Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/125

 My hopes, however, were destined to be frustrated: the fibres of the prostrate tree were obstinately tenacious of their hold; and presently the animal scrambled down the rock, and proceeded to cross it.

Of all kinds of death, that which now menaced me was the most abhorred. To die by disease, or by the hand of a fellow creature, was propitious and lenient in comparison with being rent to pieces by the fangs of this savage: to perish in this obscure retreat by means so impervious to the anxious curiosity of my friends, to lose my portion of existence by so untoward and ignoble a destiny, was insupportable. I bitterly deplored my rashness in coming hither unprovided for an encounter like this.

The evil of my present circumstances consisted chiefly in suspense: my death was unavoidable, but my imagination had leisure to torment itself by anticipations. One foot of the savage was slowly and cautiously moved after the other: he struck his claws so deeply into the bark, that they were with difficulty withdrawn: at length he leaped upon the ground. We were now separated by an interval of scarcely eight feet. To leave the spot werewhere [sic] I crouched was impossible; behind and beside me the cliff rose perpendicularly, and before me was this grim and terrific savage: I shrunk still closer to the ground, and closed my eyes.

From this pause of horror I was roused by the noise occasioned by a second spring of the animal: he leaped into the pit, in which I had so deeply regretted that I had not taken refuge, and disappeared. My rescue was so sudden, and so much beyond my belief or my hope, that I doubted for a moment whether my senses did not deceive me. This opportunity of escape was not to be neglected; I left my place, and scrambled over the trunk with a precipitation which had like to have proved fatal: the tree groaned and shook under me, the wind blew with unexampled violence, and I had scarcely reached the opposite steep, when the roots were severed from the rock, and the whole fell thundering to the bottom of the chasm.

My trepidations were not speedily quieted: I looked back with wonder on my hair-breadth escape, and on that singular concurrence of events which had placed me, in so short