“We are wolves; we would tear him down in his strength, while his blood is red.”

“Terrible is the trunk of Indhlovu, and terrible is the arm of Ngonyama.  In his hand is a broad knife, and with one stroke will he split a head.  Let the darkness hold him.”

“We hunger, and he will go.  The wizard will claim him for his own; the dark waters will drag him down.  Give him to us.”

“He watches over his cub, and who so fierce as the lion who protects his young?  The cub will sicken.  The sound of the waters will trouble his brain; his spirit will fly before the terror of the darkness.  Wait, my sisters, till his cub be dead.”

“Demons!” cried the Hunter, his patience gone in a storm of fury.  “Away!” He sprang forward with a roar, and his knife, whistling through the air, fell upon the gleaming cone, and struck from it sparks of fire.

With cries of fear the women—­if women they were—­fled, their lights showing again from the second exit, where was the beaten footway, and then out of the dark tunnel came a peal of fiendish laughter.  Then silence, or, rather, a relief from the mocking voices; but there was a reminder of their presence in one of those pale greenish lights.  He strode towards it, saw it had been dropped, picked it up, and found that it came from some substance held in a bag of open network.  With a short laugh he saw it was fungus, a discovery that took all the mystery out of the recent performance, and since it appeared that the only thing formidable about his persecutors was their trickery in making the most of the terrors of the dark, he remade the fire, for there was no mistaking the chillness of the air.  As he thought over the fantastic doings of the visitors, he laughed again, and presently feeling the warmth of the fire, he yawned and closed his eyes.

“Only a parcel of women,” he muttered, and was asleep.

And as he slept, believing there was no danger, the shadows closed in as the fire dwindled—­closed in, taking queer shapes.  Across the smooth, gleaming surface of the cone these shadows came, like stooping forms, with long lean arms.  There were whisperings, too, “clicks” made by the tongue, and Venning, opening his eyes, suddenly heard these sounds at once, notwithstanding the walls of the cavern trembled to the hollow thunder of the waters.  His eyes fell upon something beyond-the fire.  He did not move, or cry out, or wonder where he was; his mind was focussed like his wide-opened eyes on that object.  It was like a face, and yet he could not make out whether it was the face of man, or bird, or beast, or reptile.  One glance at the thing by any one else would have been more than enough, so terrible it was; but Venning’s overpowering curiosity as a naturalist mercifully blotter-put the horror.  He was trying to identify it, and made mental notes such as these:—­

“Forehead low, receding; brows contracted; eyes small, deep-set, venomous; lower part of face banded black, and undecipherable; neck long, skinny, vulture-like; rest of body not visible.”