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"The whole show is dreadful," she cried, coming out of the menagerie of M.Martin. She had just been looking at that daring speculator "working withhis hyena"--to speak in the style of the program.

"By what means," she continued, "can he have tamed these animals to such apoint as to be certain of their affection for----."
"What seems to you a problem," said I, interrupting, "is really quitenatural."

"Oh!" she cried, letting an incredulous smile wander over her lips.

"You think that beasts are wholly without passions?" I asked her. "Quite thereverse; we can communicate to them all the vices arising in our own stateof civilization."

She looked at me with an air of astonishment.

"Nevertheless," I continued, "the first time I saw M. Martin, I admit, likeyou, I did give vent to an exclamation of surprise. I found myself next toan old soldier with the right leg amputated, who had come in with me. His facehad struck me. He had one of those intrepid heads, stamped with the seal ofwarfare, and on which the the battles of Napoleon are written. Besides, he hadthat frank good-humored expression which always impresses me favorably. He waswithout doubt one of those troopers who are surprised at nothing, who findmatter for laughter in the contortions of a dying comrade, who bury or plunderhim quite lightheartedly, who stand intepidly in the way of bullets; in fact,one of those men who waste no time in deliberation, and would not hesitate tomake friends with the devil himself. After looking very attentively at theproprietor of the menagerie getting out of his box, my companion pursed up hislips with an air of mockery and contempt, with that peculiar and expressivetwist which superior peopIe assume to show they are not taken in. Then when Iwas expatiating on the courage of M. Martin, he smiled, shook his headknowingly, and said, `Well known.'

"How `well known'? I said. `If you would only explain to me the mystery Ishould be vastly obliged.'

"After a few minutes, during which we made acquaintance, we went to dine atthe first restaurateur's whose shop caught our eye. At dessert a bottle ofchampagne completely refreshed and brightened up the memories of this odd oldsoldier. He told me his story, and I said he had every reason to exclaim,`Well known.'"

When she got home, she teased me to that extent and made so many promises thatI consented to communicate to her the old soldier's confidences. Next day shereceived the following episode of an epic which one might call "The Frenchmanin Egypt."

During the expedition in Upper Egypt underGeneral Desaix, a Provençalsoldier fell into the hands of theMangrabins, and was taken by theseArabs into the deserts beyond the falls of the Nile.

In order to place a sufficient distance between themselves and the Frencharmy, the Mangrabins made forced marches, and only rested during the night.They camped round a well overshadowed by palm trees under which they hadpreviously concealed a store of provisions. Not surmising that the notion offlight would occur to their prisoner, they contented themselves with bindinghis hands, and after eating a few dates, and givingprovender to their horses,went to sleep.

When the brave Provençal saw that his enemies were no longer watchinghim, he made use of his teeth to steal a scimitar,fixed the blade betweenhis knees, and cut the cords which prevented using his hands; in a moment hewas free. He at once seized a rifle and dagger, then taking the precaution toprovide himself with a sack of dried dates, oats, and powder and shot, and tofasten a scimitar to his waist he leaped onto a horse, and spurred onvigorously in the direction where he thought to find the French army. Soimpatient was he to see a bivouacagain that he pressed on the already-tiredcourser at such speed that itsflanks were lacerated with his spurs, and atlast the poor animal died, leaving the Frenchman alone in the desert. Afterwalking some time in the sand with all the courage of an escaped convict, thesoldier was obliged to stop, as the day had already ended. In spite of thebeauty of an Oriental sky at night, he felt he had not strength enough to goon. Fortunately he had been able to find a small hill, on the summit of whicha few palm trees shot up into the air; it was theirverdure seen from afarwhich had brought hope and consolation to his heart. His fatigue was so greatthat he lay down upon a rock of granite, capriciously cut out like a camp bed;there he fell asleep without taking any precaution to defend himself while heslept. He had made the sacrifice of his life. His last thought was one ofregret. He repented having left the Mangrabins, whose nomad life seemed tosmile on him now that he was afar from them and without help. He was awakenedby the sun, whose pitiless rays fell with all their force on the granite andproduced an intolerable heat for he had had the stupidity to place himselfinversely to the shadow thrown by the verdant majestic heads of the palm trees.He looked at the solitary trees and shuddered--they reminded him of the gracefulshafts crowned with foliage which characterize theSaracen columns in thecathedral of Arles.

