Suddenly a deep-toned, horrid roar burst from some savage throat
almost at my side. What a fool I had been not to have found safer
lodgings for myself and Woola among the branches of one of the
countless trees that surrounded us!
By daylight it would have been comparatively easy to have hoisted
Woola aloft in one manner or another, but now it was too late. There
was nothing for it but to stand our ground and take our medicine,
though, from the hideous racket which now assailed our ears, and
for which that first roar had seemed to be the signal, I judged
that we must be in the midst of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
the fierce, man-eating denizens of the Kaolian jungle.
All the balance of the night they kept up their infernal din, but
why they did not attack us I could not guess, nor am I sure to this
day, unless it is that none of them ever venture upon the patches
of scarlet sward which dot the swamp.
When morning broke they were still there, walking about as in
a circle, but always just beyond the edge of the sward. A more
terrifying aggregation of fierce and blood-thirsty monsters it
would be difficult to imagine.
Singly and in pairs they commenced wandering off into the jungle
shortly after sunrise, and when the last of them had departed Woola
and I resumed our journey.
Occasionally we caught glimpses of horrid beasts all during the
day; but, fortunately, we were never far from a sward island, and
when they saw us their pursuit always ended at the verge of the
solid sod.
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