I disembarrassed myself of my outer garments, threw off my sun-hat, and, clad only in my shoes and tunic, sprinted for the door into the wild- garden, through it, through its upper door, which, as I had forecasted, I found open, and out on the lower terrace. From there I could not see anything on the upper terrace, but, as I cleared the door, I heard again, rising, quavering, sinking, rising, the leopard's hunting cry from the upper terrace. I sprang up the stair to the middle terrace, and half way up that to the upper; but, when my head was about on a level with the pavement of the walk along the upper terrace, I checked myself and moved a hairs-breadth at a time; for the rescue on which I had come was a delicate task and any quick movement might precipitate the leopard's killing- spring.
Through the spaces between the yellow Numidian marble balusters I saw what I had anticipated. Partly under the big middle awning, but mostly out in front of it on the walk, were set a score of light chairs. On those furthest out were seated nine ladies: Nemestronia, Vedia, Urgulania, Entedia, Aemilia Prisca, Magnonia, Claudia Ardeana, Semnia, Papiria and Cossonia. They were rigid in their chairs, white with terror and yet afraid to move a muscle. Belly flat on the walk, about twelve paces from them, crouched the leopard, moving forward a paw at a time. As I gained a view of her she emitted a third squall.
I saw that I was in time and felt so relieved that I almost fainted in the revulsion from my agony of anxiety. As I began to move my mind was free enough to wonder how Vedia had found time to change from her slave-girl disguise into a bewitching fashionable toilet. Among those leaders of Roman society, the very pick of Rome's noblewomen, she showed her best and outshone them all.
I moved evenly and steadily up the steps and along the balustrade till I was past the crouching leopard and then on round till I was in her line of sight and half between her and her victims.
She recognized me at once, the evil switching of her tail ceased, she half rose; she began to purr, a purr that sounded to me as loud as the roar of a water-fall in a gorge; she took a few steps towards me, then, suddenly, she made a peculiar movement hard to describe, something like the curvetting of a mettlesome colt, but characteristic of a leopard and therefore like the movement of no other animal save a leopard or lion or tiger; she leapt daintily clear of the pavement and struck sideways with her forepaws. The antic perfectly expressed playful delight and friendliness.