Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/287

 hour they sat in utter silence, quaking, while the tiger approached slowly and deliberately, till pres- ently it seemed to be calling from the jungle within a few yards of the shivering wretches. Now it ap- peared to make a complete circle of the camp, yowl- ing savagely, and then fell to prowling about and about the little group of terror-stricken creatures, as Lhough it were herding them. And all the time they could see nothing through the intense darkness, and the complete loss of the sense of sight served to quicken and torture even their rudimentary imagina- tions. For an hour this lasted, and then the tiger seemed to draw off, whereupon the jungle-folk, who had been too occupied by their terror of the beast to spare a thought to any other danger, became aware that human beings were in their vicinity. How they knew this it would be impossible to explain: the instinct of the wild tribes is as unerring as that of miany animals, and they felt, rather than heard or perceived through any of their ordinary senses, the proximity of their pursuers.

Noiselessly then the Sâkai, men and women alike, fell to drawing clear of the underwood the long lines of green rattan which grow in such profusion in all the jungles of the interior of the Peninsula. These they twisted into great coils the size of large cart- wheels, and the young men of the tribe, some seven or eight in number, with Laish among them, began swarming into the nearest trees. They had gathered and prepared the rattan in darkness almost absolute, guided only by their sense of touch, and the men now