You should speedily see a Historia Naturalis Americana, that would put the sneering imitators of the Frenchman, De Buffon, to shame!
A great improvement might be made in the formation of all quadrupeds; especially those in which velocity is a virtue.
Two of the inferior limbs should be on the principle of the lever; wheels, perhaps, as they are now formed; though I have not yet determined whether the improvement might be better applied to the anterior or posterior members, inasmuch as I am yet to learn whether dragging or shoving requires the greatest muscular exertion.
A natural exudation of the animal might assist in overcoming the friction, and a powerful momentum be obtained.
But all this is hopeless—at least for the present!”—he added, raising his tablets again to the light, and reading aloud;
“Oct. 6, 1805. that’s merely the date, which I dare say you know better than I—mem.
Quadruped; seen by star-light, and by the aid of a pocket-lamp, in the prairies of North America—see Journal for Latitude and Meridian.
Genus—unknown; therefore named after the discoverer, and from the happy coincidence of being seen in the evening—Vespertilio Horribilis, Americanus.
Dimensions (by estimation)—Greatest length, eleven feet; height, six feet; head, erect; nostrils, expansive; eyes, expressive and fierce; teeth, serrated and abundant; tail, horizontal, waving, and slightly feline; feet, large and hairy; talons, long, curvated, dangerous; ears, inconspicuous; horns, elongated, diverging, and formidable; colour, plumbeous-ashy, with fiery spots; voice, sonorous, martial, and appalling; habits, gregarious, carnivorous, fierce, and fearless.
There,” exclaimed Obed, when he had ended this sententious but comprehensive description, “there is an animal, which will be likely to dispute with the lion his title to be called the king of the beasts!”
“I know not the meaning of all you have said, Doctor Battius,” returned the quick-witted girl, who understood the weakness of the philosopher, and often indulged him with a title he loved so well to hear; “but I shall think it dangerous to venture far from the camp, if such monsters are prowling over the prairies.”
“You may well call it prowling,” returned the naturalist, nestling still closer to her side, and dropping his voice to such low and undignified tones of confidence, as conveyed a meaning still more pointed than he had intended. “I have never before experienced such a trial of the nervous system; there was a moment, I acknowledge, when the fortiter in re faltered before so terrible an enemy; but the love of natural science bore me up, and brought me off in triumph!”
“You speak a language so different from that we use in Tennessee,” said Ellen, struggling to conceal her laughter, “that I hardly know whether I understand your meaning.
If I am right, you wish to say you were chicken-hearted.”
“An absurd simile drawn from an ignorance of the formation of the biped.
The heart of a chicken has a just proportion to its other organs, and the domestic fowl is, in a state of nature, a gallant bird.
Ellen,” he added, with a countenance so solemn as to produce an impression on the attentive girl, “I was pursued, hunted, and in a danger that I scorn to dwell on—what’s that?”
Ellen started; for the earnestness and simple sincerity of her companion’s manner had produced a certain degree of credulity, even on her buoyant mind.
Looking in the direction indicated by the Doctor, she beheld, in fact, a beast coursing over the prairie, and making a straight and rapid approach to the very spot they occupied.
The day was not yet sufficiently advanced to enable her to distinguish its form and character, though enough was discernible to induce her to imagine it a fierce and savage animal.
“It comes! it comes!” exclaimed the Doctor, fumbling, by a sort of instinct, for his tablets, while he fairly tottered on his feet under the powerful efforts he made to maintain his ground. “Now, Ellen, has fortune given me an opportunity to correct the errors made by star-light,—hold,—ashy-plumbeous,—no ears,—horns, excessive.”
His voice and hand were both arrested by a roar, or rather a shriek from the beast, that was sufficiently terrific to appal even a stouter heart than that of the naturalist. The cries of the animal passed over the prairie in strange cadences, and then succeeded a deep and solemn silence, that was only broken by an uncontrolled fit of merriment from the more musical voice of Ellen Wade.
