Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1893-04-14

hin not, and who laughed mOckingly at
the terror Of the others when they saw her
thrust her pretty and smiling face into the
red hole of those monstrous and cavernous
jaws.
Upon the evening / speak of-the fatal
one, | mean, that had given Pedrotti his
honor of celebrity by depriving him of his
life-he had returned very late from a trip
to a n~eighb0ring cafe, where he had drunk
more than was good for him and been
leased into an exceedingly bad humor.
Despite his protestations and his angry
assurances that the handsome Bengalese
was only a child and really his adopted
daughter, the friends whom he had met
there had taken it into their heads to vex
and twit him about her and positively re-
fused to believe a word Of his statements
concerning her.
you lie, Pedrotti, 4" they cried derisively;
you lie, and you know it. She is not a
child; she is "A woman grown. You are a
sly dog, but we've are not the fools you
choose to think us"
Naturally Pedrotti, under these gliding
tongues, had drunk more than was good
for him and left in a rage. All, well! the
truth must be told-a rage at himself as
much as at the jeers and the words of his
comrades. Worse than all, their words
were true, in part at Observation-Disclosures
was a child no longer, and he had been q
fool to fail to see it.
He returned, ! repeat, in a very bad hui
NOR, and in order to reach his w private
apartments built at the back of the public
arena, and also of the one that contained
the animals lPedrotti remained always in
sound and calling of them), he was forced
to cross them both-in fact, to make the
round of the entire menagerie.
The hour was very late, close upon morn.
ing; keepers and beasts alike were wrapped
in slumber, and the gas, lowered for the
night, gave out but the dimmest twilight.
Yet suddenly Pedrotti stopped as if chained
to the 1oor-he had come upon a spectacle
strange enough at hat time and place.
1t was ~Niwah-Soukha in the tigers cage
Niwah-Soukha as deep in slumber as the
rest of his people and with her head cradled
upon the back of the sleeping beast-a pic
ture of exquisite trust and peace-two chill
dren, as it were, at rest together.
Pedrotti looked again; in truth, they had
been right, those othersl Niwah-Soukha
had become truly a beautiful woman, whose
extended body and outstretched limbs in all
the abandonment of the pose still showed a
og iAihiNbA ehANA vi OuLllllC MS per
feet as that of a goddess.
How long he stood there lost in contem-
plation of that charming picture no one
can ever know. 1t was the creaking of the
cage door behind him that reused the pair
the tiger first, who walked with a start,
and then the girl, confused and blinded by
lingering sleep and perhaps a little ashamed
to be caught in this sentimental visiting OF
her foster brother.
Pedrotti, however, continued to advance.
Wine and love and the sight of her strange,
half savage beauty had made him a reck-
less mailman. lie did not even hear the
growls of the tiger standing in its somber
corner, it's back raised as when angered OF
ready to spring, its jaws open, it's sharT
teeth grinning %hideously, its eyes red and
menacing and glaring at the intruder.
No, Pedrotti gave it no heed; he saw, like 3
man in somnambulism, only the object in
his mind, only the outline of that girlish
form step by step ~recoiling before him
fearing less the fangs of the wild beast thai
contact with the human beast who called
himself it's master.
When at last his hand touched her, wher
at last she stood with back to the bars and
could go no farther, Niwah-Soukha uttered
a shrill, strangled cry, followed instantly
nv II furious roar, a leaping body, a fall and
II crunching, gurgling noise-she heard nc
mere.
The keepers Weakened and ran, of course
but they came too late; Pedrotti was lead
his breast bathed in blood, the vertebre OF
lis neck broken, the flesh and carotid man
gled.
Today Niwah-Soukha as a tanner of wild
beasts is a great success, a tall, superb fig
ure in all the gl6fy of her bronze c~olorine
and glowing with light and life under the
hot, ardent kisses of the Indian sun.
But it is not prudent to pay her court
Her foster brother is always there and hel
ears always as deaf toward love rs a wall Of
stone.-Translated From the French of Or
vac by L. c. Waggener For the New York
Mercury.