d struggled to tear down? I walked out yonder on to the
platform and looked up. The moon shone full upon the face of the stone
Witch who sits aloft forever. She seemed to grin at me, and, oh! I grew
afraid, for now I knew that this was a place of dead men, a place where
spirits perch like vultures in a tree, as they sweep round and round
the world. I went back to the cave, and feeling that I must do something
lest I should go mad, I drew to me the carcase of the great dog-wolf
which I had killed, and, taking my knife of iron, I began to skin it by
the light of the moon. For an hour or more I skinned, singing to myself
as I worked, and striving to forget him who sat in the cleft above and
the howlings which ran about the mountains. But ever the moonlight shone
more clearly into the cave: now by it I could see his shape of bone and
skin, ay, and even the bandage about his eyes. Why had he tied it there?
I wondered--perhaps to hide the faces of the fierce wolves as they
sprang upwards to grip him. And always the howlings drew nearer; now
I could see grey forms creeping to and fro in the shadows of the rocky
place before me. Ah! there before me glared two red eyes: a sharp
snout sniffed at the carcase which I skinned. With a yell, I lifted the
Watcher and smote. There came a scream of pain, and something galloped
away into the shadows.

"Now the skin was off. I cast it behind me, and seizing the carcase
dragged it to the edge of the rock and left it. Presently the sound of
howlings drew near again, and I saw the grey shapes creep up one by one.
Now they gathered round the carcase, now they fell upon it and rent it,
fighting horribly till all was finished. Then, licking their red chops,
they slunk back to the forest.

"Did I sleep or did I wake? Nay, I cannot tell. But I know this, that
of a sudden I seemed to look up and see. I saw a light--perchance,
Umslopogaas, it was the light of the moon, shining upon him that sat
aloft at the end of the cave. It was a red light, and he glowed in it
as glows a thing that is rotten. I looked, or seemed to look, and then
I thought that the hanging jaw moved, and from it came a voice that was
harsh and hollow as of one who speaks from an empty belly, through a
withered throat.

"'Hail, Galazi, child of Siguyana!' said the voice, 'Galazi the Wolf!
Say, what dost thou here in the Ghost Mountain, where the stone Witch
sits forever, waiting for the world to die?'

"Then, Umslopogaas, I an