tain there was a shot
quite near. Aglaee heard nothing, but I did. You know he always carries a
pistol. I made him do so. It is nothing, I am sure; but I am so
frightened. If you would--"

She tried to smile, but that ghastly look of terror that he had seen
once before, long ago, in the library at Kerton Manor, again swept over,
and possessed all her face like a white chill mist.

"Don't be absurd, you silly child," Guy said, kindly. "Of course I'll go
out directly, and bring him in in five minutes, to laugh at you. Now go
back to your room; there's nothing on earth to be alarmed about."

But the instant she had gone, I heard his voice quick and stern: "Frank,
come here." There was a door of communication between our rooms, and,
though it was closed, I had caught some words of this conversation, so I
was ready nearly as soon as he. Guy only staid to take a short
lance-wood club, headed with a spiked steel head, which was his constant
traveling companion--a very simple weapon, but deadly in his hands as
the axe of Richard the King--and then we sallied out, taking our
servants and some other men that were below, with torches, in case the
moon should fail us unexpectedly.

Twice, three times, when we had gone a short distance, Livingstone
shouted Forrester's name. His powerful voice rang far through the
ravines, and struck against the rocks, rolling and reverberating in
their hollows like a blast fired in a deep mine; but no answer came.

I looked at my companion very nervously. He never spoke, but I saw him
gnaw his under lip till the blood ran down.

We had gone a hundred paces or so farther along a narrow path outside
the town. On our right the cliff fell almost abruptly toward the river.
Guy was a few paces in front, when suddenly there broke from his lips
such a sound as I have never heard from those of any mortal before or
since.

It is impossible to describe it. It was utterly involuntary, as if some
spirit had spoken within the man--a cry of horror and of unspeakable
wrath, such as might have burst from the chest of one of the Old-World
giants, when the rock fell from heaven that crushed him like a worm. The
Italians, used to every tone that can express passion, shrunk and
cowered back in terror.

Our eyes all followed the direction of his, that were staring down upon
a flat open space, clear from brush-wood, down in the hollow on our
right. Our search was ended, and we knew it. The moon, that flickered
a