Perhaps it was but the soft and silvery light which clothed those delicate features with so much mystery and charm.

She might be dead, not sleeping; but even as he thought this, life came into her face, colour stole up beneath the pale, olive-hued skin, the red lips opened, seeming to mutter some words, and she stretched out her rounded arms as though to clasp a vision of her dream.
Godwin turned aside; it seemed not right to watch her thus, although in truth he had only come to know that she was safe.

He went back to the fire, and lifting a cedar bough, which blazed like a torch in his left hand, was about to lay it down again on the centre of the flame, when suddenly he heard the sharp and terrible cry of a woman in an agony of pain or fear, and at the same moment the horses and mules began to plunge and snort.

In an instant, the blazing bough still in his hand, he was back by the cave, and lo! there before him, the form of Masouda, hanging from its jaws, stood a great yellow beast, which, although he had never seen its like, he knew must be a lioness.

It was heading for the cave, then catching sight of him, turned and bounded away in the direction of the fire, purposing to reenter the wood beyond.
But the woman in its mouth cumbered it, and running swiftly, Godwin came face to face with the brute just opposite the fire.
He hurled the burning bough at it, whereon it dropped Masouda, and rearing itself straight upon its hind legs, stretched out its claws, and seemed about to fall on him.