But the other laughed recklessly, and continued to advance—we dare not swear that the consciousness of having a certain form of gallery to play to did not add to his rashness. He halted within very few yards of the maddened beast.
The latter was now frightful to behold. He seemed to flatten himself lower in his crouch. The great speckled head literally opened, until, viewed in section, it resembled a crescent. The lips were drawn back from the formidable fangs till the contracted folds of the skin well-nigh closed the glaring eyes, and the infuriated snarl had become something terrific.
Suddenly every muscle in the beast’s body was seen to stiffen. With an appalling yell it flung itself forward. Dick Selmes was hurled to the ground, half stunned; his confused senses feebly conscious of the crash of a report, leading him to suppose he had been shot by accident.
“Well of all the complete young idiots I ever saw, you are the champion one,” cried old Hesketh, with excusable heat, having ascertained that his guest was uninjured. The latter laughed, rather feebly, for he felt sore all over.
“What’s the row, eh? Greenoak, I thought you’d shot me.”
“The row? Look there,” was the answer grimly given.
Dick screwed himself round. There lay the iron trap—empty, and further on, the spotted corpse of the great leopard. He himself was between the two.
“Lucky Greenoak’s got the eye of a hawk, and the quickness of a flash of lightning,” said his host, grimly. “I know I could never have got in that shot in time. How would you be feeling now if the brute’s spring hadn’t been cut short? He was stone dead in the middle of it when he knocked you over.”
“Did he knock me over then?” said Dick, rising to his feet.
“Rather,” answered Greenoak. “Even then the muscular contraction of his claws might have given you fits; but he made a bad shot—only hit you with his shoulder and knocked you flying.”