United States or Monaco ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It is an allegory conceived in the form of a vision, which was the most popular style of poetry at that age. At the close of the year 1300 Dante represents himself as lost in a forest at the foot of a hill, near Jerusalem. He wishes to ascend it, but is prevented by a panther, a lion, and a she-wolf which beset the way.
"They'd make way with a feller all the sooner, and end the agony. But Max says he don't believe it could have been a panther, so make your mind easy, Bandy-legs." They managed to talk of other things in between, but the boy with the short legs would every little while think up some new question in connection with that shriek, which he would fire at Max, and demand an answer.
A volley came from the creek bed, but in an instant the Panther, Obed, Will and Fields were by Ned's side. "Down on your faces," cried the Panther, "an' pot 'em as they run! So they thought to go aroun' the grove, come down from the north an' surprise us this way! Give it to 'em, boys!" The rifles flashed and the dark line in the bed of the creek now broke into a huddle of flying forms.
Lone Wolf suddenly sprang forward like a panther, and made a vicious lunge with his knife, Sut easily avoiding it by leaping back, when, in turn, he made a similar attempt upon his adversary, who escaped in precisely the same manner. But the scout noticed an unaccountable thing. Lone Wolf had dropped his knife!
Once a large bush-cow thundered almost through the blazing logs, bellowing frantically as a panther with its claws deeply dug into the huge brute's hide was remorselessly tearing at the throat of its prey. Monkeys, too, huge simians looking human-like in the dull red glare, came shuffling from the shadow of the neighbouring trees to gaze fixedly at the unusual sight of a fire.
Picture him, a man in the forties, straight-backed, rather jolly, and with one of those German naval beards. The slightest mistake by the Captain of the Panther and England and France would have flung themselves into war with Germany. He stood for a moment regarding me, then he said, "Well, what is this? What is your Wilhelmstrasse number?" "Seventeen," I told him.
I declare I hev a real feller feelin' fur him. I couldn't ever feel that way toward a panther. They always look mean an' they always are mean, but I could hobnob right along with a jolly, fat black bear." "Yes," said Paul, looking dreamily far into the future. "It's a pity they have to go." "Hev to go, what do you mean, Paul?" interrupted Long Jim Hart, as he cracked a joint or two.
Meantime mother grew alarmed, and Will was dispatched after the absent tots. Turk, as we recalled, had sought to put a check upon our wanderings, and when we entered the woods his restlessness increased. Suddenly he began to paw up the carpet of dry leaves, and a few moments later the shrill scream of a panther echoed through the forest aisles.
Else I fear my youthful memory would have served me poorly for a chronicle of my childhood so exact and so extended as this I have written. Uncle Eb's hair was white now and the voices of the swift and the panther had grown mild and tremulous and unsatisfactory and even absurd. Time had tamed the monsters of that imaginary wilderness and I had begun to lose my respect for them.
"Well, always one woman or another," said the Panther in a tone of resignation: "always squaw git her own way. You see that little girl, mamma? Could squeeze her up just like a rabbit. Always she order me round since she so high, and I just big fool enough let her;" and he went into the next room, and presently came out arrayed in dry garments, as to his upper man at least.
Word Of The Day