And then something like a deep, soft sigh fell upon his ears. It came from right in front, and seemed within scarce a yard of him. He looked up, startled, then resisted an impulse to turn and flee. Before him the bush, thick and green, was as an impenetrable wall. Could the sound have proceeded thence? He started again. In the dim recesses formed by the interlacing fronds two eyes were staring at him—two large beady eyes—not shining, but dull and black, and yet more full, more penetrating, than if they had glared.
Every instinct of self-preservation moved him to fall back. The same instinct moved him to keep his own eyes fixed upon that dull, penetrating, fiend-like stare as he did so. What on earth was the thing? he asked himself. A reptile? No; for the eyes were larger than those of the largest serpent known to zoology. Human? No; not that either. He was conscious of a ghastly chilling of the blood within him as he met that horrible stare fixed upon him within the mysterious darkness of the bush screen. He was conscious of something more—that his first instinct of retreat had left him, and was now succeeded by an impulse that compelled him forward, that constrained him to look closer into those awful eyes; and then that same soft, heavy sigh was repeated.
He moved a step forward. One foot was on the flat stone. In a moment the other would have followed it—drawn, impelled by an irresistible force—when a strange humming noise behind him—low, but growing louder and louder—made him pause. Someone was approaching, and that by the way he had come. A quick instinct warned him that it would not be well to be found here prying into what was doubtless some sacred if ghastly temple of mystery held in awe by a race of devil-worshippers. The spell was broken. Withdrawing his one foot from the stone he looked back, then quickly took cover within the thick bush that lined the slopes of the amphitheatre.
His conjecture proved correct. Hardly was he in hiding than a man appeared, entering through the same opening which had admitted himself—a tall, black man, yet not altogether wearing the same appearance as those among whom his own lot seemed cast. The new arrival scarce glanced from left to right, and, still humming his strange, weird croon, advanced straight to the stone even as he himself had done. Then he halted.
In his place of concealment Wagram was no more than a dozen yards from the new-comer, whose every movement and every expression he could distinguish. The man was unarmed, and nearly naked—a fine, well-built, stalwart savage. He seemed to be gazing before him in expectation mingled with disappointment. Then to the hidden watcher’s ears came again that soft, weird sigh.
He in the open heard it too, for a change came over his face and bearing. Uttering a deep-breathed “Ah!” he straightened himself up, then bent forward, and seemed gazing upon exactly the place where those dreadful eyes had appeared. Then his behaviour was strange. Once more he rose erect, and withdrew his foot from the stone, and passed one black hand over his own eyes, as though to shut out those others. Then he moved unsteadily to right and to left, and half turned away—but no. It seemed that some compelling force was upon him too, precluding retreat. Back he would come to the centre again and peer forward, then break away as before. This was repeated several times; then, all at once, he stood motionless. His foot was again raised and placed on the stone, his gaze again bent in eager fascination upon that which lay beyond—then the other foot followed. One step forward—then two—and then—
Something darted forward with lightning-like glance from the bush screen—something long and steel-like and gleaming. It transfixed the dazed savage as he stood, then withdrew almost before the heavy thud of his body sounded on the hard stone surface. There it lay, the limbs twitching in muscular spasms. A final shudder and all was still, except the drip, drip of the life-blood falling upon the surface of the stone.
The spectator’s own blood froze within him as he looked. The sight was ghastly and horrifying enough in any case, but looked at in the light of his own circumstances it was doubly so; added to which he now knew the fate from which he himself had escaped. As he took his way out of this hell-pit of horror and cruelty, taking care to keep well within the shelter of the bushes until he should gain the gruesome door by which he had entered, he was wondering what hideous rite of devil-worship he had just witnessed, and recalled with a shudder the weird fascination that had well-nigh compelled him to stand in the other’s place.
“The dark places of the earth are full of cruelty,” he recalled as he hurried through the sombre gloom of the silent forest—a hundred times more sombre now—and the air itself seemed weighed down with a scent of blood. In very truth he was in one of “the dark places of the earth.” How, and when, would he find deliverance therefrom?