Haverly’s eyes blazed with a terrible hate.
“Say, Mervyn,” he snapped, “we don’t stir a peg out of this devil’s hole of a country till we’ve avenged poor Seymour. We’ll teach these brutes a lesson they’ll never forget.”
Wilson’s impotent rage was pitiable to witness.
“The best and truest comrade ever man had,” he cried, “sent to his death by a loathsome brute like that. Curse them all, I say!”
The Ayuti said no word, but his face was set stern and pitiless as a mask, boding ill for any luckless savage that should cross his track. With a mad, unreasoning passion raging in their hearts, the four men turned from the abyss, whose black depths had swallowed their friend, and resumed their journey.
Recklessly they moved now, caring little whether they aroused any of the jungle beasts or no, their fury making them absolutely fearless. Let them but find the Seal, and renew their supply of ammunition then they would invade the fastnesses of the wolfish brutes at whose door lay Seymour’s death, and teach them a terrible lesson.
Their journey was finished without further adventure, and at length, reaching the city gate, they passed through and made their way towards the temple.
Their hearts ached for their lost friend. They missed him sorely. His cheery voice, his inspiring courage, had assisted them through many a trying situation, and they could not bear to think that they should never see him again.
Their minds were busy with gloomy thoughts of the future, when they reached the temple steps. These—leaving the Ayuti to stable the elk and chain up the hounds—they were ascending, when, thrilling and terrible, through the silent streets came echoing the cry of the wolf-men.
As it ceased, up the steps bounded Chenobi.