But when, after counting the palm trees, he cast his eye around him, the mosthorrible despair was infused into his soul. Before him stretched an oceanwithout limit. The dark sand of the desert spread farther than sight couldreach in every direction, and glittered like steel struck with a bright light.It might have been a sea of looking glass, or lakes melted together in a mirror.A fiery vapor carried up in streaks made a perpetual whirlwind over thequivering land. The sky was lit with an Oriental splendor of insupportablepurity, leaving naught for the imagination to desire. Heaven and earth were onfire.

The silence was awful in its wild and terrible majesty. Infinity, immensity,closed in upon the soul from every side. Not a cloud in the sky, not a breathin the air, not a flaw on the bosom of the sand, ever moving in diminutivewaves; the horizon ended as at sea on a clear day, with one line of light,definite as the cut of a sword.

The Provençal threw his arms around the trunk of one of the palm trees, as though itwere the body of a friend, and then in the shelter of the thin straight shadow that the palmcast upon the granite, he wept. Then sitting down he remained as he was, contemplatingwith profound sadness the implacable scene, which was all he had to look upon. He criedaloud, to measure the solitude. His voice, lost in the hollows of the hill, sounded faintly,and aroused no echo--the echo was in his own heart. The Provençal was twenty-two yearsold; he loaded his carbine.

"There'll be time enough," he said to himself, laying on the ground the weapon whichalone could bring him deliverance.

Looking by turns at the black expanse and the blue expanse, the soldier dreamed ofFrance--he smelled with delight the gutters of Paris--he remembered the towns throughwhich he had passed, the faces of his fellow soldiers, the most minute details of his life.His southern fancy soon showed him the stones of his beloved Provence, in the play ofthe heat which waved over the spread sheet of the desert. Fearing the danger of this cruelmirage, he went down the opposite side of the hill to that by which he had come up theday before. The remains of a rug showed that this place of refuge had at one time beeninhabited; at a short distance he saw some palm trees full of dates. Then the instinct whichbinds us to life awoke again in his heart. He hoped to live long enough to await thepassing of some Arabs, or perhaps he might hear the sound of cannon, for at this timeBonaparte was traversing Egypt.

This thought gave him new life. The palm tree seemed to bend with the weight of theripe fruit. He shook some of it down. When he tasted this unhoped-for manna, he felt surethat the palms had been cultivated by a former inhabitant--the savory, fresh meat of thedates was proof of the care of his predecessor. He passed suddenly from dark despair toan almost insane joy. He went up again to the top of the hill, and spent the rest of the dayin cutting down one of the sterile palm trees, which the night before had served him forshelter. A vague memory made him think of the animals of the desert; and in case theymight come to drink at the spring, visible from the base of the rocks but lost farther down,he resolved to guard himself from their visits by placing a barrier at the entrance of hishermitage.

In spite of his diligence, and the strength which the fear of being devoured asleep gavehim, he was unable to cut the palm in pieces, though he succeeded in cutting it down. Ateventide the king of the desert fell; the sound of its fall resounded far and wide, like a signthe solitude; the soldier shuddered as though he had heard some voice predicting woe.

But like an heir who does not long bewail a deceased parent, he tore off from thisbeautiful tree the tall broad green leaves which are its poetic adornment, and used themto mend the mat on which he was to sleep.

Fatigued by the heat and his work, he fell asleep under the red curtains of his wet cave.

In the middle of the night his sleep was troubled by an extraordinary noise; he sat up,and the deep silence around him allowed him to distinguish the alternative accents of arespiration whose savage energy could not belong to a human creature.

A profound terror, increased still further by the darkness, the silence, and his wakingimages, froze his heart within him. He almost felt his hair stand on end, when by straininghis eyes to their utmost he perceived through the shadows two faint yellow lights. At firsthe attributed these lights to the reflection of his own pupils, but soon the vivid brillianceof the night aided him gradually to distinguish the objects around him in the cave, and hebeheld ahuge animal lying but two steps from him. Was it a lion, a tiger, or a crocodile?

