H. A. Lamb

“ She held his hand tightly, trying to pull him toward the cavern entrance, on tiptoe with eagerness, and her voice soft with love. Stuart looked at her smilingly.
“I can’t make her out,” he said to me. “Somebody has warned her to leave this spot. She knows what this danger is, but she can’t make it clear to me. It comes along about every moon and the hillmen always flee. She goes with them, of course.” ”

“ They say most women look ugly when they cry. Mary was prettier. Stuart watched her hungrily.
Why didn’t he go with her? Well, I had said I would not, and of course Stuart refused to leave me. The branches near by were shaking strangely and I guessed the hillmen were hurrying by. I caught a glimpse or two of a brown body swinging from limb to limb like a monkey, at unbelievable speed.
Then Mary could stand it no longer. She threw down die old Bible—which she had brought from the cave—and fled away, pointing to the bush behind her. I heard her crying from the branches of a tree for a moment. ”

“ That is always the way with an Englishman. Tell him he’s to crawl into a tiger’s den and he’ll ask for his breakfast first and complain because the tea isn’t strong enough. Mary, however, had lost her appetite. She sat huddled up by Stuart, every now and then coaxing him softly while he stowed away a mess of tea and biscuits. ”