The Old Man of the Mountain

The dishes containing the midday meal were brought to the prisoners by the two negrito sentinels, who received them from the guard at the further end of the ledge. The food, abu...

The cook pulled nervously at his beard, turned up the whites of his eyes, shot a savage glance at the shikari, then said in a voice which all his resolution could not prevent fr...

The three friends scarcely noticed what followed on the disappearance of the old man. The priests filed out quietly, each rank by a separate door. Only Wen Shih remained. He cam...

"Tied him up with his own girdle. I don't think we made noise enough to waken anybody else. Hamid, just run along to the kitchen and block up the door."

Forrester and his enemies alike were for the moment paralysed by the horror of the tragic scene. Before they had recovered their wits, Beresford dashed up behind his friend, and...

"Hech! But I've a sore head the morn," he murmured, rubbing his eyes drowsily as he looked around him. The sight of bare blank walls instead of the walls of his bungalow, decora...

"Come along over here, then. There's only one poor idiot who _can_ understand you besides myself, and he's so desperately cowed that I doubt whether he _will_. Now, sit here: yo...

"But we can't leave them in the lurch," said Forrester. "They've absolutely no defence against wild beasts. Come along! We three will go with Sher Jang back into the scrub and b...

Forrester sat musing on what he had learnt from the sick man's broken phrases and the scrap of paper. It was little enough. The stranger's companion, Beresford, had been capture...

Mackenzie and Jackson, it will be remembered, had been removed from the Temple before Forrester, at the close of the scene with the Old Man. They were taken back to their separa...

"Why, you owl, that it's sometimes better to rely on your instincts than on the advice of kind busybodies. When I came through Calcutta, everybody advised me to wait till I got...

The former, more nervous and highly-strung than either of his friends, had suffered still more poignantly the malignant influence of the monster's eye. Like them, he had been ta...

The credit of the arrangements made during the next two days must be divided between Mackenzie and Sher Jang. The former showed a capacity for organisation which his friends had...

Mackenzie, meanwhile, had been playing a very busy and at the same time a very discreet part above ground, with timorous but efficient assistance from Hamid Gul. It was the latt...

Forrester puzzled over the words. They seemed merely absurd. What could their meaning be? It was a joy to know that Mackenzie or Jackson was above, and had discovered the place...

As Forrester mounted higher into the chimney, he worked with ever increasing caution. To allow the rays to break a passage through before everything was ready for joint action w...

It was a strange procession that filed some hours later through the rift towards the thundering falls. Sher Jang led the way, rifle on shoulder; the position suited his dignity,...

"I wish I had my pipe," growled Beresford as Forrester sat beside him against the wall of the cavern. "Good cut-bar is wasted on the desiccated old anatomy up above. However! .....

"We can't fling a stone at him over that," Forrester remarked, with a laugh. "Let's get back to camp, and send him up. I dare say the men would relish elephant meat for supper."

"Och, man! there's no need to moderate your voice. We've no hobgoblins or supernatural beings of any kind whatever to deal with, but just that ruffian of a fellow I've had my su...

It was Beresford that was quickest to profit by the instinctive act of veneration inspired by the sight of the head-dress which use and superstition had made a symbol of awful a...

THE TERRIFIED CHINAMAN RACED UP THE HILL, THE ELEPHANT, SCREAMING SHRILLY, CLOSE BEHIND HIM. FORRESTER THREW UP HIS RIFLE AND FIRED, BUT ON THAT TOUGH HIDE THE BULLET HAD NO EFFECT