At that moment the panther turned her face towards the Frenchman and gazed steadfastly at him without moving. The rigidity of her steely eyes, and their unendurable brilliancy, made the Provençal shudder, especially when the beast walked towards him; but he gazed at her with a caressing expression, and smiling at her as if to magnetise her, allowed her to come close to him; then, with a touch as gentle and loving as if he were caressing the fairest of women, he passed his hand over her whole body from head to tail, scratching with his nails the flexible vertebrae which formed the panther's yellow back. The animal stiffened her tail with pleasure, her eyes became softer; and when the Frenchman performed that self-interested caress for the third time, she began to purr, as cats do to express pleasure; but the sound came forth from a throat so deep and so powerful that it rang through the grotto like the last notes of an organ through a church. The Provençal, realising the importance of his caresses, repeated them in a way to soothe, to lull the imperious courtesan. When he felt sure that he had allayed the ferocity of his capricious companion, whose hunger had certainly been sated the night before, he rose and started to leave the grotto. The panther allowed him to go; but, when he had climbed the hill, she bounded after him as lightly as a sparrow hops from branch to branch, and rubbed against his legs, curving her back after the manner of a cat; then, looking into her guest's face with an eye whose glare had become less deadly, she uttered that wild cry which naturalists liken to the noise made by a saw. "She is very exacting!" exclaimed the Frenchman, with a smile. He tried playing with her ears, patting her sides, and scratching her head hard with his nails; and finding that he was successful, he tickled her skull with the point of his dagger, watching for an opportunity to kill her, but the hardness of the bones made him afraid that he might not succeed.