I felt dimly amazed at finding myself still alive: there were two tigers and they were diabolically squalling out a love-duet. Who has not felt a shiver run down his back when, snug in a warm bed, the mid-night stillness has been broken by two amorous cats on the roof or in the court that are putting their vocal powers and their hearer's patience to the test? Imagine then to be frozen against a wet stone whilst a couple of tigers express their sentiments of love in much the same language, but in tones proportionate to their size!
In the fervour of their passion would they notice the dainty meal prepared for them in my person?
Not far off the implacable sladan was savagely bellowing. Was he too bound for my place of martyrdom?
My slow torture, under the pale glimmer of the phosphorescent mushrooms must have lasted for hours, but I no longer had the perception of time or peril. Only the appalling fear of the flesh kept me grasping tightly to the rock without making the slightest movement.
I did not know when the tigers went away or when the enormous multitude of beasts of prey beat a retreat.
The first sensation I had of being alive was when the two heralds of the morn, the cep plôt and the cep riò announced with their musical notes the dawn of another day.
Then I stirred. My limbs were benumbed by that long immobility, and with the cold which was all the more intense from the rain first and the dew afterwards, both of which had drenched me to the skin.
I was shaking with ague and, weak from my long fast and the frights I had passed through, I scarcely knew how to get away from that spot where I had endured so many hours of agony, and yet it was necessary for me to move as soon as possible.
The jungle was alive with gay voices; all the harmless, innocent creatures, that populated its hospitable region, hailed the new day with noisy acclamation, and their joy found an echo in me, for its thousand-fold blessed light would show me my road to safety.
I afterwards learnt that my bad luck had guided me to a rock, close to a spring of hot water, where the kings, queens, princes and princesses of the forest were accustomed to hold their soirees!