Captain Smith

Captain Kull Smith's caracal Darius had succumbed to his wounds following his battle with Miltiades, the Canada lynx who roamed Captain Smith's estate. A year passed and from the Herr Ludwig von Fell Circus, Captain Smith had rescued a new caracal: a female named Roxana. Looking to the animals he owned, Captain Smith soon came to realize that Roxana, like Darius before her, was without a mate. The wolfdog Cnut had the rough collie Emma, the great horned owls Herod and Cleopatra had each other and the American quarter horses Peter and Catherine had one another, yet the year-old Roxana was alone. To rectify this, Captain Smith sought out to find a male to be Roxana's companion.

In Egypt did Captain Smith find such a caracal, the offspring of the champion hunters Amen-Ra and Olympias. Learning the name of the mother, Captain Smith exclaimed in his deep, powerful voice: "His mother is named Olympias, his predecessor was Darius, and his mate shall be Roxana! What other name could he have except 'Alexander?'"

And Alexander he was. He was a year-old and like any caracal he was a medium-sized cat with a robust build, long legs, a short face, long, black tufted ears and long canine teeth. A caracal's coat was either uniformly reddish-tan or uniformly sandy, both with the ventral parts being lighter with small reddish markings. Alexander's fur was reddish-tan and as a male, he stood at twenty inches at the shoulder, had a head-and-body length of forty-three inches and a bushy tail of thirteen inches.

The forty-five-year-old veteran of the Second Boer War, adventurer, scientist and almsgiver took Alexander home and it was there that Alexander discovered the greenest place he ever could have possibly imagined. Although the country house that Captain Smith dwelt in was as big as Blenheim Palace, the property of the estate was five times the size of its English counterpart, covering eight thousand acres of land that was primarily forest. The country house had begun construction in 1691 and finished construction in 1708. It was named Quebec Castle, after the Battle of Quebec of 1690 and ultimately Quebec City. Having been built during the time of the Upper Country, Quebec Castle predated both incarnations of the Province of Quebec and had been built in the portion of the Upper Country that was now the Province of Ontario, specifically the United Counties of Northumberland and Durham. Under Captain Smith, Quebec Castle was currently a museum of Egyptology and a boarding school in addition to a residence.

As the Studebaker drove towards Quebec Castle, Alexander sat on his master's lap while Mrs. Helene Neuwirth, one of Captain Smith's two cooks, drove. Stroking Alexander, Captain Smith asked: "Any improvement with my mother, Helene?"

"None at all, Kull." Answered Mrs. Neuwirth. "Your sister's death really hit her hard."

"I was afraid of that." Commented Captain Smith, his tone filled with sorrow. "My brother-in-law, my sister, is my family to lose another as well? Bad enough that my nephew lost his father this year at St Eloi Craters, but now his mother too. I loathe to wonder what losing his maternal grandmother will do to him. War is a curse, perhaps humanity's greatest enemy. I saw enough of its horrors in the Second Boer War, my father saw enough of it fighting against the Fenian Raids against his will, even if only thirty-seven men died in total the point still is men died, and now the Great War has claimed my brother-in-law and with it my sister… I can only pray it will not claim my mother also." All of this Alexander listened to. A sadness hung over this place, as oppressive as thunder. Could anything stop it?