"Ah,but when she's really hungry!"thought the Frenchman.In spite of the shudder this thought caused him,the soldier began to measure curiously the proportions of the panther,certainly one of the most splendid specimens of its race.She was three feet high and four feet long without counting her tail;this powerful weapon,rounded like a cudgel,was nearly three feet long.The head,large as that of a lioness,was distinguished by a rare expression of refinement.The cold cruelty of a tiger was dominant,it was true,but there was also a vague resemblance to the face of a sensual woman.Indeed,the face of this solitary queen had something of the gaiety of a drunken Nero:
she had satiated herself with blood,and she wanted to play.
The soldier tried if he might walk up and down,and the panther left him free,contenting herself with following him with her eyes,less like a faithful dog than a big Angora cat,observing everything and every movement of her master.
When he looked around,he saw,by the spring,the remains of his horse;the panther had dragged the carcass all that way;about two thirds of it had been devoured already.The sight reassured him.
It was easy to explain the panther's absence,and the respect she had had for him while he slept.The first piece of good luck emboldened him to tempt the future,and he conceived the wild hope of continuing on good terms with the panther during the entire day,neglecting no means of taming her,and remaining in her good graces.
He returned to her,and had the unspeakable joy of seeing her wag her tail with an almost imperceptible movement at his approach.He sat down then,without fear,by her side,and they began to play together;he took her paws and muzzle,pulled her ears,rolled her over on her back,stroked her warm,delicate flanks.She let him do what ever he liked,and when he began to stroke the hair on her feet she drew her claws in carefully.
The man,keeping the dagger in one hand,thought to plunge it into the belly of the too confiding panther,but he was afraid that he would be immediately strangled in her last convulsive struggle;besides,he felt in his heart a sort of remorse which bid him respect a creature that had done him no harm.He seemed to have found a friend,in a boundless desert;half unconsciously he thought of his first sweetheart,whom he had nicknamed "Mignonne"by way of contrast,because she was so atrociously jealous that all the time of their love he was in fear of the knife with which she had always threatened him.
This memory of his early days suggested to him the idea of making the young panther answer to this name,now that he began to admire with less terror her swiftness,suppleness,and softness.Toward the end of the day he had familiarized himself with his perilous position;he now almost liked the painfulness of it.At last his companion had got into the habit of looking up at him whenever he cried in a falsetto voice,"Mignonne."
At the setting of the sun Mignonne gave,several times running,a profound melancholy cry."She's been well brought up,"said the lighthearted soldier;"she says her prayers."But this mental joke only occurred to him when he noticed what a pacific attitude his companion remained in."Come,ma petite blonde,I'll let you go to bed first,"he said to her,counting on the activity of his own legs to run away as quickly as possible,directly she was asleep,and seek another shelter for the night.
The soldier waited with impatience the hour of his flight,and when it had arrived he walked vigorously in the direction of the Nile;but hardly had he made a quarter of a league in the sand when he heard the panther bounding after him,crying with that saw-like cry more dreadful even than the sound of her leaping.
"Ah!"he said,"then she's taken a fancy to me,she has never met anyone before,and it is really quite flattering to have her first love."That instant the man fell into one of those movable quicksands so terrible to travelers and from which it is impossible to save oneself.Feeling himself caught,he gave a shriek of alarm;the panther seized him with her teeth by the collar,and,springing vigorously backwards,drew him as if by magic out of the whirling sand.
"Ah,Mignonne!"cried the soldier,caressing her enthusiastically;
"we're bound together for life and death but no jokes,mind!"and he retraced his steps.
From that time the desert seemed inhabited.It contained a being to whom the man could talk,and whose ferocity was rendered gentle by him,though he could not explain to himself the reason for their strange friendship.Great as was the soldier's desire to stay upon guard,he slept.
On awakening he could not find Mignonne;he mounted the hill,and in the distance saw her springing toward him after the habit of these animals,who cannot run on account of the extreme flexibility of the vertebral column.Mignonne arrived,her jaws covered with blood;she received the wonted caress of her companion,showing with much purring how happy it made her.Her eyes,full of languor,turned still more gently than the day before toward the Provencal,who talked to her as one would to a tame animal.
"Ah!mademoiselle,you are a nice girl,aren't you?Just look at that!
So we like to be made much of,don't we?Aren't you ashamed of yourself?So you have been eating some Arab or other,have you?That doesn't matter.They're animals just the same as you are;but don't you take to eating Frenchmen,or I shan't like you any longer."
She played like a dog with its master,letting herself be rolled over,knocked about,and stroked,alternately;sometimes she herself would provoke the soldier,putting up her paw with a soliciting gesture.
