"How stupid! How utterly imbecile!" she muttered bitterly. "A hateful country—and idiots of men!"
"Cheer up!" said Druro, with an equability he did not feel. Nothing bored him more than bad temper. "We'll soon be dead—I mean, we'll soon be at Burral's."
"I find your cheerfulness slightly brutal," she remarked cuttingly, "and the thought of Burral's does not fill me with any delight."
"I'm sorry," he began, but his apology and the stillness of the night were both destroyed by a sudden loud crack of a rifle.
"By Jove! Who's that, I wonder?" exclaimed Druro. "There's nothing much to shoot about here." Then, to Mrs. Hading, "Stand still a minute—will you?—while I reconnoitre." He went a few yards ahead and gave a halloo. They all stood still, listening, until the call was returned in a man's voice from somewhere not far off. At the same time, a soft cracking of bushes was heard near at hand.
"It must be Burral out after a buck!" called out Tryon. He and Gay were still some way behind. Marice half-way between them, and Druro was apparently trying to disentangle her flickering, fluttering chiffons from a fresh engagement with the bushes when the terrible thing happened. The lithe, speckled body of a leopard came sailing, with a grace and swiftness indescribable, through the air and, leaping upon the fluttering figure, bore her to the ground. A scream of terror and anguish rent the night, and Gay and Tryon, galvanized by horror, powerless though they were to contend with the savage brute, rushed forward to the rescue. But Druro was there before them. They saw him stoop down and catch the huge cat by its hind legs, and, with extraordinary power, swing it high in the air. Snarling and spitting, it twisted its flexible body to attack him in turn, and, even as it went hurtling over his head into the bush behind, it reached out a paw and clawed him across the face. At the same moment, a man with a gun came crashing through the undergrowth, followed the flying body of the leopard into the bush, and with two rapid shots gave the beast its quietus. Reeking gun in hand, he returned to the party in the pathway.
"Got the brute at last," he panted. "Only wounded him the first shot; that's why he came for you people. My God! Who's hurt here?"
No one answered. Mrs. Hading lay moaning terribly on the ground, with
Tryon and Gay bending over her. Druro was stumbling about like a
drunken man. "Is it you, Lundi Druro? Did that devil get you, too?
Where are you hurt?"
"It's Burral, isn't it?" said Druro vaguely. "Yes; I got a flick across the eyes. Never mind me. Get that lady to your place, Burral, and telephone to Selukine. Tell them to send a car and a doctor and to drive like mad."
"My throat—oh, my throat!" keened Marice Hading. Tryon supported her. Gay was tearing her white skirt into strips and using them for bandages. Druro came stumbling over to them.