Of stateliest covert, cedar, pine, or palm."
We pushed on for perhaps two miles, never moving far from the stream, and then made camp in a beautiful open spot, over which, however, the great branches formed an unbroken canopy of leaves.
A guard was arranged for the night. Rhodes had the first watch.
It was during my vigil that it came—a sudden, fierce, frightful scream, which awoke every member of our little party. It came from somewhere down the river, and it was replete with terror and agony; it was a sound that made the very air quiver and throb. It seemed human, and yet I told myself that it simply could not be. And then it ceased, as suddenly as it had come, and all was still again, save for the gentle, sad whispering of the water.
"What," I exclaimed, my voice, however, low and guarded, "could it have been? It sounded human, but I know that that sound did not come from the throat of a man or a woman."
"I think you are right, Bill," said Milton Rhodes. "What it was—well, that seems to be a mystery to the Dromans themselves."
I turned and saw Drorathusa, who had just issued from the tent, standing beside Ondonarkus and engaged in hurried and whispered dialogue, the troubled looks which she incessantly directed into the forest, in that quarter whence had come that scream, advertising dread and something for which I can not find a name.
"Evidently," Rhodes observed, "they know but little more about this place and the things in it than we do ourselves."
"And that is virtually nothing."
"Did you," he asked abruptly, "hear something else?"