“But the translation?”
“Let the white strangers beware!”
“Jupiter! That’s kinder queer,” cried Silas, startled for once out of his composure. “The fireworks were mysterious enough, without this message. I reckon the citizens of this yer location are educated some, for all their peculiar appearance.”
“You surely don’t consider that the wolf-men were responsible for the warning?” asked the baronet in surprise.
“Seems more like a threat than a warning to me,” Haverly rejoined. “I guess they’d hardly hang a message up that all the wolfish freaks in the underworld could see, if they intended to warn us. No pard, you take——”
A screech awoke the echoes of the underworld; there was a whirring of mighty wings, and out of the gloom swooped a monstrous black shape, swift and terrible.
Seymour was knocked sprawling to the ground as the creature flashed past him and vanished again into the darkness whence it had emerged.
The millionaire stared in amazement, then, as his friend rose, he found voice.
“I guess that’s the biggest bat I ever struck!”
“Bat!” ejaculated Seymour, “you don’t mean to say that was a bat?”