[THE MAN-HUNTER.]
Jack Percival started when an ugly black face peered through the long grass not two yards from where he sat, and his hands stole cautiously toward the butt of his rifle. 'Twas seven weeks since he had seen a man, black or white, other than his chum, Paul Armstrong, but he felt no overwhelming rapture at the breaking of the monotony. When one is in a country inhabited only by cannibals, it is surprising how strong the love of solitude becomes.
Before him he could see the mountain of darkness thrusting its flat peak into the clear blue of the African sky; on every side the jungle closed him in like a wall—a dense mass of greenery spangled with flaming flowers. For the rest, he was encompassed by a most unutterable silence, and a hideous misshapen visage, black as coal, was staring at him from beyond the tangle of monkey-ropes that hung from the yellow-wood trees.
Jack was no greenhorn, and he kept perfectly cool, although he was expecting every instant to feel an assegai piercing his breast. Turning his eyes from the direction of the ebon face, he fixed them thoughtfully on the camp-fire, as if oblivious to the presence of the motionless native. But all the time his right hand was creeping, creeping toward the rifle that lay within easy reach.
It was nerve-shaking work, and he could not repress a gasp of relief as his gripping fingers closed upon the stock. The moment had come for action. With a lightning movement, he covered the impassive face beyond the curtain of monkey-ropes, and his forefinger was hard pressed upon the trigger as he bounded to his feet.
"Now, then, you black beast!" he hissed angrily. "What you think of that, eh? No soup for you to-night, old chap! I've got the drop on you, and I mean to keep it. Cooee!"
He ended his sentence with a long-drawn Australian yell, and it was answered immediately by another from the gloomy interior of the jungle. Jack had expected the aborigine to make an attempt to escape, but he did nothing of the sort. Parting the trailing creepers with both hands, he continued his scrutiny with as much interest as if the young man had been the first specimen of his kind to penetrate into the region.
"Makes me feel like the fat lady in a side-show," Jack muttered, shifting uneasily beneath this intent regard. "I wonder what's up with the beggar? Ah, here's Paul!"
Paul it was. He came leaping cheerfully through the undergrowth, with a brilliant-plumaged paroquet slung over his shoulder, his gun swinging in one hand. For a second he halted in amazement as he caught sight of the unwelcome visitor, and then, dropping the bird, he advanced warily, his firearm raised for action.