Instinctively I knew the dogs had jumped game of some kind.

Satan knew it as well as I, for he quickened his pace and sent the stones clattering behind him.
I gained the base of the yellow cliff, but found no tracks in the dust of ages that had crumbled in its shadow, nor did I hear the dogs.
Considering how close they had seemed, this was strange.

I halted and listened.

Silence reigned supreme.

The ragged cracks in the cliff walls could have harbored many a watching lion, and I cast an apprehensive glance into their dark confines.