Leaving the marsh, we reached a bare, rising plain, which led to the first slope of the Mountain three or four miles away.  Here we expected every moment to be attacked by the savages of whom we had heard so much, but no living creature did we see.  The place was a desert streaked with veins of rock that once had been molten lava. I do not remember much else about it; indeed, the pain in my arm was so sharp that I had no eyes for physical features.  At length the rise ended in a bare, broad donga, quite destitute of vegetation, of which the bottom was buried in lava and a debris of rocks washed down by the rain or melting snows from slopes above.  This donga was bordered on the farther side by a cliff, perhaps fifty feet in height, in which we could see no opening.

Still we descended the place, that was dark and rugged; pervaded, moreover, by an extraordinary gloom, and as we went perceived that its lava floor was sprinkled over with a multitude of white objects.  Soon we came to the first of these and found that it was the skeleton of a human being.  Here was a veritable Valley of Dead Bones, thousands upon thousands of them; a gigantic graveyard.  It seemed as though some great army had perished here.

Indeed, we found afterwards that this was the case, for on one of those occasions in the far past when the people of Kaloon had attacked the Mountain tribes, they were trapped and slaughtered in this gully, leaving their bones as a warning and a token.  Among these sad skeletons we wandered disconsolately, seeking a path up the opposing cliff, and finding none, until at length we came to a halt, not knowing which way to turn.  Then it was that we met with our first strange experience on the Mountain.

The gulf and its mouldering relics depressed us, so that for awhile we were silent, and, to tell the truth, somewhat afraid.  Yes, even the horse seemed afraid, for it snorted a little, hung its head and shivered.  Close by us lay a pile of bones, the remains evidently of a number of wretched creatures that, dead or living, had been hurled down from the cliff above, and on the top of the pile was a little huddled heap, which we took for more bones.

“Unless we can find a way out of this accursed charnel-house before long, I think that we shall add to its company,” I said, staring round me.

As the words left my lips it seemed to me that from the corner of my eye I saw the heap on the top of the bones stir.  I looked round.  Yes, it was stirring.  It rose, it stood up, a human figure, apparently that of a woman—­but of this I could not be sure—­wrapped from head to foot in white and wearing a hanging veil over its face, or rather a mask with cut eye-holes.  It advanced towards us while we stared at it, till the horse, catching sight of the thing, shied violently and nearly threw me.  When at a distance of about ten paces it paused and beckoned with its hand, that was also swathed in white like the arm of a mummy.