The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Passion in the Desert by Honore de Balzac: danger, though no doubt it would have risen at the mouth of a cannon
charged with shell. Nevertheless, a bold thought brought daylight to
his soul and sealed up the source of the cold sweat which sprang forth
on his brow. Like men driven to bay, who defy death and offer their
body to the smiter, so he, seeing in this merely a tragic episode,
resolved to play his part with honor to the last.
"The day before yesterday the Arabs would have killed me, perhaps," he
said; so considering himself as good as dead already, he waited
bravely, with excited curiosity, the awakening of his enemy.
When the sun appeared, the panther suddenly opened her eyes; then she
put out her paws with energy, as if to stretch them and get rid of
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