“Who's there?” he challenged loudly.
At the left of the room, not far from the big fireplace, he had perceived a dim, vague figure, prone upon the floor.
“Answer, or I shoot!”
But the figure remained motionless. Allan realized there was no fight in it. Still cautiously, however, he advanced.
Now he touched the figure with his foot, now bent above it and peered down.
“Old Gesafam! Heaven above! Wounded! What does this mean?”
Starting back, he stared in horror at the old woman, stunned and motionless, with the blood coagulating along an ugly cut on her forehead.
Then, as though a prescience had swept his being, he sprang to the bed.
“My son! My boy! Where are you?” he shouted hoarsely.
With a shaking hand he flung down the bedclothes of finely woven palm fiber.