An hour later, he met in a ravine a furious bull, his horns levelled, pawing the sand with his hoof. Julian thrust his lance under his dewlap. It shattered as if the animal had been made of brass; he shut his eyes and waited for his death. When he opened them again, the bull had disappeared.
At that his soul was overwhelmed with shame. A superior power was taking away his strength; and he went back to the forest to return home.
It was entangled with creepers; and he was cutting them with his sabre when a polecat suddenly slipped between his legs, a panther made a spring over his shoulder, a serpent climbed in a spiral about an ash-tree.
In its foliage was a monstrous jackdaw, which looked at Julian; and, here and there, a number of great sparks showed among the branches, as if the sky had caused all its stars to rain down on the forest. They were the eyes of animals, wild cats, squirrels, owls, parrots, monkeys.
Julian darted his arrows at them; the arrows with their feathers settled on the leaves like white butterflies. He hurled stones at them; the stones fell back without hitting anything. He cursed himself, could have struck himself, howled imprecations, was like to choke with rage.
And all the animals that he had pursued were represented, forming a circle close about him. Some were squatted on their rumps, the others standing at their full height. He stood in the centre, frozen with terror, incapable of the smallest movement. By a supreme effort of will, he took a step; the animals perched on the trees spread their wings, those which trod the ground moved their limbs; and all accompanied him.
The hyenas marched before him, the wolf and the wild boar behind. The bull at his right hand rocked its head, and at his left the serpent writhed through the plants, while the panther, with arched back, advanced with velvety step in great strides. He moved as gently as possible, not to irritate them, and from the depths of the thickets he saw issuing porcupines, foxes, vipers, jackals and bears.
Julian started to run; they ran too. The serpent hissed, the foul-smelling beasts drooled. The wild boar rubbed his heels with its tusks, the wolf the palms of his hands with its hairy muzzle. The monkeys grimaced as they pinched him, the polecat rolled over his feet. A bear took away his bonnet with a back-stroke of its paw; and the panther scornfully let fall an arrow which it carried in its mouth.
A certain irony was evident in their stealthy proceedings. Looking at him out of the corner of their eyes, they seemed to be meditating a plan of revenge; and, deafened by the humming of insects, beaten by birds’ tails, suffocated by breaths, he walked with his arms stretched forward, his eyelids closed, like a blind man, without even the strength to cry “Mercy!”
The crow of a cock vibrated in the air. Others answered it; it was day; and over the orange-trees he recognized the summit of his palace.