She
remembered to have seen a candle among the articles on the shelf, and
she began to grope her way toward the matches. Suddenly she stopped.
What was that panting?
Was it her own breathing, quickened with a sudden nameless terror? or
was there something outside? Her heart seemed to stop beating while she
listened. Yes! it was a panting outside--a panting now increased,
multiplied, redoubled, mixed with the sounds of rustling, tearing,
craunching, and occasionally a quick, impatient snarl. She crept on her
hands and knees to the opening and looked out. At first the ground
seemed to be undulating between her and the opposite tree. But a second
glance showed her the black and gray, bristling, tossing backs of
tumbling beasts of prey, charging the carcass of the bear that lay at
its roots, or contesting for the prize with gluttonous choked breath,
sidelong snarls, arched spines, and recurved tails. One of the boldest
had leaped upon a buttressing root of her tree within a foot of the
opening.
The excitement, awe, and terror she had undergone culminated in one
wild, maddened scream, that seemed to pierce even the cold depths of
the forest, as she dropped on her face, with her hands clasped over her
eyes in an agony of fear.
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