MARTIN RATTLER. 119

a man should face what appeared to him unknown
danger so boldly and calmly ; but he did not consider
that the hermit knew exactly the amount of danger
before him. He knew precisely the manner in which
it would assail him, and he knew just what was
necessary to be done in order to avert it; and in
the strength of that knowledge he stood unmoved,
with a slight smile upon his tightly-compressed lips.

Scarcely had the roar ceased when it was repeated
with tenfold fierceness; the bushes and fern leaves
shook violently, and an enormous and beautifully-
spotted jaguar shot through the air as if it had been
discharged from a cannon’s mouth. The hermit’s eye
wavered not; he bent forward a hair’s-breadth ; the
glittering spear-point touched the animal’s breast,
pierced through it, and came out at its side below
the ribs.) But the force of the bound was too ereat
for the strength of the weapon: the handle snapped
in twain, and the transfixed jaguar struck down the
hermit and fell writhing upon him !

In the excitement of the moment Barney drew his
pistol from his belt and snapped it at the animal.
It was well for the hermit at that moment that
Barney had forgotten to prime his weapon; for
although he aimed at the jaguar’s skull, there is

no doubt whatever that he would have blown out the