Webster picked up a bull’s-eye lantern, pushed back the slide, and shot a vivid fan-like shaft into the gloom.
“Come, then, you hold this, and I will shoot.”
They piled fresh wood on the fires, then mounted to the waggon-box, and tried the range of the light over the oxen. At the radiance they turned their heads, and their large eyes shone reflected. Webster pushed back the slide, and they sat waiting—the one with his finger on the trigger of his Express, and the other with the lantern, which sent up a steaming vapour into his face, and a faint reflection shining upon his gleaming eyes.
Presently, just beyond the fence on the right, there broke out a booming roar that made the air vibrate, and brought the oxen to their feet. It died away in a hollow growl, and was repeated again and again from different quarters. The oxen bunched together, and Miss Anstrade knocked against the tent, while Hume called out from his lair beneath the waggon.
“It’s all right,” said Webster, “the fires are burning, and we are prepared.”
Hume crept out, and finding that the back of the waggon was unprotected, he hung a lantern there, and then went back to his couch, with the muzzle of his rifle pointing into the light thus thrown.
Klaas called out to his oxen by name to soothe them, and at the sound of his voice the two great red-and-white wheelers laid down with a grunt.
For a time there was a spell of stillness, more disquieting than the terrific chorus that had awakened far-off echoes from every roving troop of jackals.
“De leeuw talk now,” whispered Klaas.
“Talk—what about?”