A MAN WITH A BIG VOICE 231 



of their cage. We stared in troubled silence at them 

 and at one another, wondering what would happen 

 when the keeper came upon the scene. 



At last I remarked that the animals had probably- 

 cost a lot of money, and someone would have to pay 

 for them. My friend looked frightened, but made no 

 reply. Fortunately the beasts were not really dead, 

 although I think they had had a pretty narrow 

 escape. By-and-by they recovered at the same 

 moment, and jumping up and uttering the most 

 piercing, terrified screams, they rushed away into 

 the sleeping compartment at the back of the cage, 

 and there buried themselves in the straw and became 

 silent and motionless. For an hour afterwards we 

 returned at intervals to the cage, but the ichneumons 

 dared not venture out again. 



The effect produced by the sudden loud explosive 

 sound of a sneeze is, however, even less powerful 

 than that of the human voice in some instances, and 

 the death of the child who was killed by the shock 

 of a sneeze was no great matter compared with an 

 occurrence at a farm in the neighbourhood of my 

 home when I was a youth. 



It was a small farm near the village, owned by a 

 native named Bias Escovar, a big, powerful man 

 with a broad, immensely deep chest. He lived with 

 his wife and a hired man and a black boy who assisted 

 him in his work on the land, and as a carrier in his 

 big ox-carts. He had a deep voice, and as a rule 

 conversed in a low tone, because, his neighbours used 

 to say, he was afraid of hurting you if he spoke out 



