“Run, boy! run! The jaguars are after you!”
This speech enabled Leon to comprehend his situation for the first time, and he immediately started off towards the bridge, running as fast as he was able.
Don Pablo had not seen the jaguars when he spoke, but his words were prophetic, and that prophecy was speedily verified. They had hardly been uttered when two yellow bodies, dashing out of the brushwood, appeared near the upper end of the lake. There was no mistaking what they were. Their orange flanks and ocellated sides were sufficiently characteristic. They were jaguars!
A few springs brought them to the edge of the water, and they were seen to take the track over which Leon had just passed. They were following by the scent—sometimes pausing—sometimes one passing the other—and their waving tails and quick energetic movements showed that they were furious and excited to the highest degree. Now they disappeared behind the palm-trunks, and the next moment their shining bodies shot out again like flashes of light.
Doña Isidora and the little Leona screamed with affright. Don Pablo shouted words of encouragement in a hoarse voice. Guapo seized his axe—which fortunately he had finished hafting—and ran towards the bridge, along the water’s edge. Don Pablo followed with his pistols, which he had hastily got his hands upon.
For a short moment there was silence on both sides of the river. Guapo was opposite Leon, both running. The stream narrowed as it approached the ravine, and Leon and Guapo could see each other, and hear every word distinctly. Guapo now cried out—
“Drop one! young master—only one!”
Leon heard, and, being a sharp boy, understood what was meant. Up to this moment he had not thought of parting with his “cats”—in fact, it was because he had not thought of it. Now, however, at the voice of Guapo, he flung one of them to the ground, without stopping to see where it fell, he ran on, and in a few seconds again heard Guapo cry out—“Now the other!”
Leon let the second slip from his grasp, and kept on for the bridge.
It was well he had dropped the cubs, else he would never have reached that bridge. When the first one fell the jaguars were not twenty paces behind him. They were almost in sight, but by good fortune the weeds and underwood hid the pursued from the pursuers.