"You're a fine sort of cat," Phil complained grumpily, his own eyes
feeling anything but bright. "Going to sleep just when I needed you
most."
Lucky disregarded these criticisms. "Prrrrt-prt," he repeated
peremptorily.
But now that his hypnotic daze was broken, Phil once again felt
over-poweringly sleepy. "I know that mew," he mumbled muzzily at the
green blur beyond the shimmering fence of his eyelashes. "You're
hungry. Well, I s'pose you deserve a feed after all the wonders you
did. But I haven't got any cranberry sauce right now. I'll get you
something to eat ... later ... on."
"Prrrt-prt!" Lucky demanded in the outraged tones of an honest workman
who finds himself cheated of his pay.
But Phil was beyond reach of any appeal. "G'night," he told Lucky in
the kindliest possible way and dropped off.
He dreamed of things far off and strange and ominous, though misty.
He dreamed of dark fronded forests and small animals screeching. The
screeches grew louder and he fled out of his dream altogether into the
jeep parked in the blind end driveway in the little square.
For a moment he seemed to see the ghosts of the dark fronded trees and
hear the echo of the dream screeches, but then he realized that the
former were the square's unpruned shrubs, while the latter were the
squeals and cries of schoolgirls scattering out of a building beyond.
He realized groggily that they must be coming from school--no, from
afternoon school, since the sunlight wasn't slanting at all deeply into
the square, and that he must have slept here undisturbed all day.
And then, he became aware that his lap and heart were cold and that
Lucky was gone.
XIV
Phil's first impulse was to jump out of the jeep and hunt around. But
the chill in his heart told him Lucky was farther away than that.
Besides, the place was a regular jungle and one man could hunt through
it forever for anything cat-size.