After another glance round the chamber, Hume and Sirayo withdrew, leaving Ferrara alone, and Hume, surrendering himself again to gloomy thoughts of his maimed face, sat on the outer coping of the wall, with his face resting on his hand.
Long he sat there thinking whether he, too, would not do well to lead the life of a hermit, rather than be an object of disgust to his friends, when he heard a hoarse cry behind him, and, turning, saw Ferrara standing with his head turned, looking back along the passage.
The strange being had stripped himself of his clothes. His huge form stood naked as that of a savage, his breast was heaving, the muscles of his arms rigid, and when he turned his face it was contorted with the passion of terror and rage.
“What in Heaven’s name is it now?” cried Hume, springing to his feet.
Ferrara fixed his eyes on Hume; his lips moved, but without sound, and he seized his throat savagely. Then with a wild cry in Zulu of “They come! they come!” he sprang over the wall and fled towards the mountain, while Hume faced the passage, expecting he knew not what. Presently he entered cautiously, until he came once again to the underground coil without meeting anyone; but while he stood peering down into the dark pit, he realised that Ferrara had in the stillness of that gloomy retreat fallen a victim to his dark fancies of the “voiceless people.”
Chapter Thirty Seven.
The Last of the Rock.
Laura recovered from her prostration filled with an intense longing to get away from the savage surroundings, which had too surely left their mark upon her spirits. The whole enterprise had lost for her its zest, and under the reaction which had set in she wondered how she could have entered upon the expedition.