“You know you speak such excellent English,” she said irrelevantly.
He bowed low. As he straightened his figure, to his amazement, he beheld an agonizing look of horror on her face; her eyes riveted on the mouth of the cavern. Then, there came an angrier sound, unlike any that had gone before in that night of turmoil.
“Look there! Quick!”
The cry of terror from the girl’s palsied lips, as she pointed to something behind him, awoke the mountain man to instant action. Instinctively, he snatched his long dagger from its sheath and turned quickly. Not twenty feet from them a huge cat-like beast stood half crouched on the edge of the darkness, his long tail switching angrily. The feeble light from the depth of the cave threw the long, water-soaked visitor into bold relief against the black wall beyond. Apparently, he was as much surprised as the two who glared at him, as though frozen to the spot. A snarling whine, a fierce growl, indicated his fury at finding his shelter—his lair occupied.
“My God! A mountain lion! Ravone! Franz! To me!” he cried hoarsely, and sprang before her shouting loudly to the sleepers.
A score of men, half awake, grasped their weapons and struggled to their feet in answer to his call. The lion’s gaunt body shot through the air. In two bounds, he was upon the goat-hunter. Baldos stood squarely and firmly to meet the rush of the maddened beast, his long dagger poised for the death-dealing blow.
“Run!” he shouted to her.
Beverly Calhoun had fighting blood in her veins. Utterly unconscious of her action, at the time, she quickly drew the little silver-handled revolver from the pocket of her gown. As man, beast and knife came together, in her excitement she fired recklessly at the combatants without any thought of the imminent danger of killing her protector. There was a wild scream of pain from the wounded beast, more pistol shots, fierce yells from the excited hunters, the rush of feet and then the terrified and almost frantic girl staggered and fell against the rocky wall. Her wide gray eyes were fastened upon the writhing lion and the smoking pistol was tightly clutched in her hand.
It had all occurred in such an incredible short space of time that she could not yet realize what had happened.
Her heart and brain seemed paralyzed, her limbs stiff and immovable. Like the dizzy whirl of a kaleidoscope, the picture before her resolved itself into shape.
The beast was gasping his last upon the rocky floor, the hilt of the goat hunter’s dagger protruding from his side. Baldos, supported by two of his men, stood above the savage victim, his legs covered with blood. The cave was full of smoke and the smell of powder. Out of the haze she began to see the light of understanding. Baldos alone was injured. He had stood between her and the rush of the lion, and he had saved her, at a cost she knew not how great.
“Oh, the blood!” she cried hoarsely. “Is it—is it—are you badly hurt?” She was at his side, the pistol falling from her nervous fingers.
“Don’t come near me; I’m all right,” he cried quickly.
“Take care—your dress—”
“Oh, I’m so glad to hear you speak! Never mind the dress! You are torn to pieces! You must be frightfully hurt. Oh, isn’t it terrible—horrible! Aunt Fanny! Come here this minute!”
Forgetting the beast and throwing off the paralysis of fear, she pushed one of the men away and grasped the arm of the injured man. He winced perceptibly and she felt something warm and sticky on her hands. She knew it was blood, but it was not in her to shrink at a moment like this.
“Your arm, too!” she gasped. He smiled, although his face was white with pain. “How brave you were! You might have been—I’ll never forget it—never! Don’t stand there, Aunt Fanny! Quick! Get those cushions for him. He’s hurt.”
“Good Lawd!” was all the old woman could say, but she obeyed her mistress.
“It was easier than it looked, your highness,” murmured Baldos. “Luck was with me. The knife went to his heart. I am merely scratched. His leap was short, but he caught me above the knees with his claws. Alas, your highness, these trousers of mine were bad enough before, but now they are in shreds. What patching I shall have to do! And you may well imagine we are short of thread and needles and thimbles—”
“Don’t jest, for heaven’s sake! Don’t talk like that. Here! Lie down upon these cushions and—”
“Never! Desecrate the couch of Graustark’s ruler? I, the poor goat-hunter? I’ll use the lion for a pillow and the rock for an operating table. In ten minutes my men can have these scratches dressed and bound—in fact, there is a surgical student among them, poor fellow. I think I am his first patient. Ravone, attend me.”
He threw himself upon the ground and calmly placed his head upon the body of the animal.
“I insist upon your taking these cushions,” cried Beverly.
“And I decline irrevocably.” She stared at him in positive anger. “Trust Ravone to dress these trifling wounds, your highness. He may not be as gentle, but he is as firm as any princess in all the world.”
“But your arm?” she cried. “Didn’t you say it was your legs? Your arm is covered with blood, too. Oh, dear me, I’m afraid you are frightfully wounded.”
“A stray bullet from one of my men struck me there, I think. You know there was but little time for aiming—?”
“Wait! Let me think a minute! Good heavens!” she exclaimed with a start. Her eyes were suddenly filled with tears and there was a break in her voice. “I shot you! Don’t deny it—don’t! It is the right arm, and your men could not have hit it from where they stood. Oh, oh, oh!”
Baldos smiled as he bared his arm. “Your aim was good,” he admitted. “Had not my knife already been in the lion’s heart, your bullet would have gone there. It is my misfortune that my arm was in the way. Besides, your highness, it has only cut through the skin—and a little below, perhaps. It will be well in a day or two, I am sure you will find your bullet in the carcass of our lamented friend, the probable owner of this place.”
Ravone, a hungry-looking youth, took charge of the wounded leader, while her highness retreated to the farthest corner of the cavern. There she sat and trembled while the wounds were being dressed. Aunt Fanny bustled back and forth, first unceremoniously pushing her way through the circle of men to take observations, and then reporting to the impatient girl. The storm had passed and the night was still, except for the rush of the river; raindrops fell now and then from the trees, glistening like diamonds as they touched the light from the cavern’s mouth. It was all very dreary, uncanny and oppressive to poor Beverly. Now and then she caught herself sobbing, more out of shame and humiliation than in sadness, for had she not shot the man who stepped between her and death? What must he think of her?
“He says yo’ all ‘d betteh go to baid, Miss Bev—yo’ highness,” said Aunt Fanny after one of her trips.
“Oh, he does, does he?” sniffed Beverly. “I’ll go to bed when I please. Tell him so. No, no—don’t do it, Aunt Fanny! Tell him I’ll go to bed when I’m sure he is quite comfortable, not before.”
“But he’s jes’ a goat puncheh er a—”
“He’s a man, if there ever was one. Don’t let me hear you call him a goat puncher again. How are his legs?” Aunt Fanny was almost stunned by this amazing question from her ever-decorous mistress. “Why don’t you answer? Will they have to be cut off? Didn’t you see them?”
“Fo’ de Lawd’s sake, missy, co’se Ah did, but yo’ all kindeh susprise me. Dey’s p’etty bad skun up, missy; de hide’s peeled up consid’ble. But hit ain’ dang’ous,—no, ma’am. Jes’ skun, ’at’s all.”
“And his arm—where I shot him?”
“Puffec’ly triflin’, ma’am,—yo’ highness. Cobwebs ‘d stop de bleedin’ an’