"I don't think so. I saw it twice and hit it with the stone, for I distinctly heard it make a peculiar noise as though hurt," persisted Mark.
"That is exactly what makes me certain it was not a porcupine, for it is one of the animals without vocal cords, therefore cannot make a vocal sound. It was more likely a wild pig, for there are a number about here," said Burton, who was a great sportsman.
Mark, however, felt certain he had distinctly seen the animal's quills, so a little later he quietly left the camp without saying a word to any one as to where he was going.
At nine o'clock that night Mark had not returned to camp, and Burton, who had remained to dinner, suggested that he might have got lost, or met with an accident; so a search was at once commenced.
Chapter III.—The Mysterious Fakir
"Well, Burton, what is your opinion now?" asked Doctor Mullen on their return to camp about three o'clock in the morning, after an unsuccessful search for Mark.
"I am sorry to say I think he has met with a serious accident and is unable to help himself. Listen to those natives shouting 'Sahib! Sahib!' and far beyond them others are calling, and the boy would have replied if he could have done so. You are sure he went alone?" asked Burton.
"Yes. He took his gun, which seems to suggest that he started for that lake about a mile from here after duck. Had he gone after oorial he would have taken his rifle and would have been accompanied by the shikari," said the Doctor, who was greatly distressed about his son's disappearance.
"As soon as it is light I will have every nullah and bush searched for miles round," said Burton, and then he mused without giving expression to his thoughts. "He may have fallen over a kud (precipice), or his gun may have burst, or he may have been bitten by a snake, or he may have run against those—well, fragments of slab"; and he left the tent and sent off messages to the headmen of the villages around.