Twice did he place his hand upon his scimitar, intending to cut off his enemy's head; but the difficulty of severing the close haired skin caused him to renounce this daring attempt. To miss was certain death. He preferred the chance of a fair fight, and made up his mind to await the daylight. The dawn did not give him long to wait. It came.
He could now examine the panther at his ease; its muzzle was smeared with blood.
"It's had a good dinner," he said, without troubling himself to speculate whether the feast might have been of human flesh or not. "It won't be hungry when it wakes."
It was a female. The fur on her thighs was glistening white. Many small spots like velvet formed beautiful bracelets round her paws; her sinuous tail was also white, ending in black rings. The back of her dress was yellow, like unburnished gold, very lissome, [Footnote: Lissome: supple, nimble.] and soft, and had the characteristic blotches in the shape of pretty rosettes, which distinguish the panther from every other species felis. [Footnote: Species felis. Latin "felis," a cat.]
This formidable hostess lay tranquilly snoring in an attitude as graceful and easy as that of a cat on the cushion of an ottoman. Her bloody paws, nervous and well armed, were stretched out before her head, which rested on the back of them, while from her muzzle radiated her straight, slender whiskers, like threads of silver.
If he had seen her lying thus, imprisoned in a cage, the Provencal would doubtless have admired the grace of the creature and the vivid contrasts of color which gave her robe an imperial splendour; but just then his sight was jaundiced [Footnote: Jaundiced. Explain this term.] by sinister forebodings.
The presence of the panther, even asleep, had the same effect upon him as the magnetic eyes of a snake are said to have on the nightingale.
The soldier's courage oozed away in the presence of this silent danger, though he was a man who gathered courage at the mouth of a cannon belching forth shot and shell. And yet a bold thought brought daylight to his soul and sealed up the source from whence issued the cold sweat which gathered on his brow. Like men driven to bay, who defy death and offer their bodies to the smiter, so he, seeing in this merely a tragic episode, resolved to play his part with honor to the last.
"The day before yesterday," said he, "the Arabs might have killed me."
So considering himself as already dead, he waited bravely, but with anxious curiosity, the awakening of his enemy.