The Heart of Little Shikara - And Other Stories #244888

If it hadn't been for a purple moon that came peering up above the dark jungle just at nightfall, it would have been impossible to tell that Little Shikara was at his watch. He was really just the color of the shadows - a rather pleasant brown - he was very little indeed, and besides, he was standing very, very still. If he was trembling at all, from anticipation and excitement, it was no more than Nahar the tiger trembles as he crouches in ambush. But the moon did show him - peering down through the leaf clusters of the heavy vines - and shone very softly in his wide-open dark eyes.<br><br>And it was a purple moon, no other color that man could name. It looked almost unreal, like a paper moon painted very badly by a clumsy stagehand. The jungle moon quite often has that peculiar purplish tint, most travelers know, but few of them indeed ever try to tell what causes it.