midnight
I would have followed , but that same force , which I can now understand was a mental force and not at all a physical force , held me hard and fast to where I stood . She had let her robe fall as she sprang forward and now stood only as the hand of God had fashioned her ; a snow-white silhouette of perfect comeliness against the terrible and bloody mouth and tossing mane of the lion . She leaned forward as he came on around and close to the edge of his slab . She looked him firmly and steadily in the face , her wondrous eyes , her midnight eyes of all Israel , the child of the wilderness , had once more met the lion of the desert as of old . Who was this woman here who stepped between death and me and stood looking a wounded lion in the face ? Was this Judith again incarnate ? Or was this something more than Judith ?