s alone, it seemed to him, would only result in irritating the beast
and make it more furious at his efforts to drive the sharp blade into a
vital part.

"We might have settled it between us," he thought; and then, in the
midst of the weird darkness, he shivered, for a fresh horrible thought
assailed him, which made the palms of his hands grow damp and the
moisture gather upon his brow.

What did it mean--this savage monster making its way close up to his
prison that night of all those that had passed? Could it be that it had
tracked stealthily, after the habit of its kind, and pounced upon poor
Peter Pegg, dragged him down, and hidden his body somewhere in the dense
thicket, and now, guided by its keen scent, followed the flair to where
he stood with the cold perspiration now beginning to trickle from his
temples and the sides of his face?

There was not another sound, and after a sturdy battle with his
feelings, Archie began to force himself into the belief that it was his
weakness that made him imagine that such a catastrophe had occurred.
But all thought of sleep had passed away for that night. He felt it
would be impossible, and he stood with every sense strained, listening
for some movement; but it was quite an hour later, and after he had
begun to feel overcome by weariness from standing so long in one
position, that he took a deep breath and began to walk lightly up and
down the building, fully expecting that the rustle of the palm-leaves
would excite the tiger into some fresh demonstration of its proximity.

But the beast made no sign, and beginning to indulge in the hope that
after its roar it had crept stealthily and silently away upon its
cushioned, velvet paws, he made his way to the stone jar, felt for the
cocoa-nut, took a draught, and began to think of what had passed during
these many weary days and nights of his struggle back towards recovery.

There was not much to dwell upon, for it had been terribly monotonous,
that time, and sadly punctuated with either mental or physical pain.
The mental was all embraced in the one painful thought of Minnie Heath
and what had been her fate; the physical was mingled with the pain
caused during the healing up of the horrible contused wound above his
temples; while when he had not been suffering from this he was burdened
by a series of wearing headaches, which would wake him from a refreshing
sleep somewhere about the middle of the night, and not die out again