The leopard walked
leisurely, but steadily. Softly the footsteps of Timokles and the
beast sounded in the room, one footfall answering another. Backward,
backward, went Timokles--now a turn of a corner--backward, backward.
Another corner. This was the wall by which the leopard had slept.
Backward, backward! The lad could not pause, but now, as he neared
the end of the wall and looked up once beyond the leopard, Timokles
saw, in the dark corner that he had passed, what he had not before
noticed when near enough to see it, as he had not before lifted his
eyes from the leopard. In that farther, dark corner there was a
darker line that marked the wall for some distance from the roof.
Timokles dimly perceived that the line was part of one of the old
palm branches, that, years ago, had been laid across the split date
tree that formed the roof's beam. At the time of the making of the
roof, the palm branches had no doubt been securely fastened, and now
this portion of a branch which hung down was still attached to the
top of the outer wall of the building, but had ceased to be
connected with the central split date tree beam, and had fallen
inward, hanging near the wall. Did the palm branch hang low enough
so that, if he jumped, he could grasp it?
The portion of the old palm branch was a slender thing. It would not
have borne the leopard's weight.
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