The Cliff Climbers | Page 8

any light to tell that the shikaree was frightened pretty nearly out of his senses. His companions could discover by his voice that he had suddenly changed position, and was retreating backward to that corner of the hut furthest from the doorway. At the same time his words reached them in whispers, cautioning them to lie close and keep silent.
Both, without knowing what the danger was, of course obeyed injunctions thus emphatically delivered; and remained sitting up on their couches without uttering a word. Ossaroo, after having delivered his cautioning speeches, kept equally silent.
Once more the strange sound fell upon their ears--this time as if the instrument that produced it had been thrust into the doorway of the hovel. At the same instant the turf outside, hitherto glistening under a bright moonlight, became darkened by the shadow of an enormous creature--as if the queen of night had suddenly disappeared behind the blackest of clouds! Still the light could be seen beyond, and the moon was shining. It was no cloud that had obscured her; but some vast body moving over the earth, and which, having come up to the front of the hovel, was there halting.
Karl and Caspar fancied they could see a gigantic living form, with huge thick limbs, standing outside; but, indeed, both were as much terrified by the apparition as Ossaroo himself, though perhaps for a different reason.
Fritz must have been as much frightened as any of the four; and fear had produced upon him an effect exactly similar to that it had produced upon Ossaroo. It kept him silent. Cowering in a corner, Fritz was now as quiet as if he had been born a voiceless dingo.
This speechless trance seemed to have its influence upon the awe-inspiring shadow outside the door: for, after giving utterance to another specimen of shrill piping, it withdrew with as much silence as if it had been but the shadow it appeared!
Caspar's curiosity had become too strong to be kept any longer under the control of his fears. As soon as the strange intruder was seen moving away from the hut, he stole forward to the entrance, and looked out. Karl was not slow in following him; and Ossaroo also ventured from his hiding-place.
A dark mass--in form like a quadruped, but one of gigantic size--could be seen going off in the direction of the lake. It moved in majestic silence; but it could have been no shadow, for on crossing the stream-- near the point where the latter debouched into the lake--the plashing of its feet could be heard as it waded through the water, and eddies could be seen upon the calm surface. A simple shadow would not have made such a commotion as that?
"Sahibs!" said Ossaroo, in a tone of mysterious gravity, "he be one ob two ting. He eider be de god Brahma, or--"
"Or what?" demanded Caspar.
"An ole rogue."
CHAPTER SIX.
A TALK ABOUT ELEPHANTS.
"An old rogue?" said Caspar, repeating the words of the shikaree. "What do you mean by that, Ossy?"
"What you Feringhee, sahib, call rogue elephant."
"Oh! an elephant!" echoed Karl and Caspar--both considerably relieved at this natural explanation of what had appeared so like a supernatural apparition.
"Certainly the thing looked like one," continued Caspar.
"But how could an elephant enter this valley?"
Ossaroo could not answer this question. He was himself equally puzzled by the appearance of the huge quadruped; and still rather inclined to the belief that it was some of his trinity of Brahminee gods, that had for the nonce assumed the elephantine form. For that reason he made no attempt to explain the presence of such an animal in the valley.
"It is possible for one to have come up here from the lower country," remarked Karl, reflectively.
"But how could he get into the valley?" again inquired Caspar.
"In the same way as we got in ourselves," was Karl's reply; "up the glacier and through the gorge."
"But the crevasse that hinders us from getting out? You forget that, brother? An elephant could no more cross it than he could fly; surely not?"
"Surely not," rejoined Karl. "I did not say that he could have crossed the crevasse."
"Oh! you mean that he may have come up here before we did?"
"Exactly so. If it be an elephant we have seen--and what else can it be?" pursued Karl, no longer yielding to a belief in the supernatural character of their nocturnal visitant--"it must of course have got into the valley before us. The wonder is our having seen no signs of such an animal before. You, Caspar, have been about more than any of us. Did you never, in your rambles, observe anything like an elephant's track?"
"Never. It never occurred to me to look for such a thing. Who would have thought of a great elephant having climbed up here? One would fancy