Chapter Thirteen.
The Watcher on the Cairn.
Twenty-four hours of agonising suspense, and then the revolving figures reach the base of the mountain, and commence simultaneously to roll up the side.
The female figure on the top gives a despairing glance around her, and drops senseless on the cairn.
At length, as the sun is setting in the only unoccupied horizon, she starts, rigid and stiff, and listens.
On either side of her approaches a dull grinding noise, mingled with heavy snorting, and the low muttering of voices.
She dares not look: it is terrible enough to hear!
So evenly do they approach, that at the same instant they reached the summit.
Then she rises majestically to her full height, spreads her arms, and utters a cry which is heard simultaneously at Cairo, at Zanzibar, and at Cape Town.
A terrible silence follows, broken only by the trembling of the mountain and the breathless panting of the three figures as each rears himself slowly to his feet.
The scene that followed may be more easily imagined than described.