There he stood now, his right hand out, palm upward, his lips curled in the ghastly imitation of a smile, