ort."

"Practical is the word," said he, with another hateful chuckle. And
then suddenly I heard, amidst the roar of the storm, the creak and
whine of the winch-handle turning and the rattle of the grating as it
passed through the slot. Great God, he was letting loose the Brazilian
cat!

In the light of the lantern I saw the bars sliding slowly before me.
Already there was an opening a foot wide at the farther end. With a
scream I seized the last bar with my hands and pulled with the strength
of a madman. I WAS a madman with rage and horror. For a minute or
more I held the thing motionless. I knew that he was straining with
all his force upon the handle, and that the leverage was sure to
overcome me. I gave inch by inch, my feet sliding along the stones,
and all the time I begged and prayed this inhuman monster to save me
from this horrible death. I conjured him by his kinship. I reminded
him that I was his guest; I begged to know what harm I had ever done
him. His only answers were the tugs and jerks upon the handle, each of
which, in spite of all my struggles, pulled another bar through the
opening. Clinging and clutching, I was dragged across the whole front
of the cage, until at last, with aching wrists and lacerated fingers, I
gave up the hopeless struggle. The grating clanged back as I released
it, and an instant later I heard the shuffle of the Turkish slippers in
the passage, and the slam of the distant door. Then everything was
silent.

The creature had never moved during this time. He lay still in the
corner, and his tail had ceased switching. This apparition of a man
adhering to his bars and dragged screaming across him had apparently
filled him with amazement. I saw his great eyes staring steadily at
me. I had dropped the lantern when I seized the bars, but it still
burned upon the floor, and I made a movement to grasp it, with some
idea that its light might protect me. But the instant I moved, the
beast gave a deep and menacing growl. I stopped and stood still,
quivering with fear in every limb. The cat (if one may call so fearful
a creature by so homely a name) was not more than ten feet from me.
The eyes glimmered like two disks of phosphorus in the darkness. They
appalled and yet fascinated me. I could not take my own eyes from
them. Nature plays strange tricks with us at such moments of
intensity, and those glimmering lights waxed and waned with a steady
rise and fall. Sometim