Suddenly One-Ear leaped back into the shadow, waved his
hand to check the advance of those behind him, then pointed silently
across the valley and toward the clump of trees.
Not a hundred yards from the pitfall the high grass was swaying gently;
some creature was passing along toward the pitfall and a thing of no
slight size. Every eye of the quartet was strained now to learn what
might be the interloper upon the scene. It was nearly dark, but the eyes
of the cave men, almost nocturnal in their adaptation as they were,
distinguished a long, dark body emerging from the reeds and circling
curiously and cautiously around the pitfall; nearer and nearer it
approached the helpless prisoner until perhaps twenty feet distant from
it. Here the thing seemed to crouch and remain quiescent, but only for a
little time. Then resounded across the valley a screaming roar, so fierce
and raucous and death-telling and terrifying that even the hardened
hunters leaped with affright. At the same moment a dark object shot
through the air and landed on the back of the creature in the shallow
pit. The tiger was abroad! There was a wild bleat of terror and agony, a
growl fiercer and shorter than the first hoarse cry of the tiger, and,
then, for a moment silence, but only for a moment. Snorts, almost as
terrible in their significance as the tiger's roar, came from the
marsh's edge.
Pages:
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77