“I can’t. Oh, I’m afraid!”
Again the hidden beast gave voice to his mighty rumbling challenge. Still he did not appear, and Blake attempted a derisive jeer: “Hey, there, louder! We’ve not run yet! It’s all right, little woman. The skulking sneak is trying to bluff us. ’Fraid to come out if we don’t stampede. He’ll make off when he finds we don’t scare. Lions never tackle men in the daytime. Just keep cool a while. He’ll–”
“Look!–there to the right!–I saw him again! He’s creeping around! See the grass move!”
“That’s only the wind. It eddies down–God! he is stalking around. Trying to take us from behind–curse him! He may get me, but I’ll get him too,–the dirty sneak!”
The blood had flowed back into Blake’s face, and showed on each cheek in a little red patch. His broad chest rose and fell slowly to deep respirations; his eyes glowed like balls of white-hot steel. He drew his bow a little tauter, and wheeled slowly to keep the arrow pointed at the slight wave in the grass which marked the stealthy movements of the lion. Miss Leslie, more terrified with every added moment of suspense, cringed around, that she might keep him between her and the hidden beast.
Minute after minute dragged by. Only a man of Blake’s obstinate, sullen temperament could have withstood the strain and kept cool. Even he found the impulse to leap up and run all but irresistible. Miss Leslie crouched behind him, no more able to run than a mouse with which a cat has been playing.
Once they caught a glimpse of the sinuous, tawny form gliding among the leafless stems of a thorn clump. Blake took quick aim; but the outlines of the beast were indistinct and the range long. He hesitated, and the opportunity was lost.
Yard by yard they watched the slight swaying of the grass tops which betrayed the cautious advance of the grim stalker. The beast did not roar again. Having failed to flush his game, he was seeking to catch them off their guard, or perhaps was warily taking stock of the strange creatures, whose like he had never seen.
Now and then there was a pause, and the grass tops swayed only to the down-puffs of the heightening gale. At such moments the two grew rigid, watching and waiting in breathless suspense. They could see, as distinctly as though there had been no screening grass, the baleful eyes of the huge cat and the shaggy forebody as the beast stood still and glared out at them.
Then the sinuous wave would start on again around the grass border, and Blake would draw in a deep breath and mutter a word of encouragement to the girl: “Look, now–the dirty sneak! Trying to give us the creeps, is he? I’ll creeps him! ’Fraid to show his pretty mug!”