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Tamba, The Tame Tiger; His Many Adventures

<h2 id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII TAMBA IN THE JUNGLE</h2> Tamba, the tame tiger, had hidden himself away in the dark part of the ship called the “hold.” It was there that the cargo was stored—the place where boxes, barrels, and big wooden cases of things sent across the ocean were kept from the time the ship left one dock, until it came to another to unload. So Tamba had gone softly up the gangplank in the soft darkness of the night from the pier, he had dropped to the deck of the ship, and had crawled down what is called a “hatchway” into a hold. And there he hid. And I must tell you how it happened that Tamba smelled the wild animal odor on one ship, and not on another. It was because this ship had, a week or so before, brought from India and Africa a cargo of wild animals for a circus. There had been lions and tigers and elephants and snakes on the ship, and even though they had been taken off when the ship reached New York, some of the smell[114] remained. And it was this which Tamba smelled, and which made him feel sure that this was a jungle-ship, or one that would take him back to his Indian home. All through the night Tamba slept in the hold of the ship, among the boxes and the barrels, as he had slept on the dock. When he awoke he could see a little sunshine streaming through a crack, and he knew another day had come. Just then he felt a queer motion. It was as if the whole ship, and he himself in it, had been moved along. And that is just what was happening. The ship was moving away from the dock, getting ready for the voyage across the ocean. Tamba knew what the motion meant. He had felt it before on his first sea voyage, when he had been brought away from the jungle. “Well, at last I’m on my way back to the jungle,” thought Tamba. “It’s lucky I found this ship.” And, indeed, Tamba was lucky in more ways than one. But, with all that, Tamba did not have a very good time on board the ship. In the first place he knew he had to stay in hiding, if he did not want to be seen, and, perhaps, shut up in a cage again, or, for all he knew, be sent back to the circus. The tame tiger could not go out on deck, as the passengers did, and breathe the fresh air[115] and see the sunshine. Poor Tamba had to stay down in the dark hold, hiding among the boxes and barrels. And another thing was that he was hungry. After the first day when the ship was at sea, the tiger began to want more meat. Even though he had taken a good meal from the pile of beef on the wagon, that could not last very long. So, after the second night Tamba began to prowl about in the hold of the ship, looking for something to eat. He caught some big rats and ate them, and if the men who owned the ship had known that they would have been glad. For rats on ships do much damage, and eat some of the cargo. So Tamba ate the rats, but they were hardly enough. He wanted more. Then, one day he got a meal very unexpectedly. One of the sailors, who, perhaps, was as hungry as Tamba, took a big piece of meat from the “galley,” as the kitchen on a ship is called. And the sailor, who had no right to take this meat, stole away to eat it all by himself, so the cook wouldn’t see him and scold him. And, as it happened, the sailor picked out the same hold in which Tamba was hiding to come to eat his bit of meat which had been taken from the galley. Now Tamba was very hungry just about that time, and when the sailor happened to sit down[116] on a barrel, behind which Tamba was hiding, and began to eat the meat, the tame tiger smelled it. The tiger very much wanted some for himself. Tamba peered out and saw the sailor sitting with the big chunk of cooked meat on the barrel beside him. “That’s more than he needs,” thought Tamba, after the sailor had eaten a bit. “I’ll take the rest. I don’t believe he’ll mind.” So Tamba reached up his paw, hooked his sharp claws into the meat, and pulled it down toward his hungry mouth. The sailor turned just in time to see his meat sliding off the barrel. “Here! Come back with that!” he yelled. “Sure, the rats are getting very bold when they reach up and take your meat that way! Come back with it!” The sailor leaned over the edge of the barrel, really thinking some bold rat had taken his meat, and then the sailor saw Tiger Tamba, with his glittering, green eyes, hiding down in the snug nest, chewing the meat. “Oh, my! Oh, what do I see!” cried the frightened sailor. “Oh, ’tis a live tiger! Well, it serves me right for taking meat I’d no business to take! Oh, the tiger! The tiger!” and, shouting and yelling in fright, the sailor ran up on deck and never went down there again. [117] He