ht into an
ambush? In the shadowy gloom his imagination, run riot, peopled every
rock with lurking stealthy enemies--in every sound he seemed to hear the
hiss of the deadly missiles. Then there came upon him a strange
consciousness of having been over that spot before. The turret-like
craggy gorge, the beetling rocks high overhead in the gloom, all seemed
familiar. Ha! His dream! He remembered it now, and shivered. Was it
prophetic? It was frightful at the time, and now the horror of it all
came back upon him, as, leading his horse, he scrambled on in the track
of his companion. He could have sworn that something brushed past him
in the darkness. Could it be the spirit of the dead adventurer,
destined to haunt this grisly place, this remote cleft on the wild
mountainside? A weird wailing cry rang out overhead. Sellon's hair
seemed to rise, and a profuse perspiration, not the result of his
climbing exertions, started coldly from every pore. What a fool he was!
he decided. It could only be a bird.

"Up at last!" cried the cheery voice of his companion, a score of yards
distant, through the darkness. "Up at last. Come along!"

The voice seemed to break the spell which was upon him. It was
something, too, to be out of that dismal gully. A final scramble, and
Sellon stood beside his companion on the level, grassy summit of the
mountain.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

RENSHAW'S DISCOVERY.

The summit seemed quite flat and level as far as they could judge, for
the night had now fully set in. But at the side of it on which they
stood the great cock's-comb ridge rose high in the air, the loom of its
precipitous sides sheering up against the starry zenith, showing
indistinct and shadowy in the darkness. The night wind, cool and
refreshing, sang in tuneful puffs through the grasses, and aloft in the
gold-spangled sky the Southern Cross and many a flashing constellation
glowed forth with that clear incandescence never so vivid as when gazed
upon from desert solitudes.

"We can do nothing until the moon rises," pronounced Renshaw. "There
are some lively krantzes around here, I reckon, and it would never do to
take a five-hundred foot header, for want of a little patience. We'll
make for the foot of the ridge, and lie by until the moon gets up."

Proceeding cautiously, he led the way up the slope which culminated in
the precipitous cliffs of the ridge. He was close under the latter,
when his horse suddenly