The turn
of the road hid him for a moment from my sight. The next instant, I had
sprung from the saddle, pistol in hand, and run after him to share the
sport or the danger. My little Gretchen--he was gone."
"Gone!" I echoed.
Monsieur Maurice shook his head, and turned his face away.
"I heard a crashing and crackling of the underwood," he said; "a faint moan
dying on the sultry air. I saw a space of dusty road trampled over with
prints of an enormous paw--a tiny trail of blood--a shred of silken
fringe--and nothing more. He was gone."
"What was it?" I asked presently, in an awestruck whisper.
Monsieur Maurice, instead of answering my question, opened the sketch-book
at a page full of little outlines of animals and birds, and laid his finger
silently on the figure of a sleeping tiger.
I shuddered.
"_Pauvre petite_!" he said, shutting up the book, "it is too terrible
a story. I ought not to have told it to you. Try to forget it."
"Ah, no!" I said. "I shall never forget it, Monsieur Maurice. Poor Ali!
Have you still the piece of fringe you found lying in the road?"
He unlocked his desk and touched a secret spring; whereupon a small drawer
flew out from a recess just under the lock.
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