Page:Taylor - In the Dwellings of the Wilderness.djvu/183

 muscle tense to face he knew not what crisis. But that some crisis was at hand, instinct told him surely.

He gained the edge of the level which overlooked the courtyard, forty feet below, and looked down. There, among the exhumed tombs, was dense black shadow, save at one place only, in the centre of the open court, where the moonlight fell like a lake of silver at the bottom of a well. Merritt, pausing uncertain which way to turn or what to look for, heard strange sounds arising from the heart of the shadow below him; heavy breathing, guttural snarls, low and worrying, like an angry dog's; thumping as of heavy bodies at grips and threshing to and fro. Then a thing appeared, from the blackness into the patch of light, and Merritt rubbed his eyes to make sure that