to the armor concealed beneath his pelisse, they
blunted their claws upon a skin of steel, and notched their fangs upon
arms or legs of iron, whilst a slight touch of their master's metallic
wand left a deep furrow in their smoking, shrivelled flesh.
Finding the inutility of their efforts, and endowed with strong memory,
the beasts soon learned that their teeth and claws were powerless when
directed against this invulnerable being. Hence, their terrified
submission reached to such a point that, in his public representations,
their master could make them crouch and cower at his feet by the least
movement of a little wand covered with flame-colored paper.
The Prophet, thus armed with care, and holding in his hand the iron made
hot by Goliath, descended by the trapdoor of the loft into the large shed
beneath, in which were deposited the cages of his animals. A mere wooden
partition separated this shed from the stable that contained his horses.
A lantern, with a reflector, threw a vivid light on the cages. They were
four in number. A wide iron grating formed their sides, turning at one
end upon hinges like a door, so as to give ingress to the animal; the
bottom of each den rested on two axle-trees and four small iron castors,
so that they could easily be removed to the large covered wagon in which
they were placed during a journey. One of them was empty; the other three
contained, as already intimated, a panther, a tiger, and a lion.
The panther, originally from Java, seemed to merit the gloomy name of
Death, by her grim, ferocious aspect. Completely black, she lay crouching
and rolled up in the bottom of her cage, and her dark hues mingling with
the obscurity which surrounded her, nothing was distinctly visible but
fixed and glaring eyes--yellow balls of phosphoric light, which only
kindled, as it were, in the night-time; for it is the nature of all the
animals of the feline species to enjoy entire clearness of vision but in
darkness.
The Prophet entered the stable in silence: the dark red of his long
pelisse contrasted with the pale yellow of his straight hair and beard;
the lantern, placed at some height above the ground, threw its rays full
upon this man, and the strong light, opposed to the deep shadows around
it, gave effect to the sharp proportions of his bony and savage looking
figure.
He approached the cage slowly. The white rim, which encircled his
eyeball, appeared to dilate, and his look rivaled in m
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