With that, Garth peered down and called loudly:
"Chiswell! J. P. Chiswell!"
Through that thin air his voice rang clear as a bell of doom; echoed eerily between rocky walls and went shivering away into the black distance.
The man below at the fire was on his feet and facing them with a fierce snarl. His hand darted up and a ray flashed toward the voice, to splutter harmlessly on the rock some distance from where the men stood in darkness. That act alone proved to them he was mad; from where they stood they could have rayed him with ease. But they didn't need that mad act as proof of the man's madness.
For in the full glare of the fire his face was a fierce caricature. Even from their distance they could see the wild gleam of his eyes as he leaned tautly forward trying to pierce the dark; could see the gaunt face, beak-like nose, shaggy brows and tangled growth of beard; they could see the flick of his tongue over lips drawn tight, and could hear the animal snarl that rumbled warningly out of that throat. There in the red glare of fire-light he was a demon out of Hell.
For only a moment he stood there tautly facing them, fiercely peering; then, with an agile bound he leaped away from the fire and scuttled like a huge beetle toward the opposite cliff. They could only see him dimly now, but they saw him turn in a posture of defiance, arms spread out as though protecting the cliff behind him.
"Whew!" Prokle breathed.
"That goes double for me," said Garth. "Come on." He leaped the remaining distance to the base of their cliff, and Prokle alighted easily beside him. They peered across at Chiswell.
"There's a sort of cave over there," Prokle exclaimed, "and he's standing in front of it! Say, he's gone mad all right, but there's something else behind his madness."