Just before dawn the girl slept, while Grôm kept watch beside her lest another leopard should fancy to explore their refuge. An hour later, when the first pallor was spreading, she awoke with a cry of fear, and clung to Grôm’s arm, shuddering strongly. 122
“But––what is it?” he asked, in a tender voice, stroking her heavy mane.
“I was afraid!” she answered, like a child.
“What were you afraid of?” asked Grôm.
“I was afraid of Mawg. I am afraid of him!” she answered, sitting up and shaking the hair from her eyes, and staring out fearfully over the gray transparent plains.
“Why should you fear Mawg?” demanded Grôm proudly. “Am not I your man? And am not I always with you? Many such mad brutes as Mawg could not take you from me.”
“I know,” answered the girl, “that he and such as he would be as straws in my lord’s hands. But––even Grôm must sometimes sleep!”
Grôm laughed gently at her forebodings.
“He must sleep now, indeed, for we have a long and perilous journey before us,” said he. Laying his great shaggy head in her lap, and stretching his limbs as far as the tiny platform would allow he was asleep in two seconds. The girl, stooping forward till her rich hair shadowed the rugged, sleeping face, with its calm brows, pondered deeply over his inexplicable forbearance toward his rival. Her instincts all assured her that it was dangerous; but something else within her, something which she strove in vain to grasp, suggested to her that in some way it was noble, and made her glad of it. Then, all at once, the first of the sunrise, flooding into the tree-top, bathed her face with a rosy glow, and wonderfully transfigured it.