“Save me! save me!” Josephine screamed, and flying toward Star for protection.
There was not a thought of personal danger in the fair young girl’s heart—not a thought of enmity, or of malice or evil; all her mind was concentrated upon one thing—how best to save her companion from this terrible danger and from a horrible death.
“Stand still!” she commanded, in steady, almost stern tones. “Let him bite at your clothes all he chooses, but do not allow him to get at your feet; if you run, he will seize them and bite right through your boot. Have you courage to stand where you are for a moment? I will go behind him and slip the end of my parasol through his collar and pin him to the ground; then you can go and call help for me.”
She spoke calmly but rapidly, and Josephine saw at once how much wisdom there was in her plan.
“Yes, yes; I will do anything,” she said, hysterically; “but be quick, for I cannot bear this much longer; I shall faint dead away.”
“If you faint,” Star returned, in an awful voice, “you are lost! There! he has entangled himself in that ruffle which he has torn from your dress. Be still just a moment longer, and I will save you if I can.”
Watching her opportunity, she stole softly behind the struggling animal, and, by a dextrous movement, slipped the end of her parasol, which was quite a stout one, into his collar, and then, with all her strength, drove it into the ground and held it there, though the creature struggled furiously to release himself.
Her face had not an atom of color in it, but her lips did not falter as she said to the horror-stricken girl watching her:
“Go now quickly and call help for me, for, small as he is, I cannot hold him long.”
Josephine did not need a second bidding, but went shrieking back to the company in a way to arouse the dead almost.