Too wounded to move, and too faint to be conscious of fear, I could only lie, more dead than alive, and watch it.  It pressed its broad, black chest against the bars and angled for me with its crooked paws as I have seen a kitten do before a mouse-trap.  It ripped my clothes, but, stretch as it would, it could not quite reach me.  I have heard of the curious numbing effect produced by wounds from the great carnivora, and now I was destined to experience it, for I had lost all sense of personality, and was as interested in the cat’s failure or success as if it were some game which I was watching.  And then gradually my mind drifted away into strange vague dreams, always with that black face and red tongue coming back into them, and so I lost myself in the nirvana of delirium, the blessed relief of those who are too sorely tried.

Tracing the course of events afterwards, I conclude that I must have been insensible for about two hours.  What roused me to consciousness once more was that sharp metallic click which had been the precursor of my terrible experience.  It was the shooting back of the spring lock.  Then, before my senses were clear enough to entirely apprehend what they saw, I was aware of the round, benevolent face of my cousin peering in through the open door.  What he saw evidently amazed him.  There was the cat crouching on the floor.  I was stretched upon my back in my shirt-sleeves within the cage, my trousers torn to ribbons and a great pool of blood all round me.  I can see his amazed face now, with the morning sunlight upon it.  He peered at me, and peered again.  Then he closed the door behind him, and advanced to the cage to see if I were really dead.

I cannot undertake to say what happened.  I was not in a fit state to witness or to chronicle such events.  I can only say that I was suddenly conscious that his face was away from me—­that he was looking towards the animal.

“Good old Tommy!” he cried.  “Good old Tommy!”

Then he came near the bars, with his back still towards me.

“Down, you stupid beast!” he roared.  “Down, sir!  Don’t you know your master?”

Suddenly even in my bemuddled brain a remembrance came of those words of his when he had said that the taste of blood would turn the cat into a fiend.  My blood had done it, but he was to pay the price.

“Get away!” he screamed.  “Get away, you devil!  Baldwin!  Baldwin!  Oh, my God!”

And then I heard him fall, and rise, and fall again, with a sound like the ripping of sacking.  His screams grew fainter until they were lost in the worrying snarl.  And then, after I thought that he was dead, I saw, as in a nightmare, a blinded, tattered, blood-soaked figure running wildly round the room—­and that was the last glimpse which I had of him before I fainted once again.