Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/59

 “Are you all right now?” questioned Maurice.

“All right for a fever!” was the reply. “Your flask, like a good fellow, De Veber. Nothing like a little brandy as a preventive.”

His “little” would have set my brain reeling, but it appeared to have but slight effect. I thought then that I could comprehend reasons for his want of success in the pulpit which the Rev. Miles Philpot had failed to name.

“Don’t drink it dry, Doctor, said Maurice. “George and I may need a dose before we get out of this scrape.”

“Yours truly! I leave you the flask,” he replied, with that good humor which nothing seemed to ruffle. “Now boys, we’re in a hole. How are we to get out of it! Decision must be had at once Hark! Was that thunder? The plot thickens, the darkness deepens! My inventive Yankee friends, what’s to be did?”

“In my opinion, the sooner we get back to the woodcutters’ huts the better,” I said decidedly.

At that instant the low, ominous growling heard a moment before was repeated. It seemed to me that I could hear also rustling sounds among the tangled thicket which had now taken the place of the atap palms and other trees of respectable growth on either side of our path.

I trembled. Thoughts of the dangers of the jungle would suggest themselves. I instinctively unslung my rifle and held it ready in my hand.

“More thunder? ” said Maurice. “Come, come, we must decide quick. Plague take these mosquitoes! They are as thick as bees around a hive.”

“Hark!” exclaimed Philpot, suddenly. “I’m not so sure it is thunder.”

Nor was I. Presently it came again—a low, sullen growl, beginning in the deepest bass—rising slightly, then sinking into the bass again.

I was glad of the darkness then, for I knew my face must have been livid.

“A tiger,” I suppose, I said as coolly as possible.

“As sure as we are lost in the jungle,” whispered the Doctor. “Even those wood-cutters are preferable. Come! There is no time to be lost.”

Again he started ahead, for the path was so narrow that single file was a necessity.

“I don’t believe it’s a tiger,” said Maurice incredulously.