In the mean time the naturalist stood like a statue of amazement, permitting a well-grown ass, against whose approach he no longer offered his boasted shield of light, to smell about his person, without comment or hinderance.
“It is your own ass,” cried Ellen, the instant she found breath for words; “your own patient, hard working, hack!”
The Doctor rolled his eyes from the beast to the speaker, and from the speaker to the beast; but gave no audible expression of his wonder.
“Do you refuse to know an animal that has laboured so long in your service?” continued the laughing girl. “A beast, that I have heard you say a thousand times, has served you well, and whom you loved like a brother!”
“Asinus Domesticus!” ejaculated the Doctor, drawing his breath like one who had been near suffocation. “There is no doubt of the genus; and I will always maintain that the animal is not of the species, equus.
This is undeniably Asinus himself, Ellen Wade; but this is not the Vespertilio Horribilis of the prairies!
Very different animals, I can assure you, young woman, and differently characterized in every important particular.
That, carnivorous,” he continued, glancing his eye at the open page of his tablets; “this, granivorous; habits, fierce, dangerous; habits, patient, abstemious; ears, inconspicuous; ears, elongated; horns, diverging, &c., horns, none!”
He was interrupted by another burst of merriment from Ellen, which served, in some measure, to recall him to his recollection.
“The image of the Vespertilio was on the retina,” the astounded enquirer into the secrets of nature observed, in a manner that seemed a little apologetic, “and I was silly enough to mistake my own faithful beast for the monster.
Though even now I greatly marvel to see this animal running at large!”
Ellen then proceeded to explain the history of the attack and its results.
She described, with an accuracy that might have raised suspicions of her own movements in the mind of one less simple than her auditor, the manner in which the beasts burst out of the encampment, and the headlong speed with which they had dispersed themselves over the open plain.
Although she forebore to say as much in terms, she so managed as to present before the eyes of her listener the strong probability of his having mistaken the frightened drove for savage beasts, and then terminated her account by a lamentation for their loss, and some very natural remarks on the helpless condition in which it had left the family.
The naturalist listened in silent wonder, neither interrupting her narrative nor suffering a single exclamation of surprise to escape him.
The keen-eyed girl, however, saw that as she proceeded, the important leaf was torn from the tablets, in a manner which showed that their owner had got rid of his delusion at the same instant.
From that moment the world has heard no more of the Vespertilio Horribilis Americanus, and the natural sciences have irretrievably lost an important link in that great animated chain which is said to connect earth and heaven, and in which man is thought to be so familiarly complicated with the monkey.
When Dr. Bat was put in full possession of all the circumstances of the inroad, his concern immediately took a different direction.
He had left sundry folios, and certain boxes well stored with botanical specimens and defunct animals, under the good keeping of Ishmael, and it immediately struck his acute mind, that marauders as subtle as the Siouxes would never neglect the opportunity to despoil him of these treasures.
Nothing that Ellen could say to the contrary served to appease his apprehensions, and, consequently, they separated; he to relieve his doubts and fears together, and she to glide, as swiftly and silently as she had just before passed it, into the still and solitary tent.
CHAPTER VII
What! fifty of my followers, at a clap!
—Lear.
The day had now fairly opened on the seemingly interminable waste of the prairie.
The entrance of Obed at such a moment into the camp, accompanied as it was by vociferous lamentations over his anticipated loss, did not fail to rouse the drowsy family of the squatter.
Ishmael and his sons, together with the forbidding looking brother of his wife, were all speedily afoot; and then, as the sun began to shed his light on the place, they became gradually apprised of the extent of their loss.
Ishmael looked round upon the motionless and heavily loaded vehicles with his teeth firmly compressed, cast a glance at the amazed and helpless group of children, which clustered around their sullen but desponding mother, and walked out upon the open land, as if he found the air of the encampment too confined.
He was followed by several of the men, who were attentive observers, watching the dark expression of his eye as the index of their own future movements.