"Sleeping, of course," he reflected. And now, Hope River past, and the canyon swallowed by the dense forest, he flung his light once more ahead. With it he felt out the rocky barrens for a landing-place. Not more than twenty minutes later, followed by Bremilu and Zangamon, Stern was making way through the thick-laced wood and jungle. Awed, terrified by their first sight of trees and by the upper world which to them was naught but marvel and danger, the two Merucaans followed close behind their guide. Even so would you or I cling to the Martian who should land us on that ruddy planet and pilot us through some huge, inchoate and grotesque growth of things to us perfectly unimaginable. "Oh, master, we shall see the patriarch soon?" asked Bremilu, in a strange voice--a voice to him astonishingly loud, in the clear air of night upon the surface of the world. "Soon shall we speak with him and--" "Hark! What's that?" interrupted Stern, pausing, the while he gripped his pistol tighter. From afar, though in which direction he could not say, a vague, dull roar made itself heard through the forest. Sonorous, vibrant, menacing, it echoed and died; and then again, as once before, Stern heard that strange, hollow booming, as of some mighty drum struck by a muffled fist. A cry? Was that a cry, so distant and so faint? Beast-cry, or call of night-bird, shrill and far? Stern shuddered, and with redoubled haste once more pushed through the vague path he and Beatrice had made from the barrens to Settlement Miffs. Presently, followed by the two colonists who dared not let him for a moment out of their sight, he reached the brow of the canyon. His hand flash-lamp showed him the rough path to the terrace. With fast-beating heart he ran down it, unmindful of the unprotected edge or the sheer drop to the rocks of New Hope River, far below. Bremilu and Zangamon, seeing perfectly in the gloom, hurried close behind, with words of awe, wonder and admiration in their own tongue. "Beta! Oh, Beatrice! Home again!" Stern shouted triumphantly. "Where are you, Beta? Come! I'm home again!" Quickly he scrambled along the broken terrace, stumbling in his haste over loose rocks and debris. Now he had reached the turn. The fire was in sight. "Beta!" again he hailed. "O-he! Beatrice!" Still no answer, nor any sign from her. As he came to the fire he noted, despite his strong emotions, that it had for the most part burned down to glowing embers. Only one or two resinous knots still flamed. It could not have been replenished for some time, perhaps two hours or more. Again, his quick eye caught the fact that cinders, ashes and half-burned sticks lay scattered about in strange disorder. "Why, Beatrice never makes a fire like that!" the thought pierced through his mind. And--though as yet on no very definite grounds--a quick prescience of catastrophe battered at his heart. "What's _this?_"