This gross
breach of hospitality had evidently hit upon his tenderest point. I am
no eavesdropper, so I walked out on to the lawn. Presently I heard a
hurried step behind me, and there was the lady, her face pale with
excitement, and her eyes red with tears. “My husband has asked me to apologize to you, Mr. Marshall King,” said
she, standing with downcast eyes before me. “Please do not say another word, Mrs. King.”

Her dark eyes suddenly blazed out at me. “You fool!” she hissed, with frantic vehemence, and turning on her heel
swept back to the house. The insult was so outrageous, so insufferable, that I could only stand
staring after her in bewilderment. I was still there when my host joined
me. He was his cheery, chubby self once more. “I hope that my wife has apologized for her foolish remarks,” said he. “Oh, yes—yes, certainly!”

He put his hand through my arm and walked with me up and down the lawn. “You must not take it seriously,” said he. “It would grieve me
inexpressibly if you curtailed your visit by one hour. The fact is—there
is no reason why there should be any concealment between relatives—that
my poor dear wife is incredibly jealous. She hates that any one—male or
female—should for an instant come between us. Her ideal is a desert
island and an eternal _tête-à-tête_. That gives you the clue to her
actions, which are, I confess, upon this particular point, not very far
removed from mania. Tell me that you will think no more of it.”

“No, no; certainly not.”

“Then light this cigar and come round with me and see my little
menagerie.”

The whole afternoon was occupied by this inspection, which included all
the birds, beasts, and even reptiles which he had imported. Some were
free, some in cages, a few actually in the house. He spoke with
enthusiasm of his successes and his failures, his births and his deaths,
and he would cry out in his delight, like a schoolboy, when, as we
walked, some gaudy bird would flutter up from the grass, or some curious
beast slink into the cover. Finally he led me down a corridor which
extended from one wing of the house. At the end of this there was a
heavy door with a sliding shutter in it, and beside it there projected
from the wall an iron handle attached to a wheel and a drum. A line of
stout bars extended across the passage. “I am about to show you the jewel of my collection,” said he. “There is
only one other specimen in Europe, now that the Rotterdam cub is dead. It is a Brazilian cat.”

“But how does that differ from any other cat?”

“You will soon see that,” said he, laughing. “Will you kindly draw that
shutter and look through?”

I did so, and found that I was gazing into a large, empty room, with
stone flags, and small, barred windows upon the farther wall. In the centre of this room, lying in the middle of a golden patch of
sunlight, there was stretched a huge creature, as large as a tiger, but
as black and sleek as ebony. It was simply a very enormous and very
well-kept black cat, and it cuddled up and basked in that yellow pool of
light exactly as a cat would do. It was so graceful, so sinewy, and so
gently and smoothly diabolical, that I could not take my eyes from the
opening. “Isn’t he splendid?” said my host, enthusiastically. “Glorious! I never saw such a noble creature.”

“Some people call it a black puma, but really it is not a puma at all. That fellow is nearly eleven feet from tail to tip. Four years ago he
was a little ball of black fluff, with two yellow eyes staring out of
it. He was sold me as a new-born cub up in the wild country at the
head-waters of the Rio Negro. They speared his mother to death after she
had killed a dozen of them.”

“They are ferocious, then?”

“The most absolutely treacherous and blood-thirsty creatures upon earth. You talk about a Brazilian cat to an up-country Indian, and see him get
the jumps. They prefer humans to game. This fellow has never tasted
living blood yet, but when he does he will be a terror. At present he
won’t stand any one but me in his den. Even Baldwin, the groom, dare not
go near him. As to me, I am his mother and father in one.”

As he spoke he suddenly, to my astonishment, opened the door and slipped
in, closing it instantly behind him. At the sound of his voice the huge,
lithe creature rose, yawned, and rubbed its round, black head
affectionately against his side, while he patted and fondled it. “Now, Tommy, into your cage!” said he. The monstrous cat walked over to one side of the room and coiled itself
up under a grating. Everard King came out, and taking the iron handle
which I have mentioned, he began to turn it. As he did so the line of
bars in the corridor began to pass through a slot in the wall and closed
up the front of this grating, so as to make an effective cage. When it
was in position he opened the door once more and invited me into the
room, which was heavy with the pungent, musty smell peculiar to the
great carnivora. “That’s how we work it,” said he. “We give him the run of the room for
exercise, and then at night we put him in his cage. You can let him out
by turning the handle from the passage, or you can, as you have seen,
coop him up in the same way. No, no, you should not do that!”

I had put my hand between the bars to pat the glossy, heaving flank. He
pulled it back, with a serious face. “I assure you that he is not safe. Don’t imagine that because I can take
liberties with him any one else can. He is very exclusive in his
friends—aren’t you, Tommy? Ah, he hears his lunch coming to him! Don’t
you, boy?”

A step sounded in the stone-flagged passage, and the creature had sprung
to his feet, and was pacing up and down the narrow cage, his yellow eyes
gleaming, and his scarlet tongue rippling and quivering over the white
line of his jagged teeth. A groom entered with a coarse joint upon a
tray, and thrust it through the bars to him. He pounced lightly upon it,
carried it off to the corner, and there, holding it between his paws,
tore and wrenched at it, raising his bloody muzzle every now and then to
look at us. It was a malignant and yet fascinating sight. “You can’t wonder that I am fond of him, can you?” said my host, as we
left the room, “especially when you consider that I have had the rearing
of him. It was no joke bringing him over from the centre of South
America; but here he is safe and sound—and, as I have said, far the most
perfect specimen in Europe. The people at the Zoo are dying to have him,
but I really can’t part with him. How, I think that I have inflicted my
hobby upon you long enough, so we cannot do better than follow Tommy’s
example, and go to our lunch.”

My South American relative was so engrossed by his grounds and their
curious occupants, that I hardly gave him credit at first for having any
interests outside them. That he had some, and pressing ones, was soon
borne in upon me by the number of telegrams which he received.