you that when Nature repented, and gave
the ratel a courage surpassing the courage of any other beast on earth,
she also gave him a skin tough as a pachyderm's, and loose, as if it were
two sizes too large; and that is why that black-necked cobra died quite
quickly, and the ratel didn't, even slowly. Even if the snake's fangs
had got through, which was not in the least likely, that did not mean to
say they would touch Mr. Ratel's person inside. This, by the way, may
explain why being spitted on thorns, like a beetle on a pin, when the
bull-gnu charged, did not seem to worry him much, either.

The moon was up when the wounded mother ratel, on guard at the mouth of
her burrow, looked up sharply. A side-striped jackal, who kidded himself
she had not seen him lying in wait to find out, when she went hunting,
what she hid in that den, suddenly bolted with a yap; and a hyena,
represented by two burning eyes, who appeared, by some magic of his own,
to guess she was wounded, jumped up and made way for something that
approached. It was her husband and the cobra, the latter trailing along
limply behind, who came that way; and even the hyena had retired, with an
audible sigh--at least, it wasn't a moan quite--when he claimed the path.
After all, there is no sense, if you are the most cowardly beast for your
power on earth, in getting up against the pluckiest thing in creation in
full possession of life and liberty.

Later our ratel sallied forth to "face the world" again. His wife had
recovered from her wounds--the result, these, of refusing to believe she
was not so good as a twelve-foot python, and a bit better--sufficiently
to walk slowly; but that was not enough to face that wild where
die-quicks, from lions, down through leopards, hyenas, wild-dogs,
jackals, and the rest, are forever hiding, on the lookout for unfortunate
ones flying an S.O.S. signal. No, he must go and do the provisioning
alone, and alone he went.

For a peaceful beast, one only too pleased to mind his own business and
thank other folks to mind theirs, his subsequent doings were rather
astonishing. This was because he cared for neither man nor beast nor
devil, in the first place, and because the night produced all three, in
the second.

He got man in the form of the smell of meat--well-seasoned meat, even for
Africa!--what time he was testing a native village, by scent and on the
downwind side of him--and that showed his pluck, my word!--for honey