The Provençal was not educated enough to know under what species his enemy oughtto be classed; but his fright was all the greater, as his ignorance led him to imagine anterrors at once; he endured a cruel torture, noting every variation of the breathing closeto him without daring to make the slightest movement. An odor, pungent like that of afox, but more penetrating, profounder--so to speak--filled the cave, and when theProvençal became sensible of this, his terror reached its height, for he could not longerdoubt the proximity of a terrible companion, whose royal dwelling served him for shelter.

Presently the reflection of the moon, descending on the horizon, lit up the den,rendering gradually visible and resplendentthe spotted skin of a panther.

This lion of Egypt slept, curled up like a big dog, the peaceful possessor of asumptuous niche at the gate of a hotel; its eyes opened for a moment and closed again; itsface was turned toward the man. A thousand confused thoughts passed through theFrenchman's mind first he thought of killing it with a bullet from his gun, but he saw therewas not enough distance between them for him to take proper aim--the shot would missthe mark. And if it were to wake!--the thought made his limbs rigid. He listened to hisown heart beating in the midst of' the silence, and cursed the too violent pulsations whichthe flow of blood brought on, fearing to disturb that sleep which allowed him time to thinkof some means of escape.

Twice he placed his hand on his scimitar, intending to cut off the head of his enemy;but the difficulty of cutting stiff, short hair compelled him to abandon this daring project.To miss would be to die for certain, he thought; he preferred the chances of fair fight, andmade up his mind to wait till morning; the morning did not leave him long to wait.

He could now examine the panther at ease; its muzzle was smeared with blood.

"She's had a good dinner," he thought, without troubling himself as to whether her feastmight have been on human flesh "She won't be hungry when she gets up."

It was a female. The fur on her belly and flanks was glistening white; many smallmarks like velvet formed beautiful bracelets round her feet; her sinuous tail was alsowhite, ending with black rings; the overpart of her dress, yellow like unburnished gold,very lissome and soft, had the characteristicblotches the form of rosettes which distinguish the panther from every other felinespecies.

This tranquil and formidable hostess snored in an attitude as graceful as that of a catlying on a cushion. Her bloodstained paws, nervous and well armed, were stretched outbefore her face, which rested upon them, and from which radiated her straight, slenderwhiskers, like threads of silver.

If she had been like that in a cage, the Provençal would doubtless have admired thegrace of the animal, and the vigorous contrasts of vivid color which gave her robe animperial splendor; but just then his sight was troubled by her sinister appearance.

The presence of the panther, even asleep, could not fail to produce the effect which themagnetic eyes of the serpent are said to have on the nightingale.

For a moment the courage of the soldier began to fail before this danger, though nodoubt it would have risen at the mouth of a cannon charged with shell. Nevertheless, abold thought brought daylight in his soul and sealed up the source of the cold sweat whichsprang forth on his brow. Like men driven to bay who defy death and offer their body tothe smiter, so he, seeing in this merely a tragic episode, resolved to play his part withhonor to the last.

"The day before yesterday the Arabs would have killed me perhaps," he said; soconsidering himself as good as dead already, he waited bravely, with excited curiosity hisenemy's awakening.

When the sun appeared, the panther suddenly opened her eyes; then she put out herpaws with energy, as if to stretch them and get rid of cramp. At last she yawned, showingthe formidable apparatus of her teeth and pointed tongue, rough as a file.

"A regular petite maîtresse,"thought the Frenchman, seeing her roll herself about so softly and coquettishly.She licked off the blood which stained her paws and muzzle, andscratched her head with reiterated gestures full of prettiness. "All right, make a littletoilet," the Frenchman said to himself, beginning to recover his gaiety with his courage;"we'll say good morning to each other presently," and he seized the small, short daggerwhich he had taken from the Mangrabins. At this moment the panther turned her headtoward the man and looked at him fixedly without moving.

