lightened my feet,
and I was nearly upon him when the fleeing man rounded the great rock.
One instant he paused, glancing behind. What he saw, or imagined he
saw, I have no means of knowing; perchance some shrieking victim of his
foul rites risen from the dead. With one wild, echoing cry, which rang
in my ears like the scream of a lost soul, he gave a mad leap out into
the air, and went plunging down to the jagged rocks at the base. Sick
and pulseless I drew back. Trembling in every limb, even in the
silence which followed I could detect no sound of his body as it struck
the earth. I crept to the edge, lying prone upon my face, and looked
over. The moonlight ended a hundred feet beneath me; beyond its line
there was nothing but a black void. There could be no question as to
what had occurred--the man was dead. I made my way back into the cave
seeking to discover what had befallen the Puritan. I found him at the
farther extremity of the great altar, calmly enjoying a quantity of
cold meat he had discovered. He was squatting upon the floor, in close
proximity to the motionless, extended figure of a savage arrayed in the
black garments of the priesthood. They formed a picture so startlingly
grotesque I could but stare in amazement.

"Jerked venison," he explained, glowering up at me, as I came into the
firelight. "'T is of a peculiar flavor not altogether to my taste, yet
not a food to be despised in the wilderness. Did you lay hands upon
the heathen who fled?"

"No, he escaped me, but only to leap over the outer rock. He lies dead
below. Have you slain this man?"

He turned the huddled up body over contemptuously with his foot, and I
perceived the wrinkled countenance of an aged man, the eyes bright, the
thick hair on his head long and nearly white. The face, thin and
emaciated, was so sinister I involuntarily drew back.

"A snake is not so easily killed," he answered in indifference. "I
struck but once, and not very hard as I rank blows, yet the fellow has
not stirred since. 'T is well for him to remain quiet until I finish
this repast, for I am of a merciful disposition when my carnal
requirements are properly ministered unto. Faith, had my eyes not
fallen on the food I might have got both the fellows."

Paying slight heed to his gossip I bent over the priest, rubbing his
limbs until the blood began to circulate. Before the testy sectary had
ended his munching, the old savage was sitting up, hi