Hector Hugh Munro, better known by the pen name Saki, was born in Akyab, Burma, was a British writer, whose witty and sometimes macabre stories satirized Edwardian society and culture. In Gabriel-Ernest, Cunningham, an artist-friend who has been visiting his friend Van Cheele, the owner of some woodland, tells him that there is a wild beast living there. Van Cheele dismisses this idea, but shortly after his friend has left he encounters a boy of sixteen sunning himself naked by a pool in the forest. He asks what the boy is doing there, and the boy tells Van Cheele that he lives in the woods and that he feeds on animal flesh – and on the flesh of children when he can get his hands on it, though he hasn’t tasted any for two months. Van Cheele initially dismisses the youth as a prankster, but on his walk home he remembers that the miller’s wife had lost a child – reportedly swept away by the millrace – several months ago, and Van Cheele connects this with the remark made by the mysterious youth. The next day, he resolves to go and visit Cunningham and ask his friend what he had seen to prompt his remark about a ‘wild beast’ living in the woods. But before he can do so, Van Cheele walks into his morning-room for a cigarette and finds the mysterious youth reclining on the ottoman, perfectly relaxed… Listen online to free English audiobook "Gabriel-Ernest” on our website to experience Saki's work.
