In the morning, therefore, I set her free, anticipating some
pleasure from seeing the joyous bound with which, as I thought, she
would return to her native freedom. She had been so stupefied,
however, by the exciting events of the preceding day and night, and
was so puzzled as to the road she should take, that she went off
very deliberately, and with an uncertain step. She went away quite
sound in limb, but her intellect may have been upset. Never in all
likelihood had she seen the form of a human being until the
dreadful moment when she woke from her sleep and found herself in
the grip of an Arab. Then her pitching and tossing journey on the
back of a camel, and lastly, a soiree with me by candlelight! I
should have been glad to know, if I could, that her heart was not
utterly broken.
My Arabs were somewhat excited one day by discovering the fresh
print of a foot--the foot, as they said, of a lion. I had no
conception that the lord of the forest (better known as a crest)
ever stalked away from his jungles to make inglorious war in these
smooth plains against antelopes and gazelles. I supposed that
there must have been some error of interpretation, and that the
Arabs meant to speak of a tiger.
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