I had lost all notion of my position,and was walking about in pure,helpless impatience,when suddenly I found myself in the path of the leopardess,wading in the blood from her paw.It ran against my ankles with the force of a small brook,and I got out of it the more quickly because of an unshaped suspicion in my mind as to whose blood it might be.But I kept close to the sound of it,walking up the side of the stream,for it would guide me in the direction of Bulika.
I soon began to reflect,however,that no leopardess,no elephant,no hugest animal that in our world preceded man,could keep such a torrent flowing,except every artery in its body were open,and its huge system went on filling its vessels from fields and lakes and forests as fast as they emptied themselves:it could not be blood!
I dipped a finger in it,and at once satisfied myself that it was not.In truth,however it might have come there,it was a softly murmuring rivulet of water that ran,without channel,over the grass!
But sweet as was its song,I dared not drink of it;I kept walking on,hoping after the light,and listening to the familiar sound so long unheard--for that of the hot stream was very different.The mere wetting of my feet in it,however,had so refreshed me,that Iwent on without fatigue till the darkness began to grow thinner,and I knew the sun was drawing nigh.A few minutes more,and Icould discern,against the pale aurora,the wall-towers of a city--seemingly old as time itself.Then I looked down to get a sight of the brook.
It was gone.I had indeed for a long time noted its sound growing fainter,but at last had ceased to attend to it.I looked back:
the grass in its course lay bent as it had flowed,and here and there glimmered a small pool.Toward the city,there was no trace of it.Near where I stood,the flow of its fountain must at least have paused!
Around the city were gardens,growing many sorts of vegetables,hardly one of which I recognised.I saw no water,no flowers,no sign of animals.The gardens came very near the walls,but were separated from them by huge heaps of gravel and refuse thrown from the battlements.
I went up to the nearest gate,and found it but half-closed,nowise secured,and without guard or sentinel.To judge by its hinges,it could not be farther opened or shut closer.Passing through,Ilooked down a long ancient street.It was utterly silent,and with scarce an indication in it of life present.Had I come upon a dead city?I turned and went out again,toiled a long way over the dust-heaps,and crossed several roads,each leading up to a gate:Iwould not re-enter until some of the inhabitants should be stirring.
What was I there for?what did I expect or hope to find?what did Imean to do?
I must see,if but once more,the woman I had brought to life!I did not desire her society:she had waked in me frightful suspicions;and friendship,not to say love,was wildly impossible between us!But her presence had had a strange influence upon me,and in her presence I must resist,and at the same time analyse that influence!The seemingly inscrutable in her I would fain penetrate:to understand something of her mode of being would be to look into marvels such as imagination could never have suggested!In this I was too daring:
a man must not,for knowledge,of his own will encounter temptation!
On the other hand,I had reinstated an evil force about to perish,and was,to the extent of my opposing faculty,accountable for what mischief might ensue!I had learned that she was the enemy of children:the Little Ones might be in her danger!It was in the hope of finding out something of their history that I had left them;on that I had received a little light:I must have more;I must learn how to protect them!