"The African Wild Cat (Felis lybica cafra) is the direct ancestor of every domestic cat on earth. Every cat on every lap in every house in every country traces its lineage to this animal. The domestication event occurred approximately ten thousand years ago when wild cats, following rodents drawn to human grain stores, found that proximity to humans was advantageous. The least fearful individuals survived best. The cat, in the current understanding, domesticated itself. It made an assessment and acted on it. The Colonel notes that he fed one bully beef before being informed of any of this and considers this consistent with the available evidence."
He had put out the food before Cetshwayo came back from the waterhole.
It had appeared at the tent's edge at dusk — a cat, tabby-striped, slightly larger than the cats he associated with Wiltshire but unmistakably, recognisably, specifically a cat. It sat at the perimeter of the firelight with the composed attention of something that has assessed a situation and found it adequate. It washed one paw. It looked at the Colonel.
The Colonel, who was not an unsympathetic man, put out a small amount of the bully beef from his camp rations and wrote in his notebook: Domestic cat. Stray. Found near camp, drainage line vicinity, dusk. Possible welfare concern. Fed.
The cat ate the bully beef with the efficiency of something that has been feeding itself successfully for some time and does not require the Colonel's assessment of its welfare to continue doing so. Then it sat and looked at the fire.
He was writing at eleven o'clock when he moved the torch.
He had not intended anything by it — a routine repositioning, the beam swinging across the sand — and the cat, which had been sitting at the tent's edge for two hours in the self-contained manner of something waiting for nothing in particular, launched itself at the beam.
Not cautiously. Not tentatively. With total commitment — the full pounce, both forepaws, all its weight, the complete application of what were in fact perfectly developed hunting instincts toward a beam of light moving across dry sand.
It came up empty. It sat back. It looked at the Colonel.
It washed its face.
The Colonel put the torch down. He had seen this done before — at Constance's house in Wiltshire, by a tabby of no particular distinction who had been doing it since she was a kitten and who continued doing it at the age of eleven with the same total committed certainty that the beam was catchable.
He wrote: "Note: exhibits torch-beam response identical to domestic cat. Possibly not entirely feral."
He moved the torch again.
The cat pounced.
In the morning it was in the same position at the tent edge, watching the Colonel make tea with the focused attention of something that has opinions about the process.