where the strong simoom had rippled the surface into waves and ever-varying undulations.  He lived in the Eastern day; he worshiped its marvelous glory.  He rejoiced in the grandeur of the storms when they rolled across the vast plain, and tossed the sand upward till it looked like a dry red fog or a solid death-dealing vapor; and as the night came on he welcomed it with ecstasy, grateful for the blessed coolness of the light of the stars.  His ears listened to the music of the skies.  Solitude taught him the treasures of meditation.  He spent hours in recalling trifles, and in comparing his past life with the weird present.

He grew fondly attached to his panther; for he was a man who needed an affection.  Whether it were that his own will, magnetically strong, had modified the nature of his savage princess, or that the wars then raging in the desert had provided her with an ample supply of food, it is certain that she showed no sign of attacking him, and became so tame that he soon felt no fear of her.  He spent much of his time in sleeping; though with his mind awake, like a spider in its web, lest he should miss some deliverance that might chance to cross the sandy sphere marked out by the horizon.  He had made his shirt into a banner and tied it to the top of a palm-tree which he had stripped of its leafage.  Taking counsel of necessity, he kept the flag extended by fastening the corners with twigs and wedges; for the fitful wind might have failed to wave it at the moment when the longed-for succor came in sight.

Nevertheless, there were long hours of gloom when hope forsook him; and then he played with his panther.  He learned to know the different inflections of her voice and the meanings of her expressive glance; he studied the variegation of the spots which shaded the dead gold of her robe.  Mignonne no longer growled when he caught the tuft of her dangerous tail and counted the black and white rings which glittered in the sunlight like a cluster of precious stones.  He delighted in the soft lines of her lithe body, the whiteness of her belly, the grace of her charming head:  but above all he loved to watch her as she gamboled at play.  The agility and youthfulness of her movements were a constantly fresh surprise to him.  He admired the suppleness of the flexible body as she bounded, crept, and glided, or clung to the trunk of palm-trees, or rolled over and over, crouching sometimes to the ground, and gathering herself together as she made ready for her vigorous spring.  Yet, however vigorous the bound, however slippery the granite block on which she landed, she would stop short, motionless, at the one word “Mignonne.”

One day, under a dazzling sun, a large bird hovered in the sky.  The Provencal left his panther to watch the new guest.  After a moment’s pause the neglected sultana uttered a low growl.

“The devil take me!  I believe she is jealous!” exclaimed the soldier, observing the rigid look which once more appeared in her metallic eyes.  “The soul of Sophronie has got into her body!”