All that night, during which we rested twice--on each occasion for an hour or more--we heard his laughter in the Wood, throughout the length and breadth of which it was as if fear of the man had spread. I verily believe the monkeys sat shivering above us in the tree-tops, and the great beasts of prey, who were wont to hunt by night, crouched with flattened ears like frightened cats in the dark places of the jungle.
Speaking for myself, I know that I experienced a most novel and insecure sensation. I felt that the constant sound of this demoniacal laughter would in the end drive me also mad; and Vasco, I am certain, felt the same, though I cannot speak for the others.
For all that, I had never seen an expression of such invincible determination as the daylight disclosed upon the face of Bannister. His jaw was set: his lips tight pressed, and there was a look in his eyes as hard as steel.
He said not a word to any one of us; and we had no thought of food, though we all four drank deeply of water at the first stream to which we came.
Then we went on, following the trail, with the sound of that maniac's laughter to guide us like the siren of a ship in a fog at sea.
Never was a journey more strange, more ghostly. We were haunted men, though we found upon the road evidence of the material. For, here and there, lay golden ingots that had fallen from his arms, and there was blood, too, upon the dead leaves upon the ground, where he had torn his flesh upon the thorns.
And then, at last, we sighted him, in a place where the undergrowth was sparse and the trees a little way apart. For no longer than an instant did we see him, else John Bannister had shot him dead; for it was a mad dog we hunted, and it was not right that he should live. Strange as it may seem--since they had sojourned for so many months in one another's company--it was Mr. Gilbert Forsyth who was most keen upon the chase. He was like a bloodhound on the trail. It was as much as Bannister could do to keep him back.
"Have at him!" he cried. "There he is! Shoot, man! Shoot him down!"
But--as I have said--we caught no more than a glimpse of him. That glimpse, however, was enough. If it had been terrible to hear his laughter, it was even more terrible to behold him with our eyes. Every shred of clothing had been torn from his back. He was plastered with black mud from the swamp in which he had waded; and this mud--though we could not see that--was still alive with little leeches that were draining the life's blood in his veins. His hair was all ragged and dirty; and without clothes he was more hideous than ever. We could see the ingots, tied in a great bundle upon his back; and we marvelled that any human being could carry so great a load. He shot a look at us before he dived again into the undergrowth; and in that look there was that for which we could not fail to pity him, vile and evil though the man had been all the days of his life.
His eyes were bright as ever, yet seemed to have grown larger, and, at the same time, to have sunk deep into his head. His mouth, which was never straight, was twisted to a degree that was alarming. He had always the thinnest of lips, which he kept as a rule pressed tight together; but now his mouth was opened wide, and he was slobbering. As for his eyebrows, they reminded me of Satan himself as I have seen him pictured, for they met upon the bridge of his nose, to slant upward, arrow-shaped.