William P. Barron

“ I felt the bed rebound as she jumped to the floor, and there I heard the soft padding of her feet down the passageway.
I awoke with a shriek. My forehead was damp with sweat. My teeth were chattering. I looked and saw that my door was wide open. I leaped out of bed and turned on the light. Was it a hideous dream, a fearful nightmare?
I do not know. But, lying there on the coverlet, was the wet muddy body of Toi Wah’s kitten.
A live and famished man-eating tiger in the room could not have inspired me with greater terror. I dared not touch the cold dead thing. ”

“ And—and—thinking it a curious old Chinese relic, I put it on my wrist. It's a bracelet, not a collar!"
"Take it off then!" I shouted. "Take it off! You can't! You can't, until you become Toi Wah again, and then it will be about your neck. Read what it says! It is in your accursed tongue!
"But you shall never live to madden me again with fear, to make my life a hell of peering eyes and padding feet, and then to suck my breath at last! I killed you once, I can do it again! And again and yet again in any shape the devils in hell may send you to prey upon honest men!" ”

“ Toi Wah did not move. She only looked, but such a look! It appealed to the merciless devil in my heart. It burned into my soul.
"Kill me!" her great amber eyes seemed to say. "Kill me quickly and mercifully as you killed the darling of my heart. What sayeth the Master: 'Be merciful, and thy heart shall know peace.' Today is yours, tomorrow—Who can say?"
As if in a dream, I stood and looked into her eyes. Looked until those amber eyes converged into a dirty yellow pool around the edge of which grew giant ferns and reeds taller than our forest rees. ”

“ I deceived the housekeeper, who thought I was venting my grief for my grandmother's death by loving and caressing the object of the old lady’s affection. I did not deceive Toi Wah. She lay quietly in my arms, but it was the paralysis of terror; the nonresistant stupor of great fear. Her body never ceased trembling, and her eyes were lifeless and dull. ”

“ My desire to kill would become so over-powering that my breath would become hurried, my heart would beat almost to suffocation and my face would flush.
Usually my grandmother, noticing my reddened face would glance up over her spectacles, from the book she was reading and say, "What ail you, Robert? You look flushed and feverish. Perhaps the room is too warm for you. Put Toi Wah down and run out in the air for a while." ”

“ The cold sweat of fear would exude from every pore, as my imagination visualized Toi Wah leaping through, and, with a snarl, pouncing upon my throat with tooth and claw. I would shudder and tremblingly feel about my neck to make sure my leather collar was securely fastened.
At last, unable to stand the uncertainty any longer, I would leap out of bed, turn on the light, rush to the door, frantically drag the heavy chiffonier to one side, and throw open the door. Nothing!
Then would creep along the passageway to the head of the stairs, and peer down into the dimly-lighted hall. Nothing! ”

“ In my wife's eyes was the old fear, the ancient hate, I used to see in Toi Wah's eyes when I came suddenly into my grandmother's room—this room! The look flashed out for an instant and was gone.
"How you frightened me, Robert!" she laughed. "And the look in your face! What has happened?"
"Nothing," I answered. "Nothing at all."
"But why did you look at me so?" she insisted. "Surely something has gone amiss. Aren't the servants coming? If they are not, I am not entirely useless; I can even cook," and she laughed again, an embarrassed laugh I thought. ”

“ Of the dragon banner floating in the sun, and the watch fires on the hills. Of old Tartar loves and hates. Of wrongs that never die, but pass on from age to age, from life to life, from death to death-unhasting, unending until the debt be paid. ”

“ I drew my breath sharply.
"The cat—Toi Wah?” I asked the housekeeper, who watched beside the dead. "Where is she?"
"Under the bed," she answered. "The poor creature is that distracted she would not eat, and had to be driven from your grandmother’s side in order that we might compose the body. She would not leave the room, but darted under the bed there, snarling and spitting. It’s afraid of her I am."
I got down on my hands and knees and peered under the bed, Crouched in the farthest corner was Toi Wah, and her great yellow eyes glared at me in terror and defiance. ”

“ I was afraid of Toi Wah, too. So afraid of her that I could know no peace, nor happiness, if she lived. I was sure of that.
It is the coward who is dangerous. Fear kills always if it can, It never temporizes, nor is it ever merciful. Beware of him who fears you. ”

“ He mooned over the inscription for a long time, fingering the collar lovingly, while Toi Wah lay passively in my arms and looked at him.
"He say what I no can say good in English," he explained at last. "He say, 'Death no can do, no can die,' See? When Gland Lama cat wear this colla', no can die, No can be kill him—just change flom cat to some other thing; monkey—tiger—hoss—maybe man—next time," he concluded vaguely.
"He say, 'Love me, I love you, hate me, I hate you.' No can say good in English what Chinese say. See?" ”

“ Free from the sound of softly-padding feet. I was a new man, indeed, for there sloughed from me all the old timidity and lack of aggressiveness that this fear of Toi Wah had engendered in me. I went from my grandmother's house to college, a man among men. ”

“ And it is a cat that takes me away from this place—to go to my death! And maybe this cat will follow on to haunt me in some other world, as it has in this. Who knows?
This doom had its beginning, as far as this life is concerned, when I was a boy in my grandmother's house. My grandmother had a great yellow Tartar cat that she loved as only a lonely old woman can love a cat.
Perhaps it was because I was jealous of the love and attention my grandmother lavished on Toi Wah—a boy's natural antipathy for anything that usurps the place he thinks is his by right. ”

“ Now I know the characters engraved on Toi Wah’s collar referred to a quotation from the seventh book of Buddha, which, freely translated, reads as follows:
"That which is alive hath known death, and that which lives can never die, Death is not; there is only a changing from shape to shape, from life to life.
"Mayhap the despised animal, walking in the dust of the road, was one time King of Ind, or the consort of Ghengis Khan. ”

“ Or perhaps it was the same inborn cruelty, the same impish impulse to inflict suffering on a helpless dumb creature, which I have observed in other boys.
Anyway, with or without reason, I hated this self-complacent, supercilious animal that looked at me out of topaz eyes, with a look that seemed to see through and beyond me, as if I did not exist. ”

“ As I opened the door of the dining-room, my wife turned from where she stood by the fire-place to greet me, and I was again struck by her resemblance to Toi Wah. The arrangement of her hair heightened this effect. And when she smiled—I cannot describe it! Such a sly, secret, feline smile!
"Robert," she said, as she came to me and put up her lips to be kissed. "Do you know what day this is?" ”

“ That is the bedroom he wrote about," whispered the nurse, grasping the interne's arm.
They walked softly down the passage to the door and looked in. On the bed lay the man they sought, glassy-eyed, with fallen jaw and livid face—dead!
On his breast stood a great yellow amber-eyed cat, who faced them with an arched back and menacing snarl. Involuntarily, they drew back. The cat sprang past them and down the passageway to the stairs, uttering the same weird cry.
"My God!" gasped the nurse, with pallid lips. "Did you see? About that cat's neck—and it was a Tartar cat ”

“ Whether or Not You Believe in Reincarnation, You Will Be Thrilled By Reading
Jungle Beasts
A Complete Novelette
By WILLIAM P. BARRON
"Look!" said the nurse to the young interne on the second floor of Dr. Winslow's sanatorium. "See what I found in the table drawers of 112—the patient who was discharged last evening. Do you suppose this horrible story can be true?" ”