For the animal made a bound and seemed to plunge from rock to rock down into a rift, and then up an almost perpendicular wall on the opposite side higher and higher until it disappeared.
“It is no wonder, excellency,” said Yussuf as they rode on along the narrow path, “when every hand is against them, and they have been taught that they are not safe from bullets half a mile away, and—Why is Hamed stopping?”
They had been halting to gaze at the ibex, and all such pauses in their journey were utilised for letting Hamed get well on ahead with his slow charge. Experience had taught them that to leave him behind with the necessaries of life was often to miss them altogether till the next morning.
In this case he had got several hundred yards in advance, but had suddenly stopped short, just at the point of a sharp elbow in the track, where they could see him with the two horses standing stock-still, and staring straight before him.
“Let’s get on and see,” said the professor, and they pressed on to come upon a spot where the track forked directly after, a narrower path leading up a rift in the mountains away to their left, and the sight of this satisfied Yussuf.
“Hamed thinks he may be doing wrong,” he said, “and that perhaps he ought to have turned down here. All right, go on!” he shouted in his own tongue, as they rode on past the wild passage among the rocks.
But Hamed did not stir, and as they advanced they could see that he was sheltering himself behind one of his horses, and still staring before him.
The way curved in, and then went out to the shoulder upon which the baggage-horses stood, doubtless bending in again directly on the other side. Hence, then, it was impossible for Yussuf and his party to see what was beyond; neither could they gain a sight by altering their course, for their path was but a shelf with the nearly perpendicular side of the gorge above and below.
They were now some eighty or ninety yards from the corner, and Yussuf shouted again:
“Go on, man; that is right.”