As I hastened along,a cloud came over the moon,and from the gray dark suddenly emerged a white figure,clasping a child to her bosom,and stooping as she ran.She was on a line parallel with my own,but did not perceive me as she hurried along,terror and anxiety in every movement of her driven speed.
"She is chased!"I said to myself."Some prowler of this terrible night is after her!"To follow would have added to her fright:I stepped into her track to stop her pursuer.
As I stood for a moment looking after her through the dusk,behind me came a swift,soft-footed rush,and ere I could turn,something sprang over my head,struck me sharply on the forehead,and knocked me down.I was up in an instant,but all I saw of my assailant was a vanishing whiteness.I ran after the beast,with the blood trickling from my forehead;but had run only a few steps,when a shriek of despair tore the quivering night.I ran the faster,though I could not but fear it must already be too late.
In a minute or two I spied a low white shape approaching me through the vapour-dusted moonlight.It must be another beast,I thought at first,for it came slowly,almost crawling,with strange,floundering leaps,as of a creature in agony!I drew aside from its path,and waited.As it neared me,I saw it was going on three legs,carrying its left fore-paw high from the ground.It had many dark,oval spots on a shining white skin,and was attended by a low rushing sound,as of water falling upon grass.As it went by me,I saw something streaming from the lifted paw.
"It is blood!"I said to myself,"some readier champion than I has wounded the beast!"But,strange to tell,such a pity seized me at sight of the suffering creature,that,though an axe had been in my hand I could not have struck at it.In a broken succession of hobbling leaps it went out of sight,its blood,as it seemed,still issuing in a small torrent,which kept flowing back softly through the grass beside me."If it go on bleeding like that,"I thought,"it will soon be hurtless!"I went on,for I might yet be useful to the woman,and hoped also to see her deliverer.
I descried her a little way off,seated on the grass,with her child in her lap.
"Can I do anything for you?"I asked.
At the sound of my voice she started violently,and would have risen.
I threw myself on the ground.
"You need not be frightened,"I said."I was following the beast when happily you found a nearer protector!It passed me now with its foot bleeding so much that by this time it must be all but dead!""There is little hope of that!"she answered,trembling."Do you not know whose beast she is?"Now I had certain strange suspicions,but I answered that I knew nothing of the brute,and asked what had become of her champion.
"What champion?"she rejoined."I have seen no one.""Then how came the monster to grief?"
"I pounded her foot with a stone--as hard as I could strike.Did you not hear her cry?""Well,you are a brave woman!"I answered."I thought it was you gave the cry!""It was the leopardess."