"Rid of him!—how you talk!" replied Jacques, surprised; "such a good customer, such an admirer!"
"Aye!" said Morok, becoming more and more agitated; "this wretch has wagered an enormous sum, that I will be devoured in his presence, during one of my performances: he hopes to win his wager—that is why he follows me about."
Sleepinbuff found the John Bull's idea so amusingly eccentric, that, for the first time since a very long period, he burst into a peal of hearty laughter. Morok, pale with rage, rushed towards him with so menacing an air, that Goliath was obliged to interpose.
"Come, come," said Jacques, "don't be angry; if it is serious, I will not laugh any more."
Morok was appeased, and said to Sleepinbuff in a hoarse voice: "Do you think me a coward?"
"No, by heaven!"
"Well! And yet this Englishman, with his grotesque face, frightens me more than any tiger or my panther!"
"You say so, and I believe it," replied Jacques; "but I cannot understand why the presence of this man should alarm you."
"But consider, you dull knave!" cried Morok, "that, obliged to watch incessantly the least movement of the ferocious beast, whom I keep in subjection by my action and my looks, there is something terrible in knowing that two eyes are there—always there—fixed—waiting till the least absence of mind shall expose me to be torn in pieces by the animals."
"Now, I understand," said Jacques, shuddering in his turn. "It is terrible."