‘Oh, why didn’t I go with the others?’ Rupert thought. And then a good thought came to him.
‘If I had,’ he told himself, ‘I should have been out there, and they wouldn’t have met me and turned back, and then they might have found the real leopard, and it might have jumped on them. I’m glad it’s only me.’
This good thought came to him as he rose up and steadied himself by the wall. Then in an instant all thoughts were drowned in a flood of terror, and Rupert found himself almost running, feeling his way by the wall towards the house entrance. If he could only get out before the leopard was up and after him! He reached the end of the passage. The door at the foot of the stairs was shut and locked. He was alone there in the dark with a locked door at each end of the passage. He crouched down by the door. In spite of his agony of fear he had enough sense not to beat on the door and scream for help, which was, of course, his first mad impulse.
‘Keep quiet,’ he kept telling himself, ‘some one must come soon. If you keep quiet, the leopard will go on sleeping, perhaps. The children will open the garden door when they hear the dinner-bell. Then you can get out. If you make a row, the leopard will wake up and come for you.’
So he crouched and waited. But no one came. Then suddenly he remembered. When the children heard the dinner-bell they would come down the passage. They would find the real leopard. It would certainly wake. His own feelings about the leopard now made him certain that the children, when they were safe in the sunshine, would see that what talked to them, dressed in a leopard’s skin, could only have been a human being dressed up. Most likely they knew already who it was. So they would come back without fear—come back to find him, Rupert, and would find that!
Then Rupert did what was really an heroic thing. He stood up, and, as quickly as he could, began to feel his way back along the side of the passage farthest from the arched recess. He would go to the garden door, and when the children opened it, he could prevent their coming in. To do this he must pass the leopard.
A warm delicious glow stole through him. This was worth it. Better than crouching like a coward at the far side and letting those children come laughing and talking down the passage to meet that, savage from a sudden awakening. He took off his boots, and crept quietly along. No sound broke the black silence. He reached the flight of steps, reached the other door, sat down on the top step and waited.
Nothing had stirred in the silence.
‘Anyhow,’ said Rupert, ‘I feel safer at the top of the stairs than at the bottom.’
Rupert will never know how long he sat there in the darkness. The cracks in the door which showed as pale vertical streaks were his only comfort. He tried to get off the leopard’s skin, but the harp-strings were too strong. It seemed to him that he had been there a week.