he position of a keen
member of the Quorn, who saw Parliament making hunting illegal, on the
grounds that the sufferings inflicted on the fox, rendered it an
inhuman pastime. As I have said in a former chapter, the natives of
Pahang are, in their own way, very keen sportsmen indeed; and, when all
is said and done, it is doubtful whether hunting is not more cruel than
anything which takes place in a Malay cock-pit or bull-ring. The longer
the run, the better the sport, and more intense and prolonged the agony
of the fox, that strives to run for his life, even when he is so stiff
with exertion, that he can do little more than roll along. All of us
have, at one time or another, experienced in nightmares, the agony of
attempting to fly from some pursuing phantom, when our limbs refuse to
serve us. This, I fancy, is much what a fox suffers, only his pains are
intensified by the grimness of stern reality. If he stops, he loses his
life, therefore he rolls, and flounders, and creeps along when every
movement has become a fresh torture. The cock, quail, dove, bull, ram,
or fish, on the other hand, fights because it is his nature to do so,
and when he has had his fill he stops. His pluck, his pride, and his
hatred of defeat alone urge him to continue the contest. He is never
driven by the relentless whip of stern inexorable necessity. This it is
which makes fights between animals, that are properly conducted, less
cruel than one is apt to imagine.

The necessity that knows no law, is the only real slave driver, as the
sojourner in Eastern exile knows full well. No fetters ever gall so
much, as the knowledge that the chain is made fast at the other end.

THE WERE-TIGER

Soul that is dead ere life be sped,
Body that's body of Beast,
With brain of a man to dare and to plan,
So make I ready my Feast!

With tooth and claw and grip of jaw
I rip and tear and slay,
With senses that hear the winds ere they stir,
I roam to the dawn of day.

Soul that must languish in endless anguish,
Thy life is a little spell,
So take thy fill, ere the Pow'rs of Ill
Shall drag Thee, Soul, to Hell.

_The Song of the Loup Garou._

If you ask that excellent body of _savants_ the Society for Psychical
Research, for an opinion on the subject, they will tell you that the
belief in ghosts, magic, witchcraft, and the like having existed in all
ages, and in every l