Miscellany: The Longest Hour Of My Life

Never, oh, never, can I forget the day, long seconds of which made up t'hose month-like minutes, which composed that interminable hour, the longest in my life! 'And pray, sir, how and when was that?' For the when, madam, to be particular, ít was from half past ten o'clock, A. M. on the first day of May, new style, Anno Domini, 1822. For the how you shall Jiear. At the date just mentioned, my resi dence was in the Adelphi, and having a slrong. partial-ity for the study of natura history fFom liyiug specimens, it suited both my convenietice and my taste, to drop in frequently at the menagerie, a Exeter Change. These visits were geneialfy paid at an early hour, before town or country cous ins cali to' see the lions, and' it frequently happened that I found myself quite alone with the wild bensts. An annual guinea entitled me to go as often as a,greeable Which happened to be so frequently, tha the animáis soorv knew me by sight ■whilst witfr some of thern, fof instanc ífíe olephanty í obtained quite a friendly footing. Even Nero looked kindly on me, and the rest of the creatures did no eye me with the glances half so shy anc sv age, wfrich they threwat les familia visitors,But there was one notable exception. 'he royal Bengal tiger could not, nor i voulcl not, recognize me, but persisted in "rowling and scowling at me as a straner, whom of course he longed to take n. There seemed to bo someantipathy beween me and the tiger. At any ratc, ie took a peculiar pleasure, in my prcs3nce, in ostentatiously paradinghismeans jf offence. Sometimes stretching out one ïuge muscular leg between the bars, he unsheathed and exhibited bis tremendous i ilaws, after which, with a rogue-like grin he displayed his formidable teelh, and then by a delibérate yawn, indulged me with a look into that horrible red julph, down which he would fain have jolted me in giblets. The yawning jaws vere invariably closed with a furious snap, and the brutal performance was vound up with a howl so unutterably lollow and awful, so cannibalish, that even at its hundreth repetition, it slill curdled my very blood, and tlirilled every nerve in my body. 'What a dreadful creature!' Very, ma'am. # # On the morning of the first of May, 1822, between nine and ten o'clock, 1 entered the menagerie of Exeter Change, and walked directly, as usual, into the jreat room appropriated to the-large animáis. There was no person visible, keeper or visitor, about the place - like Alexander Selkirk, "I was lord of the fowl and the brute." I had the lions all to myself. As I stepped through the door, my eyes mechanically turned towards the den of my old enemy, the royal Bengal tiger, fully expecting to receive from him the customary salutesof a spiteful grin and a growl. But the husky voice was silent, the grim face was nowhere to be seen. The cage was empty! After the first surprise was over, my curiosity became excited, and I began to speculate on the cause of the creature's absence. Was he dead? Had he been déstroyed for his ferocity, or paried with to make room for a milder species? - Had he gone to perform in the legitímate drama, or laken French leave? I was looking round for somebody to answer those queries, when all at once, I descried an object that made me feel like a man suddenly blasted with a thunderbolt. t;Mercy on usí You don't mean to say it was the tiger?" I do. Huddled up in a dark corner of the room, he had been overlooked by me on my 'ent ranee, and cunningly suppressing his usual snarl of recognition, the treachejous beast had proceeded to intercept my retreat. Át my first glimpseof him, he was skulking along, close to the wall, in the direction of the dooi. Had I possessed the full power of motion, he must have arrived there first - but terror rivetted me to the spot. There I stood, all my faculties frozen up, dizzy motionless, and dumb. Could I have cried out, my last brealh of life would certainly have escaped from me in one long, shrill scream, but it was pent up in my bosom, where my heart, was quickly fluttering like a sacred bird. There was afeeling of the deadly choking at my throat, of mortal sickness at my stomach. My tongue in an instant had become stiff and parched - my jaws locked - -my eyes fixed in their sockets, from the rush of blood, looking through a reddish mist, whilst within my head a whizzing noise I struck up, that rendered me utterly incapable of thought or comprehension. - Such as far as I can recollect, was my condition, and which from thesymptoms, l should say, was very similar to a combined shock of apoplexy and paralysfs. This state, howcver, did frot last. At first every limb and joint had suddenly stiffened, rigid as cast irob; my very fïesh, with blood in its veins, had congealed into marble; but after a few seconds, the muscles as abruptly relaxed, the jbints gave way, the blood thawed, and seemed escaping from the vessels, the subst'ánce of my body seemed losing its solidity, with an expressible sense of its imbecility, I feit as if my whole frame would fall in a shapeless mass ön the floor. The tiger, in the interim, havmg gained the door, had crouched down - cat-like - his back curved inwards, his face between his fore paws, and with his glaring eyeballs steadily fixed on mine, was creeping on his belly, by half inches, towards me, his tail meanwhile Vorking from side to side, behind him, as if it werp sculling him on. In nnother moment this movement censed; the tail straighted itself out, except the tip, which turned up and bocame nervously ag.itated;. warning as qertainas the like signal i'rom an enraged ratllesnako. ' There was no time to be lost. A idential inspiration, a direct whisper, as it were, from heaven, reminded me of the empty cage, and suggested, with Iightning rapidity, that the same massive bars which had formerly kept the maneater within, might keep him out. In nnother instant, I was within the den, had pulled to the door, and shot the heavy bolt. The tiger, foiled by the suddenness of this unexpected manoeuvre, immediately rose from his couchant position, and after violently lashing each flank with lis tail, gave vent to his dissaüsfaction in a prolonged inward grumble, that sounded like distant thunder. But he did not ong delibérate on his course; to my infinite horror, I saw him approach the den, when, rearing on his liind legs. in the attitude the heralds calí rampanl, he gave a tremendous roar, which made my blood curdle, and then resting his huge mws on the front of the cage, with his luge hideous face pressed against the Dars, he stared at me a long, long stare with two red, fiery eyes, that alternately gloomed and sparkled like burning coals. 