Without taking notice of their remarks, the hermit repeated the
experiment at the mouths of two caverns further on, with the like
result.

"Maybe the spalpeen's hidin' in the little cave where ye laid down yer
gun," suggested Barney, going towards the place as he spoke.

"Och, then, come here, friend; sure it must be the mouth of a mine, for
there's two o' the beautifulest di'monds I iver--"

Barney's speech was cut short by a low peculiar sound, that seemed like
the muttering of far-distant thunder. At the same moment the hermit
pulled him violently back, and, placing himself in a firm attitude full
in front of the cavern, held the point of the spear advanced before him.

"Martin," he whispered, "shoot an arrow straight into that hole,--
quick!"

Martin obeyed, and the arrow whizzed through the aperture. Instantly
there issued from it a savage and tremendous roar, so awful that it
seemed as if the very mountain were bellowing and that the cavern were
its mouth. But not a muscle of the hermit's figure moved. He stood
like a bronze statue,--his head thrown back and his chest advanced, with
one foot planted firmly before him and the spear pointing towards the
cave. It seemed strange to Martin that a man should face what appeared
to him unknown danger, so boldly and calmly; but he did not consider
that the hermit knew exactly the amount of danger before him. He knew
precisely the manner in which it would assail him, and he knew just what
was necessary to be done in order to avert it; and in the strength of
that knowledge he stood unmoved, with a slight smile upon his tightly
compressed lips.

Scarcely had the roar ceased when it was repeated with tenfold
fierceness; the bushes and fern leaves shook violently, and an enormous
and beautifully spotted jaguar shot through the air as if it had been
discharged from a cannon's mouth. The hermit's eye wavered not; he bent
forward a hair's-breadth; the glittering spear-point touched the
animal's breast, pierced through it, and came out at its side below the
ribs. But the force of the bound was too great for the strength of the
weapon: the handle snapped in twain, and the transfixed jaguar struck
down the hermit and fell writhing upon him!

In the excitement of the moment Barney drew his pistol from his belt and
snapped it at the animal. It was well for the hermit at that moment
that Barney had forgotten to prime his weapon; for, although he aimed at
the jaguar's