XVI
EYAD
Long day had followed long day as Orman and West searched vainly through dense forest and jungle for the trail they had lost. Nearly two weeks had passed since they had left camp in search of the girls when their encounter with the lion and the "ghost" of Obroski took place.
The encounter left them unnerved, for both were weak from lack of food and their nerves harassed by what they had passed through and by worry over the fate of Naomi and Rhonda.
They stood for some time by the carcass of the lion looking and listening for a return of the apparition.
"Do you suppose," suggested West, "that hunger and worry could have affected us so much that we imagined we saw—what we think we saw?"
Orman pointed at the dead lion. "Are we imagining that?" he demanded. "Could we both have the same hallucination at the same instant? No! We saw what we saw. I don't believe in ghosts—or I never did before—but if that wasn't Obroski's ghost it was Obroski; and you know as well as I that Obroski would never have had the guts to tackle a lion even if he could have gotten away with it."
West rubbed his chin meditatively. "You know, another explanation has occurred to me. Obroski was the world's prize coward. He may have escaped the Bansutos and got lost in the jungle. If he did, he would have been scared stiff every minute of the days and nights. Terror might have driven him crazy. He may be a madman now, and you know maniacs are supposed to be ten times as strong as ordinary men."
"I don't know about maniacs being any stronger," said Orman; "that's a popular theory, and popular theories are always wrong; but every one knows that when a man's crazy he does things that he wouldn't do when he's sane. So perhaps you're right—perhaps that was Obroski gone nuts. No one but a nut would jump a lion; and Obroski certainly wouldn't have saved my life if he'd been sane—he didn't have any reason to be very fond of me."
"Well, whatever prompted him, he did us a good turn in more ways than one—he left us something to eat." West nodded toward the carcass of the lion.