Page:The fireside sphinx.djvu/248

 220 We were sailing eastward, and the ship groaned and creaked as she slid into the hollow of the waves. I sat writing in the semi-obscurity of my cabin, which grew darker and darker as the green waters rose and broke into foam over my closed port-hole. Suddenly I saw a little shadow steal from under my berth, very slowly, and as though with infinite hesitation. There was something truly Oriental in its fashion of holding one paw suspended in air, as if uncertain where to place it for the next step. And always it regarded me with a look of fixed and plaintive interrogation.

"'What can the cat want?' I said to myself. 'She has had her dinner. She is not hungry. What is it she is after?'

"In answer to my unspoken question, la Chinoise crept nearer and nearer until she could touch my foot. Then, sitting upright, with her tail curled close about her, she uttered a gentle little cry, gazing meanwhile straight into my eyes which seemed to hold some message she could read. She understood that I was a thinking creature, capable of pity, and accessible to such mute and piteous prayer; and that my eyes were the mirrors in which her anxious little soul must study my good or bad intentions. It is terrifying to think how near an animal comes to us, when it is capable of such intercourse as this.