d him
strangely or the reverse as he was able to make them out or they
remained mysteries.

As he tried to pierce the distance, and his eyes wandered through the
network of light among the trees on the slopes which ran up toward the
mountains, his first thoughts were of blacks coming stealing along from
shelter to shelter, till close enough to rush forward to the attack upon
the station; and over and over again his excited imagination suggested
dark figures creeping slowly from bush to bush or from tree to tree.

Once or twice he felt certain that he saw a tall figure standing out in
the moonlight watching the house, but common sense soon suggested that a
savage would not stand in so exposed a position, but would be in hiding.
Then, too, as minutes passed on and he was able to see that the objects
did not move, he became convinced that they were stumps of trees.

That sound, though, was peculiar, and it was repeated. It was a cough,
and that was startling, just in the neighbourhood of the house. But
again he was able to explain it, for he had heard that cough in the
fields of Kent, and the feeling of awe and dread passed off; for he knew
it was the very human cough of a sheep.

But that was no sheep--that peculiar croaking cry that was heard now
here, now there, as if the utterer were dashing in all directions. That
was followed by a hollow trumpeting, and a short, harsh whistle, and a
strange clanging sound from far away, while close at hand there was a
soft, plaintive whistling and a subdued croak.

By degrees, though, as he listened, he was able to approximate to the
origin of these calls. Night-hawks, cranes, curlews, and frogs might,
any of them, or all, be guilty; and some kind of cricket undoubtedly
produced that regular stridulation, as of a piece of ivory drawn along
the teeth of a metal comb.

Then there was a heavy booming buzz, as some great beetle swung by; and
beneath all, like a monotonous bass, came a deep roar, which could only
be produced by falling water plunging down from on high into some rocky
basin.

"What a place! what a wonderful place!" thought Nic, as he gazed out--
perfectly sleepless now; and as he thought, the idea of wild beasts came
into his head, for there was a deep-toned, bellowing roar, very
suggestive of tiger or lion, till it was answered by a distant lowing,
and he knew that the first was the bellow of some huge bull, the latter
the distant cry of a bullock far up in th