“I know not whether I am mad,” he answered, “but I know that thou art wicked and unjust.  Look now, than these hunters none braver ever breathed.  That man”—­and he pointed to the one whom the leopard had struck down—­“took my place and went in before me because I ordered that we should attack the creature, and thus was felled.  As thou seest all, thou mightest have seen this also.  Then it sprang on me, and the rest of these, my friends, ran round waiting a chance to strike, which at first they could not do unless they would have killed me with it, since I and the brute rolled over and over in the snow.  As it was, one of them seized it with his bare hands:  look at the teeth marks on his arm.  So if they are to perish on the Mountain, I, who am the man to blame, perish with them.”

Now, while the hunters looked at him with fervent gratitude in their eyes, Ayesha thought a little, then said cleverly enough—­“In truth, my lord Leo, had I known all the tale, well mightest thou have named me wicked and unjust; but I knew only what I saw, and out of their own mouths did I condemn them.  My servants, my lord here has pleaded for you, and you are forgiven; more, he who rushed in upon the leopard and he who seized it with his hands shall be rewarded and advanced.  Go; but I warn you if you suffer my lord to come into more danger, you shall not escape so easily again.”

So they bowed and went, still blessing Leo with their eyes, since death by exposure on the Mountain snows was the most terrible form of punishment known to these people, and one only inflicted by the direct order of Hes upon murderers or other great criminals.

When we had left the Sanctuary and were alone again in the hall, the storm that I had seen gathering upon Leo’s face broke in earnest.  Ayesha renewed her inquiries about his wounds, and wished to call Oros, the physician, to dress them, and as he refused this, offered to do so herself.  He begged that she would leave his wounds alone, and then, his great beard bristling with wrath, asked her solmenly if he was a child in arms, a query so absurd that I could not help laughing.

Then he scolded her—­yes, he scolded Ayesha!  Wishing to know what she meant (1) by spying upon him with her magic, an evil gift that he had always disliked and mistrusted; (2) by condemning brave and excellent men, his good friends, to a death of fiendish cruelty upon such evidence, or rather out of temper, on no evidence at all; and (3) by giving him into charge of them, as though he were a little boy, and telling them that they would have to answer for it if he were hurt:  he who, in his time, had killed every sort of big game known and passed through some perils and encounters?