| Share page |
|
x83 |
||
|
CHAPTER XXVI
A BATTLE KOYAL
I thRew myself on the bed, and began to turn over in my mind the tale she had told me. She had forgotten herself, and, by a single incautious word, removed one perplexity as to the condition in which I found her in the forest! The leopardess bounded over; the princess lay prostrate on the bank: the running stream had dissolved her self-enchantment! Her own account of the object of her journey revealed the danger of the Little Ones then imminent: I had saved the life of their one fearful enemy !
I had but reached this conclusion when I fell asleep. The lovely wine may not have been quite innocent.
When I opened my eyes, it was night. A lamp, suspended from the ceiling, cast a clear, although soft light through the chamber. A delicious languor infolded me. I seemed floating, far from land, upon the bosom of a twilight sea. Existence was in itself pleasure. I had no pain. Surely I was dying!
No pain!—ah, what a shoot of mortal pain was that! what a sickening sting ! It went right through my heart! Again! That was sharpness itself'.—and so sickening! I could not move my hand to lay it on my heart; something kept it down ! |
||