Just then, there was a shrill scream in the forest, a scream of human agony, horrible and intense, and afterward a silence that could be felt.
"Them ghost leopard he done go chop some boy!" exclaimed Monday, trembling a little. "We savvy fight black man, sah, but not them debbil."
"The sound rose from behind the tuft of palms," Maxwell said quietly. "Take six of your best men, Monday, and see who is missing. No—stay where you are, Hilton! It is advisable to break them in to this kind of thing."
Monday went reluctantly, and returned to say that one of the sentries and his gun had vanished completely. Then a half-naked man with a matchet burst through the wondering group which had gathered about the pair, demanding assistance to search for his brother.
Maxwell glanced at him, hesitated, and, while Dane protested, shook his head.
"We could never track them, even in broad daylight; and some of the rescue party would not come back," he explained. "By this time the poor devil is certainly dead, and I feel convinced that we shall find him to-morrow without searching. Amadu, tell your boys to fire on any man trying to leave the camp."
Maxwell kept watch himself henceforward, and Dane retired to the tent, resigned though far from contented. He had learned that, if his ways were a trifle autocratic, his comrade was a leader who could be trusted, and though he longed with a vindictive yearning to search the forest, rifle in hand, he did not consider it judicious to question Maxwell's authority.
It was a relief when morning came, and somewhat silently they began the march again. The path wound up a ravine, through climbing forest that rotted as it grew, where grotesque and ghostly orchids sprouted from each crumbling bough, and there was scarcely room for two men abreast in the rutted trail. It had been worn deep by the passage of naked feet; for gum, skins, and a little ivory came down on the heads of slave trains out of Shaillu's country.
Maxwell, with a few picked men, led the way, after giving Dane orders not to follow him too closely with the main body; but the latter found it hard to restrain his carriers, who desired to leave the site of the camp as far behind them as possible.
Dane had lagged a little behind the long line of colored headgear, cases poised aloft on woolly crowns, white draperies, and patches of sable skin, which wound on before him through the green of the tangled jungle, when Maxwell's voice came back sharply.