The old man's face grew more feline in its watchful anxiety, as he prowled among the bushes in the half moonlit darkness, listening for the challenge. And none came, though more than once in the denser shadow of thick jungle, he saw two spots of green light telling that some one was waiting to be challenged. But where was the challenger?
The night was far spent ere he was found, fast asleep on a bed of dry leaves in the little cave.
The sight seemed to take the finder back, not to his more immediate ancestors, the purely savage hunters of those low hills, but to something older still, to the barbarians who had swept down on them to found principalities and powers; for all the calm dignity of the Indo-Scythic sculptures was in Nâgdeo's pose as he pricked the sleeper with his spear.
"Rise up, Keeper of the Pass; they wait for thee without."
Baghéla was on his feet in a second. He knew the time had come, and something of the old racial courage in him held that new fear in check.
Until, not a hundred yards without the cave, in the faint grey light of the now coming dawn, a paler shadow showed in the darker shadows, long, low, sinuous; and something moved across their path with no sound of footfall; only a crackle of dry twigs, a sudden, soft, short wheeze, and then silence.
"Ring the bells, Keeper of the Pass," came the old man's voice. "There is no fear. Has not the tale of thy prowess spread among the tiger people?"
His prowess! The sting of that slight scratch was as fire on the lad's back; he paused. But a spear from behind reached to his, struck it sideways, and the next instant the challenge echoed through the pass.
And was accepted.
The shadow grew short, showed paler; till two green lights flashed out, and with a roar that rolled among the rocks, the tiger faced them, crouched and sprang.