With the setting of the sun, the gentle zephyr of a breeze that had been blowing all day dropped, and the night fell, close and suffocatingly hot. A young moon hung low over the western horizon, but the bank of thunder cloud was rising fast, and by the time that the two friends had finished their evening meal, the silver sickle of the moon had become effaced, as had the stars, by the thickening of the veil of haze which had been gradually over-spreading the heavens.
So close and breathless was the atmosphere that the two friends declared the interior of the tent to be insupportable, they therefore walked down to near the inner margin of the beach and flung themselves down upon the curious moss-like turf, to indulge in their usual after-dinner chat and watch the gathering of the storm that now seemed inevitable, while Earle smoked. For a wonder, there were neither flies, mosquitoes, nor midges on this little peninsula; there was therefore nothing but the excessive heat and the closeness of the atmosphere to interfere with their comfort. The Indians were camped on the summit of the mound, grouped as usual round a small fire, the materials for which they had collected during the day’s march, and were conversing in low tones, while they, too, smoked. King Cole, who had dined luxuriously and to repletion upon a big bustard-like bird which Earle had shot an hour or two earlier, crouched at the feet of his two masters, purring contentedly.
The conversation between the two friends, which was of a desultory and discursive character, ebbed and flowed in unison with the interest of the speakers, and was punctuated with many spells of silence while the two gazed dreamily out across the glass-like surface of the lagoon, indistinguishable now in the velvet blackness, save when a faint flicker of sheet lightning momentarily illuminated it. At the beginning the night was intensely still and silent; there was not even the customary hum of insects or rolling clatter of frogs to accentuate the silence, under the influence of which the white men first, and finally the Indians, fell silent. Then the fatigue consequent upon the day’s toil began to make itself felt, and after a somewhat longer spell of silence than usual, Earle allowed his body to settle back luxuriously upon the soft sward and soon gave audible evidence that he was fast asleep, whereupon Dick promptly followed his companion’s example.
Their sleep was, however, destined to be of brief duration. They were both by this time so thoroughly accustomed to the ordinary nocturnal sounds of the wild that, although so fully aware of them as to be able instantly to detect anything unusual in their character, and to start up awake in a moment if the unusual note seemed to portend danger, they could still sleep soundly and refreshingly through them all. But the nocturnal sounds of this particular night were of so startling a character that sleep soon became an impossibility.
They began with a low, melancholy, distant howl which, while it penetrated the consciousness of the sleepers, failed to disturb them, because its remoteness was a guarantee against imminent danger, and nothing less than imminent danger now had the power to chase sleep from those seasoned wanderers. Nor were the howls any more effective as disturbers of the party’s rest after several repetitions in varying keys. But when a weird, unearthly, blood-curdling scream rang out upon the startled air it awoke the entire party upon the instant, though the sound seemed to emanate from a considerable distance.
“What the dickens was that?” demanded Dick, sitting up and instinctively groping for his rifle.
“Give it up,” returned Earle. “No, I don’t though,” he quickly added. “I guess it’s that thing I shot at and wounded during the mid-day halt, or another of the same species.”
“Y–e–s, very possibly,” agreed Dick. “Look at King Cole. What is the matter with him now, I wonder?”
By the declining light of the fire on the summit of the hillock the panther could be seen, in a half-standing, half-crouching attitude, a few paces away, staring intently out across the black water, his black fur all a-bristle, and his body visibly quivering with either excitement or fear.
“King—King Cole, come here, sir! What’s the matter with you, anyway?” called Earle. And the animal at once turned and crept cowering to the feet of the pair, his eyes glowing like a pair of green lamps, and his lips drawn into a silent snarl.