a heavy squelch in the middle of the street, a
few yards from us. I ran to it, and found a pulpy mass, with just form
enough left to show it the body of a woman. It must have been thrown
from some neighbouring window! I looked around me: the Shadow was
walking along the other side of the way, with the white leopardess again
at his heel!

I followed and gained upon them, urging in my heart for the leopardess
that probably she was not a free agent. When I got near them, however,
she turned and flew at me with such a hideous snarl, that instinctively
I drew back: instantly she resumed her place behind the Shadow. Again
I drew near; again she flew at me, her eyes flaming like live emeralds.
Once more I made the experiment: she snapped at me like a dog, and
bit me. My heart gave way, and I uttered a cry; whereupon the creature
looked round with a glance that plainly meant--"Why WOULD you make me do
it?"

I turned away angry with myself: I had been losing my time ever since
I entered the place! night as it was I would go straight to the palace!
From the square I had seen it--high above the heart of the city,
compassed with many defences, more a fortress than a palace!

But I found its fortifications, like those of the city, much neglected,
and partly ruinous. For centuries, clearly, they had been of no account!
It had great and strong gates, with something like a drawbridge to them
over a rocky chasm; but they stood open, and it was hard to believe that
water had ever occupied the hollow before them. All was so still that
sleep seemed to interpenetrate the structure, causing the very moonlight
to look discordantly awake. I must either enter like a thief, or break a
silence that rendered frightful the mere thought of a sound!

Like an outcast dog I was walking about the walls, when I came to a
little recess with a stone bench: I took refuge in it from the wind, lay
down, and in spite of the cold fell fast asleep.

I was wakened by something leaping upon me, and licking my face with
the rough tongue of a feline animal. "It is the white leopardess!" I
thought. "She is come to suck my blood!--and why should she not have
it?--it would cost me more to defend than to yield it!" So I lay still,
expecting a shoot of pain. But the pang did not arrive; a pleasant
warmth instead began to diffuse itself through me. Stretched at my back,
she lay as close to me as she could lie, the heat of her body slowly
penetrating mine, and her bre