Soon, however, he set his huge paws on the very edge of the great slab on which he stood, and then suddenly threw his right paw out toward me and against the edge of my column with the force and velocity of a catapult!
I heard the sharp, keen claws strike and scrape on the granite as if they had been hooks of steel.
Then he threw himself on his breast, and hitching himself a little to one side, he threw his right paw so far that it landed full in the center of my column's top and tore a bit of my coat sleeve. Then he hitched his huge body a little farther on over the edge and again threw his huge paw right at my face. It fell short of its mark only a few inches, as it seemed to me. But, having hastily gathered in my garments, his claws did not find anything to fasten on and they drew back empty.
At this point three dusky etchings stood out against the golden east on the yellow sands, and looked intently at us with their enormous heads high in the air. And now the beast slowly arose and moved on. A lion's head seems always disproportionately large, but when he is exercising for an appetite to eat you it looks large indeed.
The monster who was occupying the platform with us surely saw his followers; indeed, he must have seen them long before; but his unbending dignity seemed to forbid that he should take any heed of them.
The new-born hope that he would descend and join his followers died as he came on around.
And now something strange and notable transpired. This one incident is my excuse for thus elaborating this otherwise passive and tediously dull sketch of this night. I had risen to my feet, and as the lion came on around, this woman, with a force that was irresistible, sprang to my side, thrust me behind her, and stepping forward with a single spring, she stood on the edge of the column nearest to the lion.
I would have followed, but that same force, which I can now understand was a mental force and not at all a physical force, held me hard and fast to where I stood.
She had let her robe fall as she sprang forward and now stood only as the hand of God had fashioned her; a snow-white silhouette of perfect comeliness against the terrible and bloody mouth and tossing mane of the lion. She leaned forward as he came on around and close to the edge of his slab. She looked him firmly and steadily in the face, her wondrous eyes, her midnight eyes of all Israel, the child of the wilderness, had once more met the lion of the desert as of old.
Who was this woman here who stepped between death and me and stood looking a wounded lion in the face? Was this Judith again incarnate? Or was this something more than Judith? Was it the Priestess and the Prophetess Miriam, back once more to the banks of the Nile? Was it the old and forgotten mastery of all things animate which Moses and his sister knew that gave her dominion over the king of the desert? Or was her name Mary? "That other Mary," if you will, who won all things to her side, God in heaven, God upon earth, by the sad, sweet pity of her face, and the story of holy love that was written there? The lion's head for a moment forgot its lofty defiance as she leaned a little forward. Then the tossed and troubled mane rose up and rolled forward like an inflowing sea. It never seemed so terrible. He was surely about to spring! And she, too! Her right foot settled solidly back, her left knee bent like a bow, her shapely and snowy shoulders, under their glory of black hair, bowed low. Her dauntless and defiant spirit had already precipitated itself forward and was smiting the imperious beast full in his blazing eyes. I knew that her body would follow her spirit in an instant more.
Face to face! Spirit to spirit! Soul to soul! A second only the combat lasted. The awful ferocity and force of the brute was beaten down, melted like lofty battlements of snow before the burning arrows of the sun, and he slowly, surlily, shrank in size, in spirit, in space. A paw drew back from the edge of the block, the eyes drooped, the head dropped a little, and the terrible mane seemed terrible no more, as slowly, doggedly, mightily, aye doggedly and majestically, too, at the same time, this noble creature forced himself sidewise and back a little.
Then he hesitated. Rebellion was in his mighty heart. He turned suddenly and looked her full in the face once more. All the beast that was in him rose up. The terrible mane now seemed more terrible than before. With great head tossed, tail whipped back, and teeth in the air, talons unsheathed and legs gathered under him, he was about to bound forward.
But the woman was before him! With eyes still fastened on his face, she with one long leap forward drove not only her shining soul but her snowy body right against his teeth. Or rather, she had surely done so had not the lion, half turned about, shrank back as she leaped forward. Then slowly, looking back with his blazing but cowering eyes, feeling back with his spirit still defiant, if but to see whether her courage failed her in the least or her mighty spirit was still in battle armor; and then he passed. His companions had drawn back and into a depression in the desert where he slowly and sullenly joined them.
One, two, three, four dim yet distinct black silhouettes against the yellow east; then but a single confused black etching; away, away, smaller and smaller, gone!
I gathered up her robe, crossed over, and letting it fall on her shoulders where she still stood, looking down and after the beast. I picked up my pistol from where it had fallen, a few feet below, and as she turned about, carefully reloaded it from cartridges by chance in my vest pocket.
Returning to the summit, I found her again resting on her couch at the corner of the huge slab, tranquilly as if we had not been disturbed. I did not speak. Not a single word had been uttered all this time.
I sat down at the feet of this woman – not at her side, as before – and let my own feet dangle down over the edge on the side farthest away from the isolated columns. Neither of us spoke; nor did she move hand or foot till morning.
THE CHEATED JULIET
The house in question was what Peter the Scholar (who corrects my proof-sheets) calls one of the rusinurby sort – the front facing a street and the back looking over a turfed garden with a lime tree or two, a laburnum, and a lawn-tennis court marked out, its white lines plain to see in the starlight. At the end of the garden a door, painted dark green, led into a narrow lane between high walls, where, if two persons met, one had to turn sideways to let the other pass. The entrance to this lane was cut in two by a wooden post about the height of your hip, and just beyond this, in the high road, George was waiting for us with the dog-cart.
We had picked the usual time – the dinner-hour. It had just turned dark, and the church-clock, two streets away, was chiming the quarter after eight, when Peter and I let ourselves in by the green door I spoke of and felt along the wall for the gardener's ladder that we knew was hanging there. A simpler job there never was. The bedroom window we had marked on the first-floor stood right open to the night air; and inside there was the light of a candle or two flickering, just as a careless maid will leave them after her mistress has gone down to dinner. To be sure there was a chance of her coming back to put them out; but we could hear her voice going in the servants' hall as we lifted the ladder and rested it against the sill.
"She's good for half a hour yet," Peter whispered, holding the ladder while I began to climb; "but if I hear her voice stop, I'll give the signal to be cautious."