During this period she taught Waldo many words of her native tongue, so that by means of signs to bridge the gaps between, they were able to communicate with a fair degree of satisfaction. Waldo’s mastery of the language was rapid.
On the tenth day the girl was able to make him understand that she wished to escape with him to her own people; that these men among whom he had found her were enemies of her tribe, and that she had been hiding from them when Waldo stumbled upon her cave.
“I fled,” she said. “My mother was killed. My father took another mate, always cruel to me. But when I had wandered into the land of these enemies I was afraid, and would have returned to my father’s cave. But I had gone too far.
“I would have to run very fast to escape them. Once I ran down a narrow path to the ocean. It was dark.
“As I wandered through the woods I came suddenly out upon a beach, and there I saw a strange figure on the sand. It was you. I wanted to learn what manner of man you were. But I was very much afraid, so that I dared only watch you from a distance.
“Five times I came down to look at you. You never saw me until the last time, then you set out after me, roaring in a horrible voice.
“I was very much afraid, for I knew that you must be very brave to live all alone by the edge of the forest without any shelter, or even a stone to hurl at Nagoola, should he come out of the woods to devour you.”
Waldo Emerson shuddered.
“Who is Nagoola?” he asked.
“You do not know Nagoola!” the girl exclaimed in surprise.
“Not by that name,” replied Waldo.
“He is as large,” she began in description, “as two men, and black, with glossy coat. He has two yellow eyes, which see as well by night as by day. His great paws are armed with mighty claws. He—”
A rustling from the bushes which fringed the opposite cliff-top caused her to turn, instantly alert.
“Ah,” she whispered, “there is Nagoola now.”
Waldo looked in the direction of her gaze.
It was well that the girl did not see his pallid face and popping eyes as he looked into the evil mask of the great black panther that crouched watching them from the river’s further bank.
Into Waldo’s breast came great panic. It was only because his fear-prostrated muscles refused to respond to his will that he did not scurry, screaming, from the sight of that ferocious countenance.
Then, through the fog of his cowardly terror, he heard again the girl’s sweet voice: “I knew that you must be very brave to live all alone by the edge of that wicked forest.”
For the first time in his life a wave of shame swept over Waldo Emerson.
The girl called in a taunting voice to the panther, and then turned, smiling, toward Waldo.
“How brave I am now,” she laughed. “I am no longer afraid of Nagoola. You are with me.”
“No,” said Waldo Emerson, in a very weak voice, “you need not fear while I am with you.”
“Oh!” she cried. “Slay him. How proud I should be to return to my people with one who vanquished Nagoola, and wore his hide about his loins as proof of his prowess.”
“Y‑yes,” acquiesced Waldo faintly.
“But,” continued the girl, “you have slain many of Nagoola’s brothers and sisters. It is no longer sport to kill one of his kind.”
“Yes—yes,” cried Waldo. “Yes, that is it—panthers bore me now.”
“Oh!” The girl clasped her hands in ecstasy. “How many have you slain?”
“Er—why, let me see,” the young man blundered. “As a matter of fact, I never kept any record of the panthers I killed.”
Waldo was becoming frantic. He had never lied before in all his life. He hated a lie and loathed a liar. He wondered why he had lied now.
Surely it were nothing to boast of to have butchered one of God’s creatures—and as for claiming to have killed so many that he could not recall the number, it was little short of horrible. Yet he became conscious of a poignant regret that he had not killed a thousand panthers, and preserved all the pelts as evidence of his valor.
The panther still regarded them from the safety of the farther shore. The girl drew quite close to Waldo in the instinctive plea for protection that belongs to her sex. She laid a timid hand upon his skinny arm and raised her great, trusting eyes to his face in reverent adoration.
“How do you kill them?” she whispered. “Tell me.”
Then it was that Waldo determined to make a clean breast of it, and admit that he never before had seen a live panther. But as he opened his mouth to make the humiliating confession he realized, quite suddenly, why it was that he had lied—he wished to appear well in the eyes of this savage, half-clothed girl.
He, Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones, craved the applause of a barbarian, and to win it had simulated that physical prowess which generations of Smith-Joneses had viewed from afar—disgusted, disapproving.
The girl repeated her question.
“Oh,” said Waldo, “it is really quite simple. After I catch them I beat them severely with a stick.”
The girl sighed.
“How wonderful!” she said.
Waldo became the victim of a number of unpleasant emotions—mortification for this suddenly developed moral turpitude; apprehension for the future, when the girl might discover him in his true colors; fear, consuming, terrible fear, that she might insist upon his going forth at once to slay Nagoola.
But she did nothing of the kind, and presently the panther tired of watching
