“Around my water-skins are ropes of plaited grass. They will serve as torches,” I exclaimed; and, rushing back to where my camel was calmly kneeling, I took my knife and cut the cords away, dividing them into four long strips, two of which I gave my companion. Striking a match, he lit one, and with our rifles slung behind us, we climbed over the great heap of drifted sand and entered the weird and gloomy grotto.
The uncertain light of the torch was scarcely sufficient to illumine our footsteps. The cavern was spacious, the arched roof being formed of bare, jagged rock, but the sand of the Desert, having drifted in, had so closed the entrance that we had to stoop until we had entered some distance, then we went by gradual descent over the mound of soft sand, down some sixteen feet to the floor of the cavern. Here it widened until it was some twenty feet across, then gradually narrowed, as the ground, formed of rocks over which we clambered, shelved gradually down.
Eagerly we gazed on every side, but only saw rough rocks above, beneath, and around us. So dark was it, that I suggested I should ignite a second torch, but Octave would not hear of it, pointing out that we might be in need of them later.
Weirdly our voices echoed, and it was altogether an uncanny place. Penetrating at length to the extreme end, and finding absolutely nothing, we proceeded to make a closer inspection of the sides of the place, for we had now resolved to thoroughly explore it. Eagerly we searched every nook and cranny, expecting every moment to discover something, but being always disappointed. So lofty was the place in one part that the light did not reach the roof, and above us was an impenetrable gloom, into which we vainly strained our eyes.
The dead silence, the intensely dispiriting character of our surroundings, and the unnatural echo of our voices, so impressed us, that we found ourselves conversing in whispers. Indeed, we were awestricken. A great secret—the character of which we knew not—was to be made known to us, and each time we cast our eyes about us, we glanced half in fear that some strange and extraordinary horror, of which we had not even dreamed, would be suddenly revealed.
Having nearly completed our inspection, we were suddenly startled by a curious noise which sounded in the darkness close to us. Halting, we listened breathlessly for some moments.
“Bah! it’s only a bird,” I said, and we moved on again.
Suddenly, however, my companion, holding the torch higher above his head, and pointing straight before us, started as he shrieked—
“Dieu! See! What is that? Shoot! For God’s sake, fire!”
So startled was I by his sudden ejaculation, that at first I could see nothing, but, peering in the direction he indicated, I saw in the dusky gloom, about ten yards away, a pair of eyes that in the darkness seemed to emit fire. The eyes moved quickly from side to side, and without a second thought I took my rifle and, aiming full between them, pulled the trigger. The report, deafening in that confined space, was followed by the thud of a falling body, and, rushing up, we discovered that a great panther lay there dead. Our escape had been almost miraculous. The animal had, no doubt, been watching us ever since we entered, and at the very moment when discovered was crouching for a spring. Fortunately, however, my bullet passed through his skull, causing him to leap from the ground and fall in a heap, dead as a stone.