the possible origins of the malformation in the hand that Jacob had brought his friend: ‘I know that some of Dupuytren’s colleagues have blamed the habitual use of reins: and perhaps there is something in it,’ observed Jacob.

‘Conceivably,’ Stephen replied. ‘Yet it was never described before Smectymnus; nor does Xenophon speak of any such complaint; and few men handled reins more than Xenophon.’

‘Well...’ said Jacob: and after a pause in which his mind clearly drifted to the more immediate subject, ‘You have not yet told me your opinion of the Dey.’

‘My first impression was that he was a brute, a mere soldier: a cheerful brute at that moment because he had just succeeded in some mechanical task, but perfectly capable of turning wicked, very wicked. Then, when we went down to lie in wait for the lion, his silence and his steadfast motionless endurance moved my admiration. So did his open, unstinted praise when I shot the lioness, to say nothing of his steadiness in the uneasy moments before she charged. I have, as you know very well, some smattering of Arabic and Turkish, and what he said as he helped me up the slope pleased me very much. So, to a less degree, did the set piece that you translated: no common mind, I thought, could have turned it so well. I was left with the notion of an ideal shootingcompanion, very quiet very knowledgeable, courageous of course and jovial when joviality was in place: but apart from that, not an intelligentman. Not positively stupid, like some other highly-placed soldiers, and probably quite subtle in military politics, but not in himself particularly interesting, however likeable.’