I had made no move to follow them. At the mention of my name, Brent, who seemed to have forgotten my presence, jerked loose from the girl with a choking cry and wheeled, throwing up the shotgun. But this time I was ready for him. My nerves were too much on edge to let me submit to any more bullying. Before he could bring the gun into position, he was looking in the muzzle of my .45. "Put it down, Brent," I snapped. "Drop it, before I break your arm. I'm fed up on your idiotic suspicions." He hesitated, glaring wildly, and behind him the girl shrank away. I suppose that in the full flood of the light from the doorway I was not a figure to inspire confidence in a young girl, with my frame which is built for strength and not looks, and my dark face, scarred by many a brutal river battle. "He's our friend, Mr. Brent," interposed Ashley. "He helped us, in the woods." "He's a devil!" raved Brent, clinging to his gun, though not trying to lift it. "He came here to murder us! He lied when he said he came to warn us against a black man. What man would be fool enough to come into Egypt at night, just to warn a stranger? My God, has he got you both fooled? I tell you, _he wears the brand of the hound_!" "Then you know _he's_ here!" cried Ashley. "Yes; this fiend told me, trying to worm his way into the house. God, Ashley, _he's_ tracked us down, in spite of all our cleverness. We have trapped ourselves! In a city, we might buy protection; but here, in this accursed forest, who will hear our cries or come to our aid when the fiend closes in upon us? What fools--what fools we were to think to hide from _him_ in this wilderness!" "I heard him laugh," shuddered Ashley. "He taunted us from the bushes in his beast's voice. I saw the man he killed--ripped and mangled as if by the fangs of Satan himself. What--what are we to do?" "What can we do except lock ourselves in and fight to the last?" shrieked Brent. His nerves were in frightful shape. "Please tell me what it is all about?" pleaded the trembling girl. With a terrible despairing laugh Brent threw out his arm, gesturing toward the black woods beyond the faint light. "A devil in human form is lurking out there!" he exclaimed. "He has tracked me across the world, and has cornered me at last. Do you remember Adam Grimm?" "The man who went with you to Mongolia five years ago? But he died, you said. You came back without him." "I thought he was dead," muttered Brent. "Listen, I will tell you. Among the black mountains of Inner Mongolia, where no white man had ever penetrated, our expedition was attacked by fanatical devil-worshippers--the black monks of Erlik who dwell in the forgotten and accursed city of Yahlgan. Our guides and servants were killed, and all our stock driven off but one small camel.