At last, after one of these halts, there suddenly opened before them, and above, a narrow fissure in the mountain; and at the very top, sharply defined against the sky, stood out the profile of a human face, the forehead sloping back to the very sky-line of the mountain, the nose straight and clear-cut, the lips full, the chin with a bold and sweeping curve, and the neck clearly defined before it joined the parent rock. This profile would have been accounted something curious, but not unusual, if it had not been for the marvel of the eye, which seemed actually to sparkle with a look of mortal intelligence. The eyebrow was clearly marked—the lines beneath as well; but what gave to the feature its magic touch of realism was a spark of light from the retina. This lent majesty to the face. The eye seemed to follow them as they moved, and they could not suppress a feeling that there was some living and awful power bending its gaze in severe displeasure upon them.
Hume drew a long breath, and then began, in his excitement, to fill his pipe, while, with a smile of triumph, he stood looking at the face.
“By Jove,” he said, “the old man was right after all!”
“It is wonderful,” said Laura, with a shiver; “but I wish it had not such a human look.”
“There is something in it,” said Webster, in a low voice, “that reminds me of an eye shining through a layer of still clouds.”
After an exclamation that broke from their lips at the first shock of startled surprise, the two natives turned their backs to this mysterious and threatening portent.
Hume alone was not oppressed. Whether because he was free from superstition, and had little imagination, he regarded the face as merely a natural curiosity, and was moved only because it did exist.
“Come,” he said cheerily, “let us reach it before nightfall. See, the ravine before us leads right up, and though the mountain rises to the face apparently in a straight wall, there is no doubt a way up. Take your bearings, Webster.”
They looked at the face, and then at the points around that were most conspicuous, and then they looked at each other, startled and dismayed.
When their gaze again returned to the face, the eye was no longer there, and the face itself, deprived of that living spark, seemed not the same.