to the middle of the boat, to the edge of the tarpaulin. It was a hard crawl. I felt I was climbing the side of a volcano and I was about to look over the rim into a boiling cauldron of orange lava. I lay flat.
I carefully brought my head over. I did not look over any more than I had to. I did not see Richard Parker. The hyena was plainly visible, though.
It was back behind what was left of the zebra. It was looking at me. I was no longer afraid of it. It wasn’t ten feet away, yet my heart didn’t skip a beat.
Richard Parker’s presence had at least that useful aspect. To be afraid of this ridiculous dog when there was a tiger 12th - - Life of Pi Page about was like being afraid of splinters when trees are falling down. I became very angry at the animal. “You ugly, foul creature,” I muttered.
The only reason I didn’t stand up and beat it off the lifeboat with a stick was lack of strength and stick, not lack of heart. Did the hyena sense something of my mastery? Did it say to itself, “Super alpha is watching me–I better not move”? I don’t know.
At any rate, it didn’t move. In fact, in the way it ducked its head it seemed to want to hide from me. But it was no use hiding. It would get its just dessert soon enough.
Richard Parker also explained the animals’ strange behavior. Now it was clear why the hyena had confined itself to such an absurdly small space behind the zebra and why it had waited so long before killing it. It was fear of the greater beast and fear of touching the greater beast’s food. The strained, temporary peace between Orange Juice and the hyena, and my reprieve, were no doubt due to the same reason: in the face of such a superior predator, all of us were prey, and normal ways of preying were affected.
It seemed the presence of