This should not have troubled him, seeing that he was secure in his suspended couch.
Nor would it, but for another source of trouble, every moment making itself more manifest — that from which he had so lately had such a narrow escape. He was once more on the eve of being tortured by thirst.
He blamed himself for having been so simple, as not to think of this before climbing up to the tree. He might easily have carried up a supply of water. The stream was there; and for want of a better vessel, the concave blades of the maguey would have served as a cistern.
His self-reproaches came too late. The water was under his eyes, only to tantalise him; and by so doing increase his eagerness to obtain it. He could not return to the stream, without running the gauntlet of the coyotés, and that would be certain death. He had but faint hopes that the hound would return and rescue him a second time — fainter still that his message would reach the man for whom it was intended. A hundred to one against that.
Thirst is quick in coming to a man whose veins are half-emptied of their blood. The torture proclaimed itself apace. How long was it to continue?
This time it was accompanied by a straying of the senses. The wolves, from being a hundred, seemed suddenly to have increased their number tenfold. A thousand appeared to encompass the tree, filling the whole ground of the glade! They came nearer and nearer. Their eyes gave out a lurid light. Their red tongues lapped the hanging cloth; they tore it with their teeth. He could feel their fetid breath, as they sprang up among the branches!
A lucid interval told him that it was all fancy. The wolves were still there; but only a hundred of them — as before, reclining upon the grass, pitiably awaiting a crisis! It came before the period of lucidity had departed; to the spectator unexpected as inexplicable. He saw the coyotés suddenly spring to their feet, and rush off into the thicket, until not one remained within the glade.
Was this, too, a fancy? He doubted the correctness of his vision. He had begun to believe that his brain was distempered.
But it was clear enough now. There were no coyotés. What could have frightened them off?
A cry of joy was sent forth from his lips, as he conjectured a cause. Tara had returned? Perhaps Phelim along with him? There had been time enough for the delivery of the message. For two hours he had been besieged by the coyotés.
He turned upon his knee, and bending over the branch, scanned the circle around him. Neither hound nor henchman was in sight. Nothing but branches and bushes!
He listened. No sound, save an occasional howl, sent back by the coyotés that still seemed to continue their retreat! More than ever was it like an illusion. What could have caused their scampering?
No matter. The coast was clear. The streamlet could now be approached without danger. Its water sparkled under his eyes — its rippling sounded sweet to his ears.
Descending from the tree, he staggered towards its bank, and reached it.
Before stooping to drink, he once more looked around him. Even the agony of thirst could not stifle the surprise, still fresh in his thoughts. To what was he indebted for his strange deliverance?
Despite his hope that it might be the hound, he had an apprehension of danger.
One glance, and he was certain of it. The spotted yellow skin shining among the leaves — the long, lithe form crawling like a snake out of the underwood was not to be mistaken. It was the tiger of the New World — scarce less dreaded than his congener of the Old — the dangerous jaguar.
Its presence accounted for the retreat of the coyotés.
Neither could its intent be mistaken. It, too, had scented blood, and was hastening to the spot where blood had been sprinkled, with that determined air that told it would not be satisfied till after partaking of the banquet.
Its eyes were upon him, who had descended from the tree — its steps were towards him — now in slow, crouching gait; but quicker and quicker, as if preparing for a spring.
To retreat to the tree would have been sheer folly. The jaguar can climb like a cat. The mustanger knew this.
But even had he been ignorant of it, it would have been all the same, as the thing was no longer possible. The animal had already passed that tree, upon which he had found refuge, and there was t’other near that could be reached in time.
He had no thought of climbing to a tree — no thought of any thing, so confused were his senses — partly from present surprise, partly from the bewilderment already within his brain.
It was a simple act of unreasoning impulse that led him to rush on into the stream, until he stood up to his waist in the water.
Had he reasoned, he would have known that this would do nothing to secure his safety. If the jaguar climbs like a cat, it also swims with the ease of an otter; and is as much to be dreaded in the water as upon the land.
Maurice made no such reflection. He suspected that the little pool, towards the centre of which he had waded, would prove but poor protection. He was sure of it when the jaguar, arriving upon the bank above him, set itself in that cowering attitude that told of its intention to spring.
In despair he steadied himself to receive the onset of the fierce animal.
He had nought wherewith to repel it — no knife — no pistol — no weapon of any kind — not even his crutch! A struggle with his bare arms could but end in his destruction.
A wild cry went forth from his lips, as the tawny form was about launching itself for the leap.
There was a simultaneous scream from the jaguar. Something appeared suddenly to impede it; and instead of alighting on the body of its victim, it fell short, with a dead plash upon the water!
Like an echo of his own, a cry came from the chapparal, close following a sound that had preceded it — the sharp “spang” of a rifle.
A huge dog broke through the bushes, and sprang with a plunge into the pool where the jaguar had sunk below the surface. A man of colossal size advanced rapidly towards the bank; another of lesser stature treading close upon his heels, and uttering joyful shouts of triumph.
To the wounded man these sights and sounds were more like a vision than the perception of real phenomena. They were the last thoughts of that day that remained in his memory. His reason, kept too long upon the rack, had given way. He tried to strangle the faithful hound that swam fawningly around him and struggled against the strong arms that, raising him out of the water, bore him in friendly embrace to the bank!
His mind had passed from a horrid reality, to a still more horrid dream — the dream of delirium.
Chapter LIV. A Prairie Palanquin
The friendly arms, flung around Maurice Gerald, were those of Zeb Stump.
Guided by the instructions written upon the card, the hunter had made all haste towards the rendezvous there given.
He had arrived within sight, and fortunately within rifle-range of the spot, at that critical moment when the jaguar was preparing to spring.
His bullet did not prevent the fierce brute from making the bound — the last of its life — though it had passed right through the animal’s heart.
This was a thing thought of afterwards — there was no opportunity then.
On rushing into the water, to make sure that his shot had proved fatal, the hunter was himself attacked; not by the claws of the jaguar, but the hands of the man just rescued from them.
Fortunate for Zeb, that the mustanger’s knife had been left upon land. As it was, he came near being throttled; and only after throwing aside his rifle, and employing all his strength, was he able to protect himself against the unlooked-for assault.