did not dare tell the other sailors what he had seen, for then he would have had to tell about taking the meat, and he did not want to do this. As no one but the frightened sailor knew that Tamba was on the ship, and this sailor was not quite sure himself, Tamba was not found out. The chunk of meat he took away from the sailor was rather large, and it saved Tamba from actually starving, though he was pretty hungry before the ship got across the ocean. But he managed to catch some big rats every day, and this helped out. Aside from this, and the trick he played on the sailor, Tamba did not have many adventures on the ship. He had to keep pretty closely to the dark hold, not daring to come out. Then one day the pitching and tossing came to an end. The ship reached the end of her voyage and was tied up at a dock, this time in far-off India. Tamba was very lucky that he had gotten on a vessel that took him right back to his own jungle-land, though he was still many miles from the place of the trees and tangled vines. The night after the ship was tied up at the dock in India, Tamba watched his chance, and, when it was dark and quiet, he slipped up on deck from the dark hold, and looked about. He could see trees and houses, but there were not so[118] many houses as in New York, and there were more trees. The air, too, had a different smell. It had more the smell of the jungle, and as Tamba sniffed it he said: “My home can not be so very far away now. I will run down off this ship and find my jungle, and also my father and mother and my sister and brother. Then I shall be happy. No more circus for me!” So down the same gangplank up which he had walked from the dock in New York, Tamba ran, and soon he was on the Indian wharf. There were boxes and barrels there, too, but Tamba did not stop to find a hiding place. He wanted to run off to the jungle as soon as he could. The tiger was hungry, so he sniffed about until he found a place where the ship’s cook had thrown overboard, on the dock, some scraps of meat to some hungry dogs. The dogs had not eaten it all, and there was a little left for Tamba. Then, when he had found a drink of water at a fountain in a street near the dock, Tamba was ready to set off on his journey to find his former jungle home. It was a warm, Indian night. There was no moon, and as there were not many lights near the dock, Tamba was not seen as he slunk off the ship and began to travel. He sniffed the warm, moist air, and it reminded him of his jungle home. He remembered it from the time when he had been a little, baby tiger. [119] <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_p119.jpg" alt="" title="" /> <div class="caption">Tamba ran and soon he was on the Indian wharf.</div> </div> [120- 121] “Ah, that is good!” thought Tamba. “It was nice in the circus, and I had many good friends—Tum Tum, Dido, Chunky, the happy hippo, and Nero. And I met many good friends after I ran away—even Squinty was kind after he found I did not hurt him. But still I will like best to get back to my jungle.” So Tamba traveled on through the dark night, getting farther and farther away from the city where the ship had docked. Strange as it may seem, Tamba had made the trip all the way across the ocean himself. It was a great thing for a tiger to do, I think. Now he was in India, and that country has not so many large cities, nor were they as close together as in the United States, where Tamba had been in the circus. So, soon after leaving the dock, the tame tiger found himself out in the wild country. And it was not so far away to the jungle, though the jungle, where Tamba had formerly lived, was still many miles off. “But at last I am free, I am not in the circus, and I am out in the hot country that I love,” thought Tamba, as he slunk along under the trees and bushes. “Now all that I have to do is to find the right jungle. I can eat and drink now when I please. I shall not have to take[122] chunks of meat away from sailors, nor catch rats.” In this Tamba was right. All about him, in the woods, were plenty of small animals on which he could feed. And there were pools of water here and there where he could drink. It was not like being cooped up in the hold of a ship, nor even like being in a circus cage. Tamba liked very much to be free so he could wander where he wished. He traveled on and on for many nights, hiding in the day-time when he came to a city or village, but slinking along through the tall grass, or among the trees, when he came to the open country. He grew sleek and fat, for he had plenty to eat. Then, too, he met other tigers and some lions as well as a few elephants. All these animals he asked where his former jungle cave was, but none of them could tell