It was a miserable hour to meet such a death—­so cold, so comfortless, shivering in my light dress clothes upon this gridiron of torment upon which I was stretched.  I tried to brace myself to it, to raise my soul above it, and at the same time, with the lucidity which comes to a perfectly desperate man, I cast round for some possible means of escape.  One thing was clear to me.  If that front of the cage was only back in its position once more, I could find a sure refuge behind it.  Could I possibly pull it back?  I hardly dared to move for fear of bringing the creature upon me.  Slowly, very slowly, I put my hand forward until it grasped the edge of the front, the final bar which protruded through the wall.  To my surprise it came quite easily to my jerk.  Of course the difficulty of drawing it out arose from the fact that I was clinging to it.  I pulled again, and three inches of it came through.  It ran apparently on wheels.  I pulled again . . . and then the cat sprang!

It was so quick, so sudden, that I never saw it happen.  I simply heard the savage snarl, and in an instant afterwards the blazing yellow eyes, the flattened black head with its red tongue and flashing teeth, were within reach of me.  The impact of the creature shook the bars upon which I lay, until I thought (as far as I could think of anything at such a moment) that they were coming down.  The cat swayed there for an instant, the head and front paws quite close to me, the hind paws clawing to find a grip upon the edge of the grating.  I heard the claws rasping as they clung to the wire-netting, and the breath of the beast made me sick.  But its bound had been miscalculated.  It could not retain its position.  Slowly, grinning with rage, and scratching madly at the bars, it swung backwards and dropped heavily upon the floor.  With a growl it instantly faced round to me and crouched for another spring.

I knew that the next few moments would decide my fate.  The creature had learned by experience.  It would not miscalculate again.  I must act promptly, fearlessly, if I were to have a chance for life.  In an instant I had formed my plan.  Pulling off my dress-coat, I threw it down over the head of the beast.  At the same moment I dropped over the edge, seized the end of the front grating, and pulled it frantically out of the wall.

It came more easily than I could have expected.  I rushed across the room, bearing it with me; but, as I rushed, the accident of my position put me upon the outer side.  Had it been the other way, I might have come off scathless.  As it was, there was a moment’s pause as I stopped it and tried to pass in through the opening which I had left.  That moment was enough to give time to the creature to toss off the coat with which I had blinded him and to spring upon me.  I hurled myself through the gap and pulled the rails to behind me, but he seized my leg before I could entirely withdraw it.  One stroke of that huge paw tore off my calf as a shaving of wood curls off before a plane.  The next moment, bleeding and fainting, I was lying among the foul straw with a line of friendly bars between me and the creature which ramped so frantically against them.