direction, with fearless
leaps and clinging hands and ceaseless chattering. Their cries at
intervals, bringing answers, until the air was a-din with monkeys,
leaping along the highways of the trees.

Women of the villages, children tending goats, labourers among the
driftings of the hills and on the open slopes, holy men and those who
toiled at any craft--heard the shrill calls along the margins of the
jungle and knew that some evil had fallen on a leader of his kind among
the monkey people.

Then Skag saw two priests of Hanuman rising up from the denser shadows
where the river was lost in the jungle. Quickly girding themselves,
they followed the multitudes. Skag did not miss their stern faces, nor
the instant pause as they dipped their brown feet with prayers into the
river. He dared to follow. The priests turned upon him, silent,
frowning; but he was not sent back.

Skag recalled Cadman's words, but also that he was known among the
natives as one white man not an animal-killer. His name Son of Power
had followed him to Hurda; word about him had travelled with mysterious
rapidity. To his amazement Skag found that the people of Hurda knew
something of the story of the tiger-pit and his part in delivering the
Grass Jungle people from the toils and tributes of the great
snake. . . . He was not sent back.

For a long time, until the forenoon was half spent, the three marched
silently. One halted at length to pick up from the leaves a white silk
kerchief, bearing in one corner two English letters wrought in
needle-work. This was lifted by the elder of the priests and folded in
the thick windings of his loin-cloth. Deeper and deeper into the
jungle they travelled, never far from the river.

Suddenly the branches parted, the path ceased; a smooth, perfect carpet
of tender, green grass spread out before them and reached and clung to
the lip of a deep, clear pool--beaten out through the ages, by the
weight of the stream falling on a lower ledge of rock from the brow of
a massive boulder. The mighty trees of the forest stretched their huge
arms over this spot, as if to keep it secret, so that even the fierce
sunshine was mellowed before it touched the earth.

In the midst of rich grasses, in the shadow of an overleaning rock, a
wounded monkey lay stretched upon fresh leaves. The two priests went
near him, softly, while the tree-branches filled in and swayed--under
weight of monkeys finding places. Here and