‘It’s all right, I tell you,’ said Caroline. ‘Stop snivelling, Charles. I knew the leopard’s-bane would do it. Now let’s go back backwards, very slowly, and if it moves, I’ll speak to it again.’
Very slowly, still striving to keep their eyes on the leopard, they retreated. They had not gone three steps before they heard it move. They stopped.
‘Lie down!’ said Caroline. And then, to their mingled horror, wonder, delight, surprise, dismay, and satisfaction, a voice answered them—a curious, choked, husky voice.
‘Leopard stay still,’ it answered; ‘little lady not be frightened. Leopard like flowers. Leopard quite good.’
‘Is it?’ said Caroline, speaking as well as she could through the beating of her heart. ‘Is it the leopard speaking?’
‘Ess, little missy,’ said the choked voice. ‘Pretty flowers loose leopard’s tonguey, make him talky. Leopard tell a secret. Little ladies sow seeds, pinky seeds, hearty seeds, the right day, the right way, and see what come up. Run way now. Leopard done talky. He go sleepy by-by. So long!’
None of them ever knew how they got to the end of the tunnel, got the bolts undone, got the door shut again, and stood in the dusky arbour looking in each other’s paper-white faces.
Charlotte made two steps into the sunlight and threw herself face downwards on the path. Her shoulders heaved. Charles was still weeping without moderation or concealment. Caroline stood shivering in the sunshine.
‘But we’ve got to get back,’ she said. ‘It’s all right this side, because of the leopard’s-bane. But if somebody came behind the leopard’s-bane, from the house, you know? We must climb the wall and get to the house and warn them. Get up, Char. Charles, if you’re ever going to be a man, be one now. There’ll be plenty of time to howl when it’s all over. We must climb the wall, somehow.’