Little did he imagine that he was creeping, creeping toward him, as a cat squirms at a bird.

He sat on the ruined ledge of the parapet, within two feet of the edge; seven hundred feet below the desert sand glittered like molten silver in the gorgeous moonlight.

He was unarmed, having given Jim his revolver to hold.

Reuel sat there entirely unconscious of danger; presently a vague feeling struck him, not of fear, not of dread, but a feeling that if he turned his head he would see an enemy, and without knowing why, he slowly turned his head.

Great heavens! What did he see? A thrill of horror passed through him as his eyes rested upon those of an enormous brute, glaring like hot coals set in blood-red circles.

Its mouth was wide open, its whiskers moving like the antennal of a lobster. It by on its belly, its hindquarters raised, its forepaws planted in the tawny sand ready to spring.

The moon played on the spots of its body. The dark spots became silvered, and relapsed into darkness as the animal breathed, while its tail lashed about, occasionally whipping the sand with a peculiar whish.

How was he to withstand its spring?

The weight of its body would send him over the precipice like a shot.

Strange to say a grim satisfaction came to him at the thought that the brute must go down with him. Where could he hold? Could he clutch at anything? he asked himself.

He dared not remove his eyes from those of the leopard. He could not in fact. But in a sort of introverted glance he saw that nothing stood between him and space but a bare, polished wall, that shone white beneath the moonbeams.

“Was there a loose stone—a stone that would crush in the skull of the bloodthirsty animal?” Not so much as a pebble to cast into the depths, for he had already searched for one to fling over, as people do when perched on imminences. He cried for help, “Jim! Jim! O-o-o-h, Jim!”

There came no reply; not the slightest sound broke the stillness as the scund of his cries died away.

Reuel was now cool—cool as a cucumber—so cool that he deliberately placed himself in position to receive the rush of the terrific brute. He felt himself moving gently back his right foot, shuffling it back until his heel came again an unevenness in the rock, which gave him a sort of purchase—something to back it.

He gathered himself together for a supreme effort, every nerve being at the highest condition of tension.