Mirrikh, or, A Woman from Mars. Francis Worcester Doughty

that instant the low, ominous growling heard a moment before was repeated. It seemed to me that I could hear also rustling sounds among the tangled thicket which had now taken the place of the atap palms and other trees of respectable growth on either side of our path.

      I trembled. Thoughts of the dangers of the jungle would suggest themselves. I instinctively unslung my rifle and held it ready in my hand.

      “More thunder? ” said Maurice. “Come, come, we must decide quick. Plague take these mosquitoes! They are as thick as bees around a hive.”

      “Hark!” exclaimed Philpot, suddenly. “I’m not so sure it is thunder.”

      Nor was I. Presently it came again—a low, sullen growl, beginning in the deepest bass—rising slightly, then sinking into the bass again.

      I was glad of the darkness then, for I knew my face must have been livid.

      “A tiger,” I suppose, I said as coolly as possible.

      “As sure as we are lost in the jungle,” whispered the Doctor. “Even those wood-cutters are preferable. Come! There is no time to be lost.”

      Again he started ahead, for the path was so narrow that single file was a necessity.

      “I don’t believe it’s a tiger,” said Maurice incredulously.

      ​“Don’t deceive yourself, De Veber,” said the Doctor, “it is nothing else. “Not,” he added, “that there is any great danger of the beast attacking us. But——”

      The sentence remained uncompleted; or rather it was completed in a way which, to my dying day, I am not likely to forget.

      A quick rush, a violent stirring of the thicket, followed by a yell which set us all trembling, and a huge, dark form leaped out upon the path before us, pausing not three yards from the spot where Philpot stood.

      “Great God!” I heard Maurice exclaim, and I knew, rather than saw, that he grasped his rifle.

      But I was as one paralyzed, I could see the flash of those awful eyes, could see the beast crouch for a spring, could hear its tail lash the ground and yet I never made a move.

      Though wholly unarmed, poor Philpot stood his ground like a Trojan. A second of awful suspense followed.

      I could hear the click of Maurice’s rifle. I wondered why he did not fire, when suddenly a light broke upon the scene, and to my utter amazement I saw a man leap from the thicket directly in front of the Doctor, and dash a flaming torch into the tiger’s face.

      It was the work of an instant. The next and all danger had passed.

      Bushes, the path, my companions, everything seemed swimming about me. I saw the great cat retreating into the jungle. I heard the Doctor shout, but until the man who had burst so unceremoniously into our midst, stooped and recovered the torch, I did not realize the full significance of the scene.

      Then as the light struck upon his face I knew him. Seen in that weird glare the sight was even more marvellous now. It was a face black below, yellowish white above.

      It was the mysterious Mr. Mirrikh to whom we were indebted. Calm and dignified he stood there as though nothing unusual had occurred.

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