Near them was only the lonely slope, bare now, it seemed, of all life.  But they thought otherwise.  Their unspeakably fierce gaze was focused upon what looked like a grained slab, like any other grained slab, if it had not all at once begun to twitch, and so—­even then one could only make out the faint outline of a body—­turn gradually into a wild cat asleep on his side.  The twitching was not the result of a fit, but of dreams.  Probably he had not meant to go to sleep at all—­in a land of golden eagles!  He had merely meant to bask in the sun, within instant spring of a handy hole between the stones if anything in the enemy line turned up.  That very sun, however, had conspired with drowsiness to betray him, and—­something in the enemy line had turned up.

Even so, I doubt if the golden eagles, with all their wonderful prismatic binocular vision, made out the cat, as man could.  Birds have not that power, as man has.  The twitching they were instant to see.  The cause of it they must have, equally instantly, suspected.  Certainly, however, was a long time coming to them.  Precisely when it did, no man knoweth.  They remained like carvings or very fine figures cast in bronze, and as immovable as the same, for the best part of an hour, if you please; and during that time all the sign of life that either of them gave was to wink a yellow eyelid, as quickly as an instantaneous shutter winks, several times.

At the end of that period a rain-squall came racing and howling round the summit.  It passed in a few seconds, and left mist—­cloud, if you like—­damp, dank, and chilly, and a dead calm, in its wake, and—­the Chieftain had vanished (I told you he knew the value of a hidden descent).  But goodness and his own arrogant self alone knew when or where; in the squall, most likely.  But he had certainly vanished.

The Chieftain’s mate sat on, as stolid, and as solid, and as statuesque as ever.  She had not moved when he evaporated, or given any sign whatever.

With the coming of the mist, the cat woke up.  The cold probably awoke him.  He was not pleased.  He had come to get warm, not cold.  He arose and stretched himself, baring all his claws and fangs with lazy insolence, for any whom it might concern to see.

Then—­he collapsed, falling as if the slab on which he stood had slidden from under him, and remained—­flattened tense, wide-eyed, and dangerous.

The Chieftain’s wife had jerked her head and sneezed.  At least, she had yanked her cranium quick as quick, and made a noise.  It seemed like a sneeze.  For the rest, she remained as motionless and expressionless as bronze Buddha, her wonderful orbs scowling at the wild cat.