them.

The new-born hope that he would descend and join his followers died as
he came on around.

And now something strange and notable transpired. This one incident is
my excuse for thus elaborating this otherwise passive and tediously dull
sketch of this night. I had risen to my feet, and as the lion came on
around, this woman, with a force that was irresistible, sprang to my
side, thrust me behind her, and stepping forward with a single spring,
she stood on the edge of the column nearest to the lion.

I would have followed, but that same force, which I can now understand
was a mental force and not at all a physical force, held me hard and
fast to where I stood.

She had let her robe fall as she sprang forward and now stood only as
the hand of God had fashioned her; a snow-white silhouette of perfect
comeliness against the terrible and bloody mouth and tossing mane of the
lion. She leaned forward as he came on around and close to the edge of
his slab. She looked him firmly and steadily in the face, her wondrous
eyes, her midnight eyes of all Israel, the child of the wilderness, had
once more met the lion of the desert as of old.

Who was this woman here who stepped between death and me and stood
looking a wounded lion in the face? Was this Judith again incarnate? Or
was this something more than Judith? Was it the Priestess and the
Prophetess Miriam, back once more to the banks of the Nile? Was it the
old and forgotten mastery of all things animate which Moses and his
sister knew that gave her dominion over the king of the desert? Or was
her name Mary? "That other Mary," if you will, who won all things to her
side, God in heaven, God upon earth, by the sad, sweet pity of her face,
and the story of holy love that was written there? The lion's head for a
moment forgot its lofty defiance as she leaned a little forward. Then
the tossed and troubled mane rose up and rolled forward like an
inflowing sea. It never seemed so terrible. He was surely about to
spring! And she, too! Her right foot settled solidly back, her left knee
bent like a bow, her shapely and snowy shoulders, under their glory of
black hair, bowed low. Her dauntless and defiant spirit had already
precipitated itself forward and was smiting the imperious beast full in
his blazing eyes. I knew that her body would follow her spirit in an
instant more.

Face to face! Spirit to spirit! Soul to soul! A second only the combat
lasted. The awful ferocity and