This occupied but a moment’s time from the attack of the wild beast to the end of the pony’s flight, but it was such a moment as Jack never forgot.
He had seen a precipice in the pathway of the terrified animal, but not in season to stop the maddened creature or turn it aside, though he did make a frantic effort to do so. As if bent upon its own destruction, the pony made a suicidal leap down the precipitous descent.
The frightened creature struck upon its feet, but immediately fell over on its right side, carrying its rider with it and pinning him under its body.
The savage beast had not lost its hold, and as Jack lay there within its deadly reach he saw for the first time that it was the most dreaded of the wild beasts of South America, the jaguar.
He had barely taken a swift glance at the furious brute before a warning growl above him broke the momentary silence and then a second form, the mate of that beside him, plunged down from the top of the cliff, landing beside the first, that uttered a fierce growl at the same time.
Jack’s heart fairly stopped its beating, and finding himself unable to move his right limb, he felt that it was all over with him.
The pony had apparently been killed by its fall, together with the attack of the jaguar, as it did not move after it fell over on its side.
The ferocious beasts, with a succession of sharp growls and snarls, began to feast upon the still warm carcass of the poor horse.
It was fortunate, and showed Jack’s remarkable presence of mind as well, that at that critical moment he remembered that old hunters had said if one feigned death he might escape the attack of a wild beast under ordinary circumstances, the story of Dr. Livingstone lying under the lion’s paw coming vividly into his mind. But his left leg lay on top of the pony’s body and close to where the two jaguars were exercising their teeth and claws on the flesh.
That morning before starting from Resaca he had put on a pair of boots with stout tops as a means of protection from the bushes and brambles he might encounter on his long ride. But he could not hope these would protect him long, if at all, from the attacks of the voracious brutes.