Here was the old smell of forest earth, the inexhaustible plenty of bare elastic boughs, the cool feeling of fungus, the absence of articulate speech, the impossibility of anger. Night came, the grand and terrible night, with its old familiar fear, long lost in the neighbourhood of a confident human mind. He rejoiced in his fear as in a fine quality recovered, rousing it to an ecstasy after long silences, by murmuring his own name in the darkness in terrified tones: ‘Colonel! Colonel!’
Then there came a rustling of leaves, a low chuck-chuck of prey warning prey, the sound of a vast retreat, and the slow padding of panther feet on the forest floor. The Colonel lay still on his bough, tingling with an unnatural calm, and the Panther breathed deep below him and looked up. And the Panther said:
‘I am the Panther, all Panthers in one—a symbol, irresistible.’
Waves of strong life undulated down his spotted tail, as though life passed through him to and from all his tribe; and the Colonel lay in a pleasant fear and numbness on his bough. And the Panther said:
‘I will climb slowly to you.’
‘And leap suddenly!’
‘The glory of my eye shall increase upon you.’
‘Numbing my limbs!’
‘We will fall and play together on the earth.’
‘I shall die!’