The answer was almost in his ear—a soft, caressing whisper.
"I am here, Sahib."
"Don't leave me—I can't see—this darkness."
"The path is a straight one, Sahib. Give me your hand."
Barclay cowered back. A chill, foetid breath fanned his face. Something familiar coiled itself about his fingers. He tried to free himself.
"The Mem-Sahib!" he gasped thickly. "Where is she?"
"The Mem-Sahib is safe. The path leads to one end. Come, Sahib!"
The whisper had grown shriller, authoritative. There was a subtle hint of anger in its caress. Barclay heard its echo. Overhead a branch cracked under a moving burden. A thing slid over his foot and went hissing into silence. He threw up his free hand to beat off the invisible attack and touched a slimy, gliding mass which dropped on his shoulder, winding itself about his neck. He flung it from him. He was gasping—choking with fear and nausea. He heard Vahana's whisper, subdued, sibilant:
"Sahib—there are no snakes."
But the very hand that held him was a hideous memory. Something vague, indeterminate, which had begun to hem him in since that night when he had fled from the vision of himself, was closing in faster and faster. This, that was coming, had been from all time, a hand groping up through the black depths of the ages, a monstrous, inert mass rousing itself from long sleep to predestined action. The darkness, the jungle, was a huge prison alive with sound and movement. The sounds awoke under his feet and went hissing and murmuring like a train of fire into the far distance, setting alight other sounds till they surrounded him in an awful, mocking circle. The walls of the prison were narrowing—the air, thick and heavy with an evil sweetness, weighed down upon him till his strength reeled. With an effort he freed himself from Vahana's clutch and began to run. The steepness of the path, the uneven ground, jolted the breath from his body in agonized gasps. The branches of the trees were alive—sensate, twisting, winding bodies, which beat their cold, slimy tentacles against his face—their roots clutched at his stumbling feet, the hissing murmur had become the high, threatening note of a rising wind. And behind him was that pursuing Thing—that formless, familiar menace which he had foreseen, which had hung on the outskirts of his life waiting for its moment. He fled before it because his frantic body demanded flight, but he knew its futility. The Thing was there, silent and invisible, gibing at his pitiful effort. It was not Death—it was Horror itself——