n approach, and slowly rose Brading's right hand, holding the
pistol. He fired!

Blinded by the flash and stunned by the report, Brading nevertheless
heard, or fancied that he heard, the wild, high scream of the panther,
so human in sound, so devilish in suggestion. Leaping from the bed he
hastily clothed himself and, pistol in hand, sprang from the door,
meeting two or three men who came running up from the road. A brief
explanation was followed by a cautious search of the house. The grass
was wet with dew; beneath the window it had been trodden and partly
leveled for a wide space, from which a devious trail, visible in the
light of a lantern, led away into the bushes. One of the men stumbled
and fell upon his hands, which as he rose and rubbed them together were
slippery. On examination they were seen to be red with blood.

An encounter, unarmed, with a wounded panther was not agreeable to their
taste; all but Brading turned back. He, with lantern and pistol, pushed
courageously forward into the wood. Passing through a difficult
undergrowth he came into a small opening, and there his courage had its
reward, for there he found the body of his victim. But it was no
panther. What it was is told, even to this day, upon a weather-worn
headstone in the village churchyard, and for many years was attested
daily at the graveside by the bent figure and sorrow-seamed face of Old
Man Marlowe, to whose soul, and to the soul of his strange, unhappy
child, peace. Peace and reparation.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce,
Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, by Ambrose Bierce

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