He wondered how long his brand would last, although it was longer than the other. He wondered about Elaine, on the hill, and how tedious the hours would seem to her. But the constant, underlying worry was--when would the tiger arrive? Elaine's suggestion was a bother. Might there not be hogs so plentiful, quarry so readily captured, that the overdisdainful monarch would prefer warm meat to cold? There was no mysterious cipher to be studied here to-night. There was nothing, in fact, with which to pass the time. Not even a new speculation concerning the cave and the rotting barque arose to give him entertainment. The haunting, suggestive stillness engulfed him where he sat. The world below had merged in one featureless gloom. Except for a few fringed patches of sky between the leaves and branches, there was nothing but velvety blackness to be seen above or below. He waited and waited, a time that seemed eternal. His resting-place was hard and uneven. One of his legs was cramped. To shift about and make no noise was not an easy matter. Without the slightest warning, suddenly down below him something leaped and crashed through the thicket with a most unexpected sound. Whatever it was, it went bounding off, recklessly parting the jungle. Some creature in fright it undoubtedly was--and Grenville was instantly rigid and alert for the next development. He was certain the tiger, coming to his feast, had thrown some timid creature into a panic of blind and desperate fear. He listened, with all his powers of concentration, for the sounds that should presently succeed. But save for another plunging, far beyond, there was absolute silence as before. For fully half an hour after that the stillness was well-nigh insupportable, so fraught was it all with the tragic sense of noiseless life where both hunted and hunters moved about with the cushioned feet of shadows. Far off towards the spring, or the estuary, a disturbance finally arose. It was neither loud nor clear. It seemed to interpret some struggle for life, or pursuit of the weak by the strong. It approached for a time, then ceased for nearly half a minute, only to break into clearer accents of some brute's agony, poignant but mercifully brief. At this the discouragement in Grenville's breast was unavoidably increased. He was certain the tiger had taken fresher prey, and would now ignore his former kill. So intent were his senses on that far-off bit of jungle drama that he failed to detect a nearer sound repeated beneath his feet. When his sharp ears abruptly warned him that something was moving down below, an extraordinary climax to his adventure was swiftly coming to a focus. Some creature had come to the tiger's kill--of that there could be no doubt. It was lapping, or chewing at the meat!