The rigidity of her metallic eyes and their insupportable luster made him shudder,especially when the animal walked toward him. But he looked at her caressingly, staringinto her eyes in order to magnetize her, and let her come quite close to him; then with amovement both gentle and amorous, as though he were caressing the most beautiful ofwomen, he passed his hand over her whole body, from the head to the tail, scratching theflexible vertebrae which divided the panther's yellow back. The animal waved her tailvoluptuously, and her eyes grew gentle; and when for the third time the Frenchmanaccomplished this interesting flattery, she gave forth one of those purrings by which ourcats express their pleasure; but this murmur issued from a throat so powerful and so deepthat it resounded through the cave like the last vibrations of an organ in a church. Theman, understanding the importance of his caresses, redoubled them in such a way as tosurprise and stupefy his imperious courtesan. When he felt sure of having extinguishedthe ferocity of his capricious companion, whose hunger had so fortunately been satisfiedthe day before, he got up to go out of the cave; the panther let him go out, but when hehad reached the summit of the hill she sprang with the lightness of a sparrow hoppingfrom twig to twig, and rubbed herself against his legs, putting up her back after themanner of all the race of cats. Then regarding her guest with eyes whose glare hadsoftened a little, she gave vent to that wild cry which naturalists compare to the gratingof a saw.

"She is exacting," said the Frenchman, smilingly.

He was bold enough to play with her ears; he caressed her belly and scratched her headas hard as he could.

When he saw that he was successful, he tickled her skull with the point of his dagger,watching for the right moment to kill her, but the hardness of her bones made him tremblefor his success.

The sultana of the desert showed herself gracious to her slave; she lifted her head,stretched out her and manifested her delight by - the tranquility of her attitude. It suddenlyoccurred to the soldier that to kill this savage princess with one blow he mustpoignard her in the throat.

He raised the blade, when the panther, satisfied no doubt, laid herself gracefully at hisfeet, and cast up at him glances in which, in spite of their natural fierceness, was mingledconfusedly a kind of good will. The poor Provençal ate his dates, leaning against one ofthe palm trees, and casting his eyes alternately on the desert in quest of some liberator andon his terrible companion to watch her uncertain clemency.

The panther looked at the place where the date stones fell, and every time that he threwone down her eyes expressed an incredible mistrust.

She examined the man with an almost commercial prudence. However, thisexamination was favorable to him, for when he had finished his meager meal she lickedhis boots with her powerful rough tongue, brushing off with marvelous skill the dustgathered in the creases.

"Ah, but when she's really hungry!" thought the Frenchman. In spite of the shudder thisthought caused him, the soldier began to measure curiously the proportions of the panther,certainly one of the most splendid specimens of its race. She was three feet high and fourfeet long without counting her tail; this powerful weapon, rounded like a cudgel, wasnearly three feet long. The head, large as that of a lioness, was distinguished by a rareexpression of refinement. The cold cruelty of a tiger was dominant, it was true, but therewas also a vague resemblance to the face of a sensual woman. Indeed, the face of thissolitary queen had something of the gaiety of a drunken Nero: she had satiated herselfwith blood, and she wanted to play.

The soldier tried if he might walk up and down, and the panther left him free,contenting herself with following him with her eyes, less like a faithful dog than a bigAngora cat, observing everything and every movement of her master.

When he looked around, he saw, by the spring, the remains of his horse; the pantherhad dragged the carcass all that way; about two thirds of it had been devoured already.The sight reassured him.

It was easy to explain the panther's absence, and the respect she had had for him whilehe slept. The first piece of good luck emboldened him to tempt the future, and heconceived the wild hope of continuing on good terms with the panther during the entireday, neglecting no means of taming her, and remaining her good graces.

He returned to her, and had the unspeakable joy of seeing her wag her tail with analmost imperceptible movement at his approach. He sat down then, without fear, by herside, and they began to play together; he took her paws and muzzle, pulled her ears, rolledher over on her back, stroked her warm, delicate flanks. She let him do what ever he liked,and when he began to stroke the hair on her feet she drew her claws in carefully.

