d sheep--faugh!

Gaining his feet with an effort, he unscrewed the stopper of his flask
and drank off the contents. With the poison working in his system the
fiery spirit was as water to him. But its effect was invigorating, and
setting his face toward the cliffs he staggered forth into the darkness.

Before the once more erect figure of their dread enemy, Man, the
skulking jackals and hyenas slunk back in dismay. But only into the
background. Stealthily, warily they watched his progress, following
afar softly and noiselessly upon his footsteps. For their keen instinct
satisfied them that this stricken representative of the dominant species
would never leave their grisly rock-girt haunt alive. It was only a
question of patience.

The instinct, too, of the latter led him on. His stupefied brain still
realised two things. Under the shelter of the crags he would be in
safer hiding from human enemies, and that haply a ledge among the same
would afford him a secure refuge from the loathsome beasts now shadowing
him, and ready to pounce upon him when he should be too weak to offer
any resistance.

On--on, he pressed--ever upward. Steeper and steeper became the way.
Suddenly he stopped short. Before him was a wall of rock.

He peered searchingly upward in the darkness. A cleft slanted obliquely
up the cliffs face. His knowledge of the mountains and their formation
told him that here might be the very thing he sought. His instinct
still guiding him, he began to scale the cleft. He found it an easy
matter. There were plenty of rough projections, affording hand and foot
hold. The ghoul-like scavengers of the desert could not follow him
here.

Under ordinary circumstances the climb would have been a difficult one,
especially at night. But now, as in the case of the somnambulist,
matter triumphed over mind. The mind being dormant and the centre of
gravity undisturbed by mental misgivings, however unconscious, he
ascended safely.

The climb came to an end. Here was the very thing. A ledge, at first
barely four feet broad, and then widening out as it ran round the face
of the cliff--and sloping--not outward as ordinarily, but inward. What
he did not see in his now returning torpor, was a black, narrow cave
running upward in continuation of the cleft by which he had ascended.

He crawled along the ledge. Here at any rate nothing could disturb his
last hours. The cool night wind fanned his brow--the sing