Hume stirred in his seat, and placed his finger on the trigger. The moment, he thought, had come. Then the faint crack of a rifle broke on his ear, followed by a confused murmur of voices, and almost at his feet, though far down, a circle of fires pierced the darkness with their red points. The fires were evidently on the deserted right side of the valley, and, as he judged, in the neighbourhood of the ruins.
Bringing the rifle to his shoulder, and with his elbow resting on his knee, he idly sighted at one of these gleaming points. While his finger played with a come-and-go touch in the curve of the trigger, his nerves suddenly tightened at a slight sound. It was a sound made by a man expanding his nostrils, the noise he had heard at the reeds—and slowly bringing the muzzle round, he fired into the night. There was the vivid flash, the crashing report suddenly breaking the silence, and a startled cry from his rear, where Laura still sat dreaming near the still figure of the chief.
Then a deeper silence than before, save that the wind wailed down the ravine; and Hume, softly rising to his feet, slipped in another cartridge.
In a moment Sirayo was by his side, having come without a sound, and the two stood intently listening, without a whisper even of what had occurred.
“Are you safe? Oh! what is it?” It was Laura’s frightened voice hailing.
Sirayo clicked with his tongue at the interruption, and Hume half turned his head.
“Frank,” she cried again, nearer at hand. “Frank; oh, how dark!”
Hume thought of the narrow ledge, of the fearful precipice, of the danger of one false step in the dark, and cried out:
“Stand where you are. I am coming.”
Immediately the darkness below was pierced by lurid flashes, and bullets smacked against the rock or whistled fiercely overhead.