this thought. I gazed before me and listened intently, scarcely
breathing, until the suspense became painful--too painful at

last, and I turned and took a step with the idea of going back to
the border of the wood, when close by, clear as a silver bell,

sounded the voice once more, but only for a moment--two or three
syllables in response to my movement, then it was silent again.

Once more I was standing still, as if in obedience to a command,
in the same state of suspense; and whether the change was real or

only imagined I know not, but the silence every minute grew more
profound and the gloom deeper. Imaginary terrors began to assail

me. Ancient fables of men allured by beautiful forms and
melodious voices to destruction all at once acquired a fearful

significance. I recalled some of the Indian beliefs, especially
that of the mis-shapen, man-devouring monster who is said to

beguile his victims into the dark forest by mimicking the human
voice--the voice sometimes of a woman in distress--or by singing

some strange and beautiful melody. I grew almost afraid to look
round lest I should catch sight of him stealing towards me on his

huge feet with toes pointing backwards, his mouth snarling
horribly to display his great green fangs. It was distressing to

have such fancies in this wild, solitary spot--hateful to feel
their power over me when I knew that they were nothing but

fancies and creations of the savage mind. But if these
supernatural beings had no existence, there were other monsters,

only too real, in these woods which it would be dreadful to
encounter alone and unarmed, since against such adversaries a

revolver would be as ineffectual as a popgun. Some huge camoodi,
able to crush my bones like brittle twigs in its constricting

coils, might lurk in these shadows, and approach me stealthily,
unseen in its dark colour on the dark ground. Or some jaguar or

black tiger might steal towards me. masked by a bush or
tree-trunk, to spring upon me unawares. Or, worse still, this

way might suddenly come a pack of those swift-footed, unspeakably
terrible hunting-leopards, from which every living thing in the

forest flies with shrieks of consternation or else falls
paralysed in their path to be instantly" target="_blank" title="ad.立即，立刻">instantly torn to pieces and

devoured.
A slight rustling sound in the foliage above me made me start and

cast up my eyes. High up, where a pale gleam of tempered
sunlight fell through the leaves, a grotesque human-like face,

black as ebony and adorned with a great red beard, appeared
staring down upon me. In another moment it was gone. It was

only a large araguato, or howling monkey, but I was so unnerved
that I could not get rid of the idea that it was something more

than a monkey. Once more I moved, and again) the instant I moved
my foot, clear, and keen, and imperative, sounded the voice! It

was no longer possible to doubt its meaning. It commanded me to
stand still--to wait--to watch--to listen! Had it cried "Listen!

Do not move!" I could not have understood it better. Trying as
the suspense was, I now felt powerless to escape. Something very

terrible, I felt convinced, was about to happen, either to
destroy or to release me from the spell that held me.

And while I stood thus rooted to the ground, the sweat standing
in large drops on my forehead, all at once close to me sounded a

cry, fine and clear at first, and rising at the end to a shriek
so loud, piercing, and unearthly in character that the blood

seemed to freeze in my veins, and a despairing cry to heaven
escaped my lips; then, before that long shriek expired, a mighty

chorus of thunderous voices burst forth around me; and in this
awful tempest of sound I trembled like a leaf; and the leaves on

the trees were agitated as if by a high wind, and the earth
itself seemed to shake beneath my feet. Indescribably horrible

were my sensations at that moment; I was deafened, and would
possibly have been maddened had I not, as by a miracle, chanced

to see a large araguato on a branch overhead, roaring with open
mouth and inflated throat and chest.

It was simply a concert of howling monkeys that had so terrified
me! But my extreme fear was not strange in the circumstances;

since everything that had led up to the display--the gloom and
silence, the period of suspense, and my heated imagination--had

raised my mind to the highest degree of excitement and
expectancy. I had rightly conjectured, no doubt, that my unseen

guide had led me to that spot for a purpose; and the purpose had
been to set me in the midst of a congregation of araguatos to

enable me for the first time fully to appreciate their
unparalleled vocal powers. I had always heard them at a

distance; here they were gathered in scores, possibly
hundreds--the whole araguato population of the forest, I should

think--close to me; and it may give some faint conception of the
tremendous power and awful character of the sound thus produced

by their combined voices when I say that this animal--miscalled
"howler" in English--would outroar the mightiest lion that ever

woke the echoes of an African wilderness.
This roaring concert, which lasted three or four minutes, having

ended, I lingered a few minutes longer on the spot, and not
hearing the voice again, went back to the edge of the wood, and

then started on my way back to the village.
CHAPTER IV

Perhaps I was not capable of thinking quite coherently on what
had just happened until I was once more fairly outside of the

forest shadows--out in that clear open daylight, where things
seem what they are, and imagination, like a juggler detected and

laughed at, hastily takes itself out of the way. As I walked
homewards I paused midway on the barren ridge to gaze back on the

scene I had left, and then the recent adventure began to take a
semi-ludicrous aspect in my mind. All that circumstance of

preparation, that mysterious prelude to something unheard of,
unimaginable, surpassing all fables ancient and modern, and all

tragedies--to end at last in a concert of howling monkeys!
Certainly the concert was very grand--indeed, one of the most

astounding in nature---but still--I sat down on a stone and
laughed freely.

The sun was sinking behind the forest, its broad red disk still
showing through the topmost leaves, and the higher part of the

foliage was of a luminous green, like green flame, throwing off
flakes of quivering, fiery light, but lower down the trees were

in profound shadow.
I felt very light-hearted while I gazed on this scene, for how

pleasant it was just now to think of the strange experience I had
passed through--to think that I had come safely out of it, that

no human eye had witnessed my weakness, and that the mystery
existed still to fascinate me! For, ludicrous as the denouement

now looked, the cause of all, the voice itself, was a thing to
marvel at more than ever. That it proceeded from an intelligent

being I was firmly convinced; and although too materialistic in
my way of thinking to admit for a moment that it was a

supernatural being, I still felt that there was something more
than I had at first imagined in Kua-ko's speech about a daughter

of the Didi. That the Indians knew a great deal about the
mysterious voice, and had held it in great fear, seemed evident.

But they were savages, with ways that were not mine; and however
friendly they might be towards one of a superior race, there was

always in their relations with him a low cunning, prompted partly
by suspicion, underlying their words and actions. For the white

man to put himself mentally on their level is not more impossible
than for these aborigines to be perfectly open, as children are,

towards the white. Whatever subject the stranger within their
gates exhibits an interest in, that they will be reticent about;

and their reticence, which conceals itself under easily invented
lies or an affected stupidity, invariably increases with his

desire for information. It was plain to them that some very
unusual interest took me to the wood; consequently I could not

expect that they would tell me anything they might know to