Page:War Drums (1928).pdf/182

 How long she sat silent, rigid, numb with terror, she did not know. For a time her mind, as well as her body, seemed benumbed. But suddenly she realized that her lips were moving and she found herself whispering, speaking coolly to herself under her breath: "I must not be afraid. This is the wilderness. This is what I must face." So, little by little, she fought her terror down, her eyes never straying from those other eyes there in the blackness.

She wondered what the beast was. She knew that these eyes were not the eyes of a wolf and she did not think that they were the eyes of a bear. With a sudden tightening of the throat, she remembered that great beast which she had seen in the moonlight during their flight from Stanwicke Hall, that beast which was like a lioness and which Lachlan had called a panther; and she remembered how its eyes had glowed as it sat on its haunches watching them.

These eyes were paler, but she knew that it was a panther that she faced; and she recalled certain tales that she had heard, tales of panthers that followed women and children through the night. The terror mounted in her afresh; and suddenly she saw the yellow-green eyes move and was sure that they were drawing slowly nearer.

She cried out, but the sound that came from her dry throat could not have been heard a dozen yards away. For minutes more she sat rigid, staring; then the eyes vanished, to appear again almost instantly, a little farther to the left.