Cautiously he wormed his rifle to his shoulder.

But there came no movement from the rocks.
Then, from half-way down the mountain, there came again that terrible cry, and Mukoki knew that no animal in all these wilds could make it, but that it was human, and yet more savage than anything that had ever brought terror into his soul.

Trembling, he crouched to the earth, a nameless fear chilling the blood in his veins.

And the cry came again, and yet again, always farther and farther away, now at the foot of the mountain, now upon the plain, now floating away toward the chasm, echoing and reechoing between the mountain ridges, startling the creatures of the night into silence, and wresting deep sobbing breaths from out of Mukoki's soul.

And the old warrior moved not a muscle until far away, miles and miles, it seemed, there died the last echo of it, and only the whispering winds rustled over the mountain top..