Fiction > Book editions > London, 1889 - Master of Ballantrae

THE JOUUNEY IX THE AVILDEUNESS. 291
sleepers rolled in their robes, auci the boisterous river
dashing- among- spears of ice. I stood looking about
me, swaddled in my stiff coat of a bull's fur, and the
breath smoking- from my scorched nostrils, when, upon
a sudden, a singular, eager cry rang from the borders
of the wood. The sentries answered it, the sleepers
sprang to their feet ; one pointed, the rest followed his
direction with their eyes, and there, upon the edge of
the forest and betwixt two trees, we beheld the figure
of a man reaching forth his hands like one in ecstasy.
The next moment he ran forward, fell on his knees at
the side of the camp, and burst in tears.
This was John Mountain, the trader, escaped from
the most horrid perils ; and his first word, when he got
speech, was to ask if we had seen Secundra Dass.
" Seen what ? " cries Sir William.
" No,''' said I, " we have seen nothing of him.
Why ? "
" Nothing ? " says Mountain. " Then I was right
after all.-" With that he struck his palm upon his
brow. '' But what takes him back ? " he cried.
"What takes the man back among dead bodies.
There is some damned mystery here."
This was a word which highly aroused our curiosity,
but I shall be more perspicacious, if I narrate these
incidents in their true order. Here follows a narrative
which I have comjiiled out of three sources, not very
consistent in all points :
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