The man, keeping the dagger in one hand, thought to plunge it into the belly of the too-confiding panther, but he was afraid that he would be immediately strangled in her lastconclusive struggle; besides, he felt in his heart a sort of remorse which bid him respecta creature that had done him no harm. He seemed to have found a friend, in a boundlessdesert; half unconsciously he thought of his first sweetheart, whom he had nicknamed "Mignonne" by way ofcontrast, because she was so atrociously jealous that all the time of their love he was infear of the knife with which she had always threatened him.

This memory of his early days suggested to him the idea of making the young pantheranswer to this name, now that he began to admire with less terror her swiftness,suppleness, and softness. Toward the end of the day he had familiarized himself with hisperilous position; he now almost liked the painfulness of it. At last his companion had gotinto the habit of looking up at him whenever he cried in a falsetto voice, "Mignonne."

At the setting of the sun Mignonne gave, several times running, a profound melancholycry. "She's been well brought up," said the lighthearted soldier; "she says her prayers." Butthis mental joke only occurred to him when he noticed what a pacific attitude hiscompanion remained in. "Come, ma petite blonde, I'll let you go to bed first," he said toher, counting on the activity of his own legs to run away as quickly as possible, directlyshe was asleep, and seek another shelter for the night.

The soldier waited with impatience the hour of his flight, and when it had arrived hewalked vigorously in the direction of the Nile; but hardly had he made a quarter of aleague in the sand when he heard the panther bounding after him, crying with that sawlikecry more dreadful even than the sound of her leaping.

"Ah!" he said, "then she's taken a fancy to me, she has never met anyone before, andit is really quite flattering to have her first love."

That instant the man fell into one ,of those movable quicksands so terrible to travelers andfrom which it is impossible to save oneself. Feeling himself caught, he gave a shriek ofalarm; the panther seized him with her teeth by the collar, and, springing vigorouslybackward, drew him as if by magic out of the whirling sand.

"Ah, Mignonne!" cried the soldier, caressing her enthusiastically; "we're bound togetherfor life and death but no jokes, mind!" and he retraced his steps.

From that time the desert seemed inhabited. It contained a being to whom the mancould talk, and whose ferocity was rendered gentle by him, though he could not explainto himself the reason for their strange friendship. Great as was the soldier's desire to stayupon guard, he slept.

On awakening he could not find Mignonne; he mounted the hill, and in the distancesaw her springing toward him after the habit of these animals, who cannot run on accountof the extreme flexibility of the vertebral column. Mignonne arrived, her jaws coveredwith blood; she received the wonted caress of her companion, showing with much purringhow happy it made her. Her eyes, full of languor, turned still more gently than the daybefore toward the Provençal who talked to her as one would to a tame animal.

"Ah! Mademoiselle, you are a nice girl, aren't you? Just look at that! So we like to bemade much of, don't we? Aren't you ashamed of yourself? So you have been eating someArab or other, have you? That doesn't matter. They're animals just the same as you are;but don't you take to eating Frenchmen, or I shan't like you any longer."

She played like a dog with its master, letting herself be rolled over, knocked about, andstroked, alternately; sometimes she herself would provoke the soldier, putting up her pawwith a soliciting gesture.

Some days passed in this manner. This companionship permitted the Provençalto appreciate the sublime beauty of the desert; now that he had a living thing to thinkabout, alternations of fear and quiet, and plenty to eat, his mind became filled withcontrast and his life began to be diversified.

Solitude revealed to him all her secrets, and enveloped him in her delights. Hediscovered in the rising and setting of the sun sights unknown to the world. He knew whatit was to tremble when he heard over his head the hiss of a bird's wing, so rarely did theypass, or when he saw the clouds, changing and many-colored travelers, melt one intoanother. He studied in the night time the effect of the moon upon the ocean of sand, wherethe simoom made waves swift of movement and rapid in their change. He lived the lifeof the Eastern day, marveling at its wonderful pomp; then, after having reveled in the sightof a hurricane over the plain where the whirling sands made red, dry mists and death-bearing clouds, he would welcome the night with joy, for then fell the healthful freshnessof the stars, and he listened to imaginary music in the skies. Then solitude taught him tounroll the treasures of dreams. He passed whole hours in remembering mere nothings, andcomparing his present life with his past.

