kward and
forward, increased and increased in stature, till it attained the height
of some seven or eight feet. Van Hielen could not compare this with
anything he had ever seen. It was monstrous but shapeless--a mere mass
of irregular lumps, a dull leadish white, and vibrating horribly in the
moonlight. He thought of the children; but where they had stood he saw
only two greenish-yellow spheres that, twirling round and round,
suddenly approached him. As he started back to escape them, all was
again changed. The lumpy figure had vanished, the atmosphere cleared,
and everything was absolutely normal. There were now, however, solid
grounds for fear. Advancing on him with flashing eyes and scintillating
teeth were two vividly marked jaguars--a male and female. Van Hielen,
usually calm and collected in the face of danger, on this occasion lost
his presence of mind: his gun dropped from his hands, his knees
quivered, and, helpless and inert, he reeled against the tree under
which he had been standing. The jaguars--which seemed to be unusually
savage even for jaguars--prepared to spring, and Van Hielen, certain
his hour had come, was about to close his eyes and resign himself to his
fate, when the female brute, although the bigger and more formidable,
hesitated--thrust its dark, handsomely spotted head almost in its
victim's face, and then, lashing its companion sharply with its tail,
swerved aside and was off like a dart.

It took Van Hielen some minutes to realize his escape, and then, more in
a dream than awake, he mechanically shouldered his rifle and slowly
followed in the beasts' wake.

An hour's walking brought him to the end of the forest. The dawn was
breaking, and the track leading to the settlement was just beginning to
exhibit the mellowing influence of the first rays of the sun. There was
an exhilarating freshness in the air that made Van Hielen keenly
sensitive to the ambitious demands of a newly awakened stomach. Opposite
him was the hut of the old woman, the entrance somewhat clumsily blocked
with a makeshift door. As Van Hielen looked at it curiously, wondering
if the woman was in the habit of barricading it in this fashion on
account of her proximity to the forest, sounds greeted him from within.

Stepping lightly up to the hut, Van Hielen listened attentively. Some
big animal--a hound most probably--was gnawing a bone--crunch, crunch,
crunch!

Van Hielen moved away, but hadn't gone very far before an ind