able to any kindness on his part, but merely to good fortune. Your turns will come, unless "
"Unless we hook it while we have the chance!"
"Unless you do exactly as I say," de Grandin finished without notice of the interruption. "In five minutes it will be ten o'clock. I suggest we seek our rooms, but not to sleep. You, Monsieur, and you, Madame, will see that both your doors and windows are securely fastened. Meantime, Doctor Trowbridge and I will repair to our chamber and—eh bien, I think we shall see things!"
Despite de Grandin's admonition, I fell fast asleep. How long I'd slept I do not know, nor do I recall what wakened me. There was no perceptible sound, but suddenly I was sitting bolt-upright, staring fascinated at our window's shadowed oblong. "Lucky thing we put those locks on," I reassured myself; "almost anything might "
The words died on my tongue, and a prickling sensation traced my spine. What it was I did not know, but every sense seemed warning me of dreadful danger.
"De Grandin!" I whispered hoarsely. "De Grandin
"I reached across the bed to waken him. My hand encountered nothing but the blanket. I was in that tomb-black room with nothing but my fears for company.
Slowly, scarcely faster than the hand that marks the minutes on the clock, the window-sash swung back. The heavy lock we'd stapled on was gone or broken. I heard the creak of rusty hinges, caught the faint rasp of a bar against the outer sill, and my breath went hot and sulfurous in my throat as a shadow scarcely darker than the outside night obscured the casement.
It was like some giant dog—a mastiff or great Dane—but taller, heavier, with a mane of unkempt hair about its neck. Pointed ears cocked forward, great eyes gleaming palely phosphorescent, it pressed against the slowly yielding window-frame. And now I caught the silhouette of its hog-snouted head against the window, saw its parted, sneering lips, smelled the retching stench that emanated from it, and went sick with horror. The thing was a hyena, a grave-robber, offal-cater, most loathsome of all animals.
Slowly, inch by cautious inch, it crept into the room, fangs bared in a snarl that held the horrible suggestion of a sneer. "Help, de Grandin—help!" I shrieked, leaping from the bed and dragging tangled blankets with me as a shield.
The hyena sprang. With a cry that was half growl, half obscene parody of a human chuckle, it launched itself through the intervening gloom, and next instant I was smothered underneath its weight as it worried savagely at the protecting blanket.
"Sa-ha, Monsieur Hyène, you seek a meal? Take this!" Close above me Jules de Grandin swung a heavy kukri knife as though it were a headsman's ax, striking through the wiry mane, driving deep into the brute's thick neck, almost decapitating it.
"Get up, my friend; arise," he ordered as he hauled me from beneath the bed-clothes, already soaking with the foul beast's blood. "Me, I have squatted none too patiently behind the bed, waiting for the advent of that one. Morbleu, I thought that he would never come!"
"How'd you know about it
" I began, but he cut me short with a soft chuckle."The laughter in the bush that night, the small dog's ravished grave, finally the tracks you found today. They made the case complete. I made elaborate show of opening our window, and they must