"He's not under the house, but I can't see the roof. He must be there."
The tree trunks of the forest all about us echoed my words strangely. I could see dim white blurs where the faces of the two brothers showed their position. One of them moved oddly, and in a moment I saw that Evan was swinging himself up the pillar before him. He grasped the edge of the roof and drew himself up. In a second he dropped down again. He spoke quietly enough to Arthur, but I heard his voice.
"He's there, squatting on the ridge pole. Lord! What a monster he is!"
"We must get the women out of the house," said Arthur sharply. "He may tear up the roof and come inside. Alicia!"
She had heard and came quickly out, Mrs. Braymore following her. We built a small fire to keep insects away from them, and sat them on chairs while we patroled the area about the house. The drums still beat on all sides of us, but they had been relegated to a minor position now. We subconsciously counted on their remaining a potential menace only, until they stopped or drew nearer. The moon made the whole world bright and shining. We could see clearly and distinctly. Nothing the size of a rabbit could escape across that stretch of sward without our observing it.
Alicia and Mrs. Braymore watched the fringe of jungle while we posted ourselves so that not even a cat could escape from the house without being seen. I leaned on my rifle near the two ladies, my eyes fixed on the edge of the roof, straining to catch a glimpse of the beast that squatted up there. When I thought of it, it seemed stupid of us not to have suspected that as a hiding place before. True, it was in clear view of the sky, but a beast cunning enough to creep about the casa at midnight as he had done, might possess the intelligence to reason that there was the ideal hiding place for him.
"Do you think there is any real danger from the natives?" Alicia inquired hesitatingly.
"When natives do inexplicable things, it is usually juju," I said grimly. "And where there is juju there is usually danger. There is one thing that can be said, though. While a native is making a noise, he is rarely dangerous in bulk. As Evan pointed out, they may simply exhaust themselves in yelling and dancing. I do not think it would be wise to count on that, however."
"Wouldn't it be the wisest thing to do, to simply try to make our way secretly through the jungle to the nearest fort?"
"It would be impossible," I told her frankly. "You don't know African undergrowth. We might make four or five miles a day, with luck. And at any moment in the twenty-four the natives might trail us. We'd have to make a new trail, or use the native ones. Making a new trail, we'd be followed and probably speared, besides the fact that our animal friend would be haunting the treetops overhead, waiting for a moment when one of us would be off our guard."