ter, patter of stealthy feet among the stones--a gleam of
scintillating green from ravening eyes. Nearer, nearer came the pit-pat
of those soft footfalls. The wild creatures of the waste had scented
their prey.

Man--the lord of the beasts of creation. Man--before whose erect form
the four-footed carnivora of the desert fled in terror--what was he
now--how was he represented here? A mere thing of flesh and blood, an
abject thing--prostrate, helpless, dying. An easy prey. The positions
were reversed.

The gleam of those hungry eyes--the baring of gaunt jaws, the lolling
tongues--were as things unknown to the stricken adventurer. The shrill
yelp, echoing from the great krantzes, calling upon more to come to the
feast--the snapping snarl, as hungry rivals drew too near each other--
all passed unnoticed. Nearer, nearer they came, a ravening circle. For
they knew that the prey was sure.

What a contrast! This man, with the cool, dauntless brain--the hardened
frame so splendidly proportioned, lay there in the pitchy blackness at
the mercy of the skulking, cowardly scavengers of those grim mountain
solitudes. And what had wrought this strange, this startling contrast?
Only a mere tiny puncture, scarcely bigger than a pin prick.

A cold nose touched his cheek. The contact acted like a charm. He sat
bolt upright and struck out violently. A soft furry coat gave way
before his fist--there was a yelp, a snarl of terror, and a sound of
pattering feet scurrying away into deeper darkness, but--only to return
again.

As though the shock had revived him, Renshaw's brain began to recover
its dormant faculties. It awoke to the horror, the peril of the
position. And with that awakening came back something of the old
adventurous, dauntless resolution. He remembered that violent
exercise--to keep the patient walking--was among the specifics in cases
of venomous snake-bite, which in conjunction with other antidotes he had
more than once seen employed with signal success. But in his own case
the other antidotes were wanting.

Still the old dogged determination--the strength of a trained will--
prevailed. He would make the effort, even if it were to gain some
inaccessible ledge or crevice where he might die in peace. Even in the
midst of his numbed and torpid stupor the loathing horror wherewith he
had encountered the touch of the wild creature's muzzle acted like a
whip. To be devoured by those brutes like a disease