Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/120

 mighty blowing, then a ferocious snort, and some monster—he knew not what—charged him viciously.

Pandak Âris was lying flat upon the ground, with the sloping buttress roots of the tree on each side of him, and the beast passed over him, doing him no hurt, save that a portion of the fleshy part of his thigh was pinched by a hoof that cut cleanly, for Pandak Âris could feel the warm blood trickling down his leg. He was not conscious of any pain, however, and continued to lie flat upon the earth, too terrified to move, and almost choked by the wild leaping of his heart.

But his invisible assailant had not yet done with him. The reck of a hot, pungent breath upon his face, which well-nigh deprived him of his reason, told him that some animal was standing over him. Instinctively, he felt for his pârang—the long, keen-edged knife from which the jungle-bred Malay is never, for an instant, separated—drew it gently from its clumsy wooden scabbard at his girdle, and grasped the hilt firmly in his right hand.

Presently, to an accompaniment of much snorting and blowing, some hard object was insinuated beneath his body. Pandak Âris moved quickly, to avoid this new horror, and clung convulsively to the ground. Again and again, first on one side and then on the other, this hard, prodding substance sought to force itself below him. It bruised him terribly, driving the wind from his lungs, sending dull pangs through his whole body at each fresh prod, and