* * * * * * *
Something or somebody was calling to me, and by name. My subauditory senses had been conscious of the fact long, it seemed, before any association of it with reality occurred to startle them. But now, and more acutely, the sound penetrated, cutting through the web of sleep; and the next moment I had leapt wide awake, and was sitting up listening.
“Dane, Dane, Dane! Holà, Monsieur! Holà, Monsieur Dane! Do you hear? Answer, then! Dane, Dane, Dane!”
“Here!” I shouted, scrambling to my feet, and facing in the direction of the voice. The mist had thinned somewhat, and was penetrated, moreover, with a white diffused light, in the shine of which all immediate details of the surrounding plateau were faintly visible. I thought at first that day had dawned upon me as I lay, but in a moment recognised the silvery radiance for that of the full moon, which appeared to hang in the heavens right above the banks of vapour. And not fifty yards away from me stood a solitary figure, ghostly and motionless on a rock, and looking like a half-gilded statue in the glow from a lantern it carried in its hand.
For an instant my drugged wits failed to respond to the vision; then, with a laugh, I began to stumble forward—and stopped.
“Hullo!” I shouted. “Shall I come to you? Is it safe?”
Though I repeated the cry, never a syllable answered me. It seemed strange. Surely, the hallooing, whose echoes still rang in my brain, could have come from no direction but this. I dwelt puzzled a moment; then, deciding to take silence for assent, continued to advance. I went stupidly, still fuddled in my mind, lifting and putting down my feet mechanically, and hardly looking where I trod. The figure, never moving or uttering sound, began to take to me near shape and substance. I was already within speaking distance of it, when it appeared to move, and a cry came from its lungs, sudden and furious:—
“Halt!”
I had wit, or instinct enough to stop on the instant—and lucky for me I had. That moment returns to me now in a black shock of memory. As I stood, vaguely wondering, the figure came down from its stone; approached me; halted abruptly within six yards of where I stood—and it was Carabas. In the sick shine of the lantern he carried his face looked livid and contorted. He stood a moment; then leaned down the lantern, and swung it to and fro.
“Voilà ce que c’est!” he said, in a thick scornful voice. “Another step, and you would have been in.”