“Now we must be prepared,” said the hermit, feeling the point of his spear.  “I think there is a jaguar here.  I saw him yesterday, and I am quite sure he will not go away till he tries to do some mischief.  He little knows that there is nothing here to hurt but me.”  The hermit chuckled as he said this, and resting his gun against the cliff near the entrance to the first cave, which was a small one, he passed on to the next.  Holding the spear in his left hand, he threw a stone violently into the cavern.  Barney and Martin listened and gazed in silent expectation; but they only heard the hollow sound of the falling stone as it dashed against the sides of the cave; then all was still.

“Och, then, he’s off,” cried Barney.

“Hush,” said Martin; “don’t speak till he has tried the other cave.”

Without taking notice of their remarks, the hermit repeated the experiment at the mouths of two caverns further on, with the like result.

“Maybe the spalpeen’s hidin’ in the little cave where ye laid down yer gun,” suggested Barney, going towards the place as he spoke.  “Och, then, come here, friend; sure it must be the mouth of a mine, for there’s two o’ the beautifulest di’monds I iver—­”

Barney’s speech was cut short by a low peculiar sound, that seemed like the muttering of far-distant thunder.  At the same moment the hermit pulled him violently back, and, placing himself in a firm attitude full in front of the cavern, held the point of the spear advanced before him.

“Martin,” he whispered, “shoot an arrow straight into that hole,—­quick!”

Martin obeyed, and the arrow whizzed through the aperture.  Instantly there issued from it a savage and tremendous roar, so awful that it seemed as if the very mountain were bellowing and that the cavern were its mouth.  But not a muscle of the hermit’s figure moved.  He stood like a bronze statue,—­his head thrown back and his chest advanced, with one foot planted firmly before him and the spear pointing towards the cave.  It seemed strange to Martin that a man should face what appeared to him unknown danger so boldly and calmly; but he did not consider that the hermit knew exactly the amount of danger before him.  He knew precisely the manner in which it would assail him, and he knew just what was necessary to be done in order to avert it; and in the strength of that knowledge he stood unmoved, with a slight smile upon his tightly compressed lips.

Scarcely had the roar ceased when it was repeated with tenfold fierceness; the bushes and fern leaves shook violently, and an enormous and beautifully spotted jaguar shot through the air as if it had been discharged from a cannon’s mouth.  The hermit’s eye wavered not; he bent forward a hair’s-breadth; the glittering spear-point touched the animal’s breast, pierced through it, and came out at its side below the ribs.  But the force of the bound was too great for the strength of the weapon:  the handle snapped in twain, and the transfixed jaguar struck down the hermit and fell writhing upon him!