ntly. After she had moved a few steps she sprang into the path and
scampered off like a child, her basket swinging, vanishing through a door
in the upper wall on my left.

"Neat little piece!" Bambilio commented. "Taking, and every part of her
pretty. Fine calves, especially."

I was by this time in a condition which, had I been old and fat, must have
brought on an apoplexy. But my hot rage cooled to an icy haughtiness, and,
though it took a weary, tedious long time, I kept my temper and my
demeanor, look, tone and word, managed to convey to him, even through the
thick armor of his self-conceit, that he was not welcome. He rose, said
farewell and waddled off to the postern. As soon as he was outside, more
rapidly than I had moved since I was felled in the roadside affray, I
walked to that door and made sure that it was bolted.

I was strolling unhurriedly back to the seat I had left and was perhaps
half way to it, when I heard, loud and clear, the long-drawn, blood-
curdling hunting-squall of Nemestronia's pet leopard; heard in it more of
menace, more of adult ferocity, more of the horrible joy of the power to
kill than I had ever heard before.

Instantly I comprehended what had happened. Either Agathemer when he took
off my tray or Vedia when she escaped had passed through the wild-garden
(probably it had been Vedia, who would not know that the leopard was
confined there), and had left a door imperfectly closed. The leopard,
which might have been asleep, under the shrubberies and invisible, had
roused and had passed through the unfastened door up into the terrace-
garden. This was the kind of morning on which Nemestronia would have many
visitors, the kind of weather which would tempt them to have their chairs
out on the upper terrace, the hour of the morning at which they would be
most likely to be out there. The leopard, I instantly inferred, was
stalking, not some hare, porker, kid or lamb, but her owner and her
owner's guests.

I disembarrassed myself of my outer garments, threw off my sun-hat, and,
clad only in my shoes and tunic, sprinted for the door into the wild-
garden, through it, through its upper door, which, as I had forecasted, I
found open, and out on the lower terrace. From there I could not see
anything on the upper terrace, but, as I cleared the door, I heard again,
rising, quavering, sinking, rising, the leopard's hunting cry from the
upper terrace. I sprang up the stair to the middle terrace, an