At last he grew passionately fond of the panther; for some sort of affection was anecessity.

Whether it was that his will powerfully projected had modified the character of hiscompanion, or whether, because she found abundant food in her predatory excursions inthe desert, she respected the man's life, he began to fear for it no longer, seeing her so welltamed.

He devoted the greater part of his time to sleep, but he was obliged to watch like aspider inits web that the moment of his deliverance might not escape him, if anyoneshould pass the line marked by the horizon. He had sacrificed his shirt to make a flagwith, which he hung at the top of a palm tree, whose foliage he had torn off. Taught bynecessity, he found the means of keeping it spread out, by fastening it with little sticks;for the wind might not be blowing at the moment when the passing traveler was lookingthrough the desert.

It was during the long hours, when he had abandoned hope, that he amused himselfwith the panther. He had come to learn the different inflections of her voice, theexpressions of her eyes; he had studied the capricious patterns of all the rosettes whichmarked the gold of her robe. Mignonne was not even angry when he took hold of the tuftat the end of her tail to count her rings, those graceful ornaments which glittered in thesun like jewelry. It gave him pleasure to contemplate the supple, fine outlines of her form,the whiteness of her belly, the graceful pose of her head. But it was especially when shewas playing that he felt most pleasure in looking at her; the agility and youthful lightnessof her movements were a continual surprise to him; he wondered at the supple way inwhich she jumped and climbed, washed herself and arranged her fur, crouched down andprepared to spring. However rapid her spring might be, however slippery the stone shewas on, she would always stop short at the word "Mignonne."

One day, in a bright midday sun, an enormous bird coursed through the air. The manleft his panther to look at this new guest; but after waiting a moment the deserted sultanagrowled deeply.

"My goodness! I do believe she's jealous," he cried, seeing her eyes become hard again;"the soul of Virginie has passed into her body; that's certain."

The eagle disappeared into the air, while the soldier admired the curved contour of thepanther.

But there was such youth and grace in her form! she was beautiful as a woman! theblond fur of her robe mingled well with the delicate tints of faint white which marked herflanks.

The profuse light cast down by the sun made this living gold, these russet markings,to burn in a way to give them an indefinable attraction.

The man and the panther looked at one another with a look full of meaning; thecoquette quivered when she felt her friend stroke her head; her eyes flashed like lightning--then she shut them tightly.

"She has a soul," he said, looking at the stillness of this queen of the sands, golden likethem, white like them, solitary and burning like them.


"Well," she said, "I have read your plea in favor of beasts; but how did two so welladapted to understand each other end?"

"Ah, well! you see, they ended as all great passions do end--by a misunderstanding. Forsome reason one suspects the other of treason; they don't come to an explanation throughpride, and quarrel and part from sheer obstinacy."

"Yet sometimes at the best moments a single word or a look is enough--but anyhowgo on with your story."

"It's horribly difficult, but you will understand, after what the old villain told me overhis champagne.

"He said--`I don't know if I hurt her, but she turned round, as if enraged, and with hersharp teeth caught hold of my leg--gently, I daresay; but I, thinking she would devour me, plungedmy dagger into her throat. She rolled over, giving a cry that froze my heart; and I saw herdying, still looking at me without anger. I would have given all the world--my cross even,which I lied not then--to have brought her to life again. It was as though I had murdereda real person; and the soldiers who had seen my flag, and were come to my assistance,found me in tears.'

"`Well sir,' he said, after a moment of silence, `since then I have been in war inGermany, in Spain, in Russia, in France; I've certainly carried my carcass about a gooddeal, but never have I seen anything like the desert. Ah! yes, it is very beautiful!'

" 'What did you feel there?' I asked him.

"'Oh! that can't be described, young man. Besides, I am not always regretting my palmtrees and my panther. I should have to be very melancholy for that. In the desert, you see,there is everything and nothing.'

Yes, but explain----'

"'Well,' he said, with an impatient gesture, 'it is God without mankind.'"