him. They did not know Tamba’s father or mother, nor had they ever seen his sister or brother. For many miles Tamba roamed over India, looking for his old home. He began to think he would never find it, and he was getting lonesome and homesick when, one evening, he came to the edge of a deep wood. He crossed a field of tall dried grass to reach the trees. He was on the edge of a deep, dense jungle, and, somehow,[123] as he sniffed the air, to make sure there were no hunters about, and no wild beasts that might do him harm—somehow, Tamba felt that he had been near this same jungle forest once before. “But it was many years ago,” he thought. “I wonder if there is any one here who would know where my father and mother are.” Slowly he crossed through the dried grass and reached the woods. In front of him he saw a cave, and, at the sight of it, Tamba’s heart began to beat faster. He had a strange feeling. Out in front of the cave walked a big tiger—a man tiger. He paced slowly up and down, and, after a while, a tigress came out to keep him company. Tamba looked past the cave and saw, tumbling about in the dried leaves of the jungle, a boy and a girl tiger. Then he heard the tigress say: “Well, our children are growing up. Soon they will go away from our jungle cave.” “Yes, I suppose so,” said the larger man tiger, and Tamba thought the old tiger’s voice was sad. “Yes, they will go away,” went on the tigress. “They will leave us as Tamba did!” “Tamba!” thought the surprised circus tiger to himself. “She knows my name!” “Oh, but Tamba did not go away,” said the[124] old man tiger. “He was caught in a trap. Well do I remember that night! We have never seen him since.” “No; and I don’t suppose we ever shall,” said the tigress, and she, too, spoke sadly. “I would give a great deal if I could only see my little Tamba again.” At that Tamba could wait no longer. Trembling with eagerness he leaped through the grass, and landed in front of the cave, right between the other tigers. “Ha! What is this? Who is this strange tiger?” asked the old one. “Yes, who are you, and what do you want?” asked the tigress. “If you came to play with our boy and girl, there they are rolling in the grass. But you should not pounce in like that. It isn’t very nice and—” “Mother! Don’t you know me?” cried Tamba, in tiger talk, of course. “Why, I’m your own little boy tiger who was trapped and taken away long ago! I have been in a circus ever since, until I ran away, got on a ship, and came back to my jungle. Here I am! Don’t you know me, Father?” The old tiger opened wide his eyes and peered at the younger one. “Why—why—it is Tamba!” he growled. “Look, Mother, our tiger cub has come back to[125] us, almost full grown! Oh, what a fine tiger he is! Here!” he called to Tamba’s brother and sister. “Here is Tamba come back! Oh, how glad I am!” “And so am I!” cried Tamba’s mother, as she purred and rubbed him with her paw. “Oh, to think of having you back again after all these years! I am so glad!” “And I am glad to get back!” said Tamba. “I had a lot of adventures before I got here, though.” “Oh, do tell us about them!” purred Tamba’s sister. “I love to hear adventure stories.” “So do I,” said Tamba’s brother. “Tell us about the circus.” “First, let him have something to eat,” suggested Tamba’s mother. “You are hungry, aren’t you?” she asked. “Indeed I am,” said Tamba. Then they brought him a big chunk of meat from the cave, and when he had eaten that and had taken a drink from the pool Tamba sat down and began his story. “I have been in many places,” he said, “but, most of all, I like to be back in the jungle. I am never going away again!” “And to think you found us again, after all these years!” said his mother. “I think it is wonderful!” added his sister. [126] “Very clever, I call it,” said his father, sort of laughing. “Oh, let Tamba tell his adventures,” begged his brother. So Tamba told them, just as I have written them here in this book. He told about the circus, about how Squinty splashed whitewash on him, and everything; and, my! the other jungle tigers laughed at the funny pig’s trick. It was late that night when Tamba had finished the story of his adventures, and then, having eaten some more, he was given a bed on the dried leaves in the cave, where he curled up with his father and mother and sister and brother. “Tamba,” asked his sister softly, as she reached over in the darkness and touched him with her paw, “do you think I would like it in a circus?” “No!” said Tamba. “You had better stay at home in the jungle. There is no place like it. I am glad to get back!” And then he went to sleep. THE END <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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