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Updated: June 6, 2025
At least, they might have been house-flies for all the notice the ratel took of them, save now and then to bunch a dozen or so off his cowled head carelessly. Yet they would probably have nearly killed us.
The bird, with the quick eye of a detective, had located the hole of the nest, but having no trowel, forthwith fetched the ratel, who had, and together they fed, the beast on honey, and the bird on the grubs in the combs. And the bees? Oh, they don't count!
Should the bees' nest prove to be on the ground, or under it, the ratel soon unearths the treasure with his strong claws, and takes possession of it, regardless of the stings of the bees, against which his thick skin defends him. The Orison inhabits the forests of South America, from Guiana to Paraguay.
For the first time since the herds outlawed him, I fancy, he seemed to be quite pleased with himself, and soon, antelope-like, put the ratel from him placidly, and forgot. But he was reckoning without his host. If he had done with the ratel, the ratel had not done with him. No, by thunder not by a good bit!
The solemn eagles sat alone, and scowled at us from their peaks; whilst little Tom Ratel tumbled over head and heels for us in his usual diverting manner. If I have cares in my mind, I come to the Zoo, and fancy they don't pass the gate. I recognise my friends, my enemies, in countless cages.
But they might as well have seen a thunder "portent" captured by the tail as this ratel by the leg; for, instead of instantly and foolishly abandoning himself to the frenzy of unthinkable fear the fear of being trapped is the greatest of all to a free, wild thing as practically all others would have done, he said nothing at all; he failed to lose his head; and, to crown all, he instantly, coolly, slowly, viciously, and doggedly set himself to struggle, with a grim persistence that was amazing.
Indeed, if we regard as weasels the various carnivorous quadrupeds of the glutton and badger family, which have been described elsewhere in these sketches including the strange Teledu or Stinkard of Java, the Helietis of India and China, the Taira and Grison of Brazil, the Ratel or honey badger of Africa, the Zorille of the Cape, the Zorilla or Maikel of Patagonia, the Sand bear of India, and the numerous varieties of the celebrated Polecat, or Skunk, of North and South America we may well say that there are weasels, or their representatives, in every hole and corner of the earth.
It was the kind of snap that would take half a man's face away, and not nice to meet when you are trapped. The ratel, however, came calmly at the hyena, trap and all, and so nearly got his own trap-jaws locked home on the unclean one that the hyena was glad to go away.
But he would not be driven; that was the rub. Attacking nobody unprovoked, he was a grim beast to attack, and gave way before none. Hence the trouble. Finding that the bluff of the impressive tableau did not work, the lion tried a fresh one. Still staring at the ratel, he sank his head to the ground, so that his great mane hung to the earth all about him.
Pannier was the right hand of Rifoel, the depositary of the secrets of the counter-revolutionary party of the West; he regretted that Rifoel introduced women into the plot and confided in them; it was he who received the stolen money from the woman Bryond and conveyed it to Rifoel. As for the conduct of the two gendarmes Ratel and Mallet, it deserves the severest penalty of the law.
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