offer their bodies to the smiter, so he, seeing in this merely a tragic
episode, resolved to play his part with honor to the last.

"The day before yesterday," said he, "the Arabs might have killed me."

So considering himself as already dead, he waited bravely, but with
anxious curiosity, the awakening of his enemy.

When the sun appeared the panther suddenly opened her eyes; then she
stretched out her paws with energy, as if to get rid of cramp. Presently
she yawned and showed the frightful armament of her teeth, and the
pointed tongue rough as a rasp.

"She is dainty as a woman," thought the Frenchman, seeing her rolling
and turning herself about so softly and coquettishly. She licked off the
blood from her paws and muzzle, and scratched her head with reiterated
grace of movement.

"Good, make your little toilet" said the Frenchman to himself; he
recovered his gayety with his courage. "We are presently about to give
each other good-morning," and he felt for the short poniard that he had
abstracted from the Maugrabins. At this instant the panther turned her
head toward him and gazed fixedly at him, without otherwise moving.

The rigidity of her metallic eyes and their insupportable lustre made
him shudder. The beast approached him; he looked at her caressingly,
staring into those bright eyes in an effort to magnetize her--to soothe
her. He let her come quite close to him before stirring; then with a
gentle movement, he passed his hand over her whole body, from the head
to the tail, scratching the flexible vertebrae, [Footnote: Vertebrae: