University of Virginia Library

23. XXIII.
CAPTAIN WAGNER DISCOURSES ON THE NATURE OF PANTHERS.

CAPTAIN WAGNER quietly returned Falconbridge's
salute; and touching his horse with the
spur, galloped on by his side without speaking.

“Well, my dear Captain,” said his companion,
“you did not expect to see me?”

“No, I did not,” said the soldier.

“Why?”

“Because you were with a woman.”

“Pshaw!” cried Falconbridge: “you think me a mere
lady's man.”

“No—but how did you succeed in getting away?” asked
the Captain.

“Succeed in getting away?”

“Yes, pardy! It seems there is much to attract you
yonder.”

“Is anything more natural than that I should wish to get
to the Ordinary before the storm? See! that flash! and
the thunder! I doubt whether, even at the rapid pace we
are now going, we shall arrive without a drenching.”

Captain Wagner made no reply, and the two horses
continued to devour the space with their long gallop, which
was so regular that but one footfall could be heard. At last
the Captain turned, and said, abruptly:

“Comrade, you are from the Lowlands, down yonder, are
you not?”

“Yes, from Tide-water. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, mere curiosity; fine animals you have down there
—your horse for instance.”

“Yes, he's of the purest blood—out of Mariana by Bothwell—a
racer.”

“I believe you; he is eating the road like wildfire—worse
than a rabbit at a head of cabbage. But there is one very
beautiful animal which I have never yet seen in the Low
Country, and though the breed of horses there is superior, I
believe, to the mountain nags, I think we are ahead of you
in”——

“In what, Captain?”

“Panthers,” said the Captain, concisely.

“Panthers? I have never seen one.”

“Are you sure?”

“Certainly.”

“Quite sure?”

“Absolutely—there are none on Tide-water.”

“That does not matter, comrade—not in the least.”

“How so?”

“You may have seen them since your arrival in this fine
country of the Valley, or the devil eat me!”

“I have not, however.”

“Do you know a panther when you see it?”

“No.”

“How, then, can you say you have encountered none?
Answer that, pardy! companion!”

Falconbridge endeavored to make out the expression of
the Captain's face through the darkness. What could this
persistence of the soldier in one subject, a subject of no
interest to him, signify?

“Well, have it as you will, Captain,” he said, smiling,
“perhaps I may have seen these animals—describe one to
me.”

“Ah!” replied Wagner, “at last you are becoming curious!
Well, I will do as you wish. Listen, then, to the
description of a panther.”

“I listen.”

The soldier was silent, and seemed to be struggling with

himself—debating in the depths of his acute and vigorous
brain whether it were advisable or not to follow a certain
course. But Falconbridge did not perceive the singular
expression of the Captain's face, or indeed, hear his dubious
mutterings; the darkness shrouded completely his companion's
person—the hoof-strokes of the horse drowned his
growl. The expression of the soldier's countenance would
have afforded his companion much food for thought. That
expression was both stern and pitying, gloomy and satirical.

The Captain remained thus silent for some time.

“But your description of a panther, Captain,” repeated
Falconbridge.

“Well, in the first place,” said the soldier, “eyes both
soft and fiery—that is to say, as tender-looking as the leaf
of a flower in bloom, and at the same time as brilliant as a
flame of fire.”

`Indeed!”

“Yes! extraordinary eyes, wondrous eyes; both human
and inhuman, attractive and repulsive, but far more fascinating
than menacing, or the devil take me! It is only at
certain times that these eyes menace you, and then they
blaze!”

“Ah!” said Falconbridge, “then you have seen both expressions?”

“Yes, often! a wondrous pair of optics, that draw you
toward them, however firm you may be, as the sun draws,
I am told, the fixed stars, pardy!”

Falconbridge laughed at this illustration.

“Well,” he said, “continue.”

“Next the voice is not less wonderful.”

“The voice?”

“Certainly.”

“Of a panther? Has a panther a voice, Captain—a
voice?”

“Nothing less! Have you never read of the strange crying

of a child, which hunters have heard in the deep forests
in their expedltions?”

“Ah, yes! I now recollect”——

“Well, that is one of the tones of the panther's voice.
You understand,” continued the soldier with a cold sneer—
“a ferocious, blood-thirsty animal, worse than a tiger, or a
rattlesnake, cries like a little fatling baby for its amusement?”

“Strange, indeed!”

“But this voice, which can sigh, and wail, and murmur
like a baby's, can also send terror to the strongest heart!”

“Yes.”

“To proceed, then, with my description of this fine animal.”

“Captain—your voice! the tones of it! how singularly
you speak! but pardon me.”

“Oh, my voice, it is true, can't compare with a panther's;
but, nevertheless, I have the advantage in one particular. I
have never yet seen the panther who could ease his feelings
with a good round `devil take me!' But let me finish.
Next to the eyes and the voice come the velvet covering, the
graceful movement, the beautiful, sharp teeth, and the
sharper claws; but here again is an astonishing thing; with
these teeth the fine panther, male or female, actually
smiles”——

“Smiles? Captain, you mean more than you say! There
is a covert meaning in this description my mind struggles
to make out!”

“Covert? How is that—it is as accurate a description as
possible; no fiction, no imagination, or may the devil fly
away with me!”

“Proceed!” murmured Falconbridge.

“I was saying that as the panther, with its fine voice,
could not only make you shudder, but also fill you with
pity as for a poor little crying child, so with its fine teeth it
cannot only tear you to pieces, but just as easily persuade
you that its nature is all tenderness and love—by smiling

understand—a soft, gentle, fascinating smile! I have seen
it, or the devil take me!”

“Captain, Captain!” murmured Falconbridge, passing
his hand over his forehead.”

“Then the claws,” continued the soldier, paying no attention
to this interruption, “they are gifted with the singular
power of drawing themselves in, and burying themselves
beneath the velvety hair, you understand”——

“Yes!”

“Then when they are so drawn back, you touch nothing
but a soft, velvet cushion, which natural historians have
most ungallantly called a paw—I say ungallantly, because all
this time I have been speaking of the female panther, or
perhaps I may say pantheress. You have a beautiful, soft
cushion before you, a pretty thing to toy and play with—
nothing more—no claws any where visible; you comprehend?”

“Perfectly!”

“But if you happen to excite the slumbering ferocity of
the fine lady panther, why this beautiful, soft palm will turn
into a bundle of iron springs, the sharp claws will dart forth
like magic; and the bright teeth which you admired so
much will come to the assistance of the claws; and there!
you find the consequences of intimacy with a pantheress!
When your friend, uneasy at your absence, comes to
search for you, he finds a mangled body, half-devoured, and
emptied of every drop of blood; panthers like blood!”

“Captain—Captain Wagner!” murmured Falconbridge,
“speak to me as a friend—speak to me in plain words—you
mean”——

“That I do not like panthers, male or female,” said Captain
Wagner, sullenly; “they are too tender and cruel, too
beautiful and fatal with their undulating bodies, their graceful
limbs, their soft, velvety covering, their smiles, their sighs,
their fascinating glances!”

“Captain! Captain!”

“They smile too sweetly and bite too ferociously! They
caress too softly the victim before tearing him to pieces, and
lapping with a smile his heart's blood! Would you have me
like the animal when I know it so well!”

Falconbridge was silent for a moment, evidently overcome
by this terrible allegory. At last he said, with much agitation:

“Captain! friend! why have you spoken with such cruel
enmity of Miss Argal?”

“I have spoken of no one,” said the Captain gloomily;
“I have not mentioned Miss Argal's name! I have spoken
of an animal which I should fear mortally, were not my
muscles of force sufficient to catch that animal in my arms,
were she to spring upon me, and there crush her!”

Falconbridge, plunged in disturbed thought, made no reply.
They galloped on for a quarter of a mile in silence, and
then the moon came out between the lurid clouds. The
storm had passed away toward the south.

Captain Wagner, chancing to look at his companion, saw
that he was very pale, and that his forehead was covered
with a cold sweat. The words of the soldier seemed to have
paralyzed him, for he remained perfectly silent—with eyes
full of wonder, fixed far away upon the distance.

Not a word more was uttered by either of the companions
until they reached the Ordinary, and here they separated,
and retired to their beds.

With Falconbridge the night was a vigil of wonder and incredulity.