'And did'nt the tiger, sir, poke his great claws, sir, into the cage, sir. and piek you out, sir, bit by bit sir, between the bars?' Patience, my doar little fellow, patience. How shall I describe - by what gigantic scale can I give a notion of the enorrnous expansión of the ordinary fractions of time, when marked on the dial of the world's circumference by the shadow of death. In the meantime the tiger kept his old position in front of the cage without making any attempt to get at me. He could not fear my getting out to eat him, &as to his devouring me,having recently breakfasted on a skin of beef, he seemed in no hurry for a second meal, knowing perfectly well, that whenever he might feel inclined to lunch, he had me ready for il, as in his safe. Thus the beast continued with intolerable perseverence to stare in upon me, who, crouched up at the further corner of the den, had only to await his pleasure or displeasure. Once or twice, indeed, Itried ío cali out for help, but the sound died ín my throat, and when at lastl succeeded, the tiger; whether to drown my voice, or from sympathy, set up such a roar at the same time, and this he did so repealedly, that convinced of the futility of the experiment, I abandpnedmyself in silence to my fate. lts crisis was approaching. If he liad no hunger for food, the savage had an appetite for revenge, and soon showed himsell disposed, catlike, to sport with his victim, and torment him a íittle by exciting his terror. I have said cat-like, but tliere seemed something more supernaturally ingenious in the cruelty of his proceedings. He certainly made faces at me, twisting his grim features with the most frightful coñtortions - especially his mouth, drawing his lips so as to show his teeth, then smacking theni, or licking them wifh his tongue, of the roughness ofwhich he occasionally gave me a hint by rasping it against the iron bars. But the climax of his mal ice was to come. Strange as it may seem, he absolutely winked at me, not a mere blink at excess of light, but a significant knowing wink, and then inflating his cheeks, puffed into tny face a long, hot breath, smelling most ominously of raw flesh! 'The horrid wretch! why heseemedto know what he was about, like a Christian?, Yes, madam, or al any rate, like an inhuman being. But, before long, he evi dently grew tired of such mere pastime. His tail, that index of mischief, resumed its activity, swinging and flourishing in the air, with a thamp every now nnd then on his ffanks, as if he were beáting time with it to some Tiger's March in his own head. At last it dropped, and at the same time thrustingone paw between the bars, he tried by an experimental circular sweep, whether any part of me was within his reach. He took nolhing, however by this motion; but his talons so nearly brushed my knees that a change of posture becarne imperative. The den was too ÍOwto allow of my standing up, so that the only way was; to He down on my side, with m'y back1 against that of the cage; of course myself as much of a basrelief as possible. Fortunately my coat was closely buttohed up to thö throat, for the hitch of a claw in a lappel would have been fatal : as it was, the paw of the brute, in some its sweeps, carne within two inches of my porson. Foiled in his fishing for me, he then struck the bars scriatim, but they were well imbedded. ip their sockets,lo break, or bend, or give wtiy. t theless I felt íar from safe. There was r such a diaboli'cal sagacity in the beast's v proceedings, that it would hardly have c been wonderful if he had deliberately undone the bolt and fastening of his late front door and walked into me. t Confound the keepers! ( Not one of them, upper or under, even t looked into the room. t My own case was getting desperate. - The tiger, enntged by his failures was getting furious, and kept up an incessant fret ful grumble, sometimes deepening ( to n growl, or rising almost into a shriek; whiJe ngain he tried the bars or swept fbr , me with his claws. Lunch time it was i plain had come, and an appetite had come i with it, as appeared by liis efforts to get ' at me, as well as by frequent opening and ' shulting his jaws, and licking his lips, in fact making a sort of ISarmacida-feast on me beforehand. The eftect of this mock maslication on my nerves was inexpressibly terrible, as the rehearsal of a sad tragedy. Besides, from a correspondence of situation, I seemed actually to teel in my flesh every bite he simulated, and the consequent agonies. Oh, horrible, horrible, horrible! 'Horrible, indeed! I wonder you did not faint! Madam, I dared not. All my vigilnnce was necessary to preserve me from those dreadful snatches, sö often made suddenly as if to catch me oflf my guard. It was far more likely that the brain. overstrained by such intense excitemeut, would give way, and draw me by some frantic impulse, a maniac, into those foamy jaws. Still, bolt and bar and reason retained their places. But, alas! if even the mind remained firm, the physical energies fail. So long as 1 could maintain my position as still and stiffas acorpse, my life was comparatively safe; bul the necessary effort was almost beyond the power of human endurance, and certaitily could not be protracted; the joints and sinewjs must relax and then Merciful heaven! the crisis just alluded to was fast approaching, for the overtasked muscles were gradually givej give, giving, when suddenly there was a peculiar cry from some animal in the iner room. The tiger answered it with ayelland as if reminded of some hated object, ït least as obnoxious to him as myself; instantly drppped from thecage, and made sne step toward the spot. But he stopped short, turning his face toward the 3age, to which he would probably have returned, but fora repetition of the same 3i-y. The tiger answered it as before, with a yell of deiiance, and bounded off ihrough the door, into the next chamber, whence growls, roars and shrieks of brutal rage soon announced that some desperate combat had commenced. The uproar alarming the keepers, they rushed in, when springing from the cage with equal alacrity, I rushed out, and while the men were securing the tiger, secured myself by running home to my house in the Adelphi, at a rate never at- tained before or since. Nor did Time, who "travels in divers places with divers persons," ever go at so extraordinary a rate- -for slowness - as he had done with me. On consulting my watch, the age which I had passed in the tigers's den must have been sixty minutes! And so ended, courteous reader, the longest hour in my life.