"We had better not talk out loud or these horses will go quite mad. It
is all I can do to stay on mine as it is."
In fact the animals were in the wildest stage of snorting, trembling
fear, and could hardly be persuaded to proceed at all. Their shying and
plunging created a rattle which the echo reproduced and magnified as
before. At length they quieted down.
"We may be through the sphere of the echo," said Raynier, tentatively
raising his voice a little. And the result showed that they were.
"How is it the same thing did not happen when you came through here
before?" said Hilda Clive, as soon as it became safe to converse again.
"Easily explained. I left my horse at the entrance and walked. I
always wear very silent boots, and I had nobody to talk to. Look, we
are through now, but we sha'n't have much time to admire the view on the
other side because it's rather late, and we ought to get back to camp."
A tower of light now rose in front of them, light only in comparison to
the gloom of the _tangi_. It was the exit at the other end, similar in
every particular to the entrance.
They stood looking out over a wild wide valley shut in by the same
eternal hills. From far beneath among the gloomy rifts and sparse
vegetation arose the long-drawn howl of a wolf.
"What a wilderness!" exclaimed the girl. "Do you know, it's splendid.
I'm so glad I came."
She had turned her eyes full upon his face. What wonderful eyes they
were, he thought--and they were fascinating too. How on earth had he
been so long in making the discovery? He thought, too, how she had been
the one whose nerves had remained entirely unshaken during that very
startling surprise--how she it was--not he--who had at once seen through
its perfectly natural solution, and he felt small accordingly. But his
admiration for her had strangely increased.
They turned to retrace their way, hardly able to make it out in the
gloom. They had been descending all the time, and now it took a little
longer, for the floor of the _tangi_ was stony and rough.
"I'm not surprised they have set up a ghost here," said Raynier, when
they had passed the echo point. "That is one of the most extraordinary
effects I have ever experienced."
"Is it not?" she answered quietly. "Don't look up just yet--it has
disappeared--but there was the head of someone watching us just over the
ledge a little above you on the right. There. Now look."
Raynier could hardly repress a start, as his hand went instinctively to
his pistol pocket nor did he feel any the easier because, by some
inadvertence, it was empty. Then he looked up.
Right over the way they were to pass was a small ledge, apparently
inaccessible to mortal foot, or incapable of sustaining a single human
being could such attain to it. Yet, there was the head again--huge,
shaggy, menacing--staring down upon them in the gloom. Then it again
disappeared.