d the bars drawn
across it.

Without the palisade was a space of waste land, marsh and thicket,
tapering to the narrow strip of sand and scrub joining the peninsula to
the forest, and here and there upon this waste ground rose a mean house,
dwelt in by the poorer sort. All were dark. We left them behind, and
found ourselves upon the neck, with the desolate murmur of the river on
either hand, and before us the deep blackness of the forest. Suddenly
Diccon stopped in his tracks and turned his head. "I did hear something
then," he muttered. "Look, sir!"

The stars faintly lit the road that had been trodden hard and bare by
the feet of all who came and went. Down this road something was coming
toward us, something low and dark, that moved not fast, and not slow,
but with a measured and relentless pace. "A panther!" said Diccon.

We watched the creature with more of curiosity than alarm. Unless
brought to bay, or hungry, or wantonly irritated, these great cats were
cowardly enough. It would hardly attack the two of us. Nearer and nearer
it came, showing no signs of anger and none of fear, and paying no
attention to the withered branch with which Diccon tried to scare it
off. When it was so close that we could see the white of its breast it
stopped, looking at us with large unfaltering eyes, and slightly moving
its tail to and fro.

"A tame panther!" ejaculated Diccon. "It must be the one Nantauquas
tamed, sir. He would have kept it somewhere near Master Rolfe's house."

"And it heard us, and followed us through the gate," I said. "It was the
third the warder talked of."

We walked on, and the beast, addressing itself to motion, followed at
our heels. Now and then we looked back at it, but we feared it not.

As for me, I had begun to think that a panther might be the least
formidable thing I should meet that night. By this I had scarcely any
hope--or fear--that I should find her at our journey's end. The lonesome
path that led only to the night-time forest, the deep and dark river
with its mournful voice, the hard, bright, pitiless stars, the cold, the
loneliness, the distance,--how should she be there? And if not she, who
then?

The hut to which I had been directed stood in an angle made by the neck
and the main bank of the river. On one side of it was the water, on
the other a deep wood. The place had an evil name, and no man had
lived there since the planter who had built it hanged himself upon its
threshold. The