She did not want to think.

She leaned her head against a rock, closing her eyes.

The continuous babble of the stream was like a lullaby.
Under its soothing influence she might have slept, a blessed drowsiness was stealing over her, when suddenly there flashed through her being a swift warning of approaching danger.

Whence it came she knew not, but its urgency was such that instinctively she started up and looked about her.
The next instant, with a sound half-gasp, half-cry, she was on her feet, and shrinking back against her sheltering boulder in the paralysis of a great horror.

There, within a few yards of her and drawing nearer, ever nearer, with a beast-like stealth, was a tall, black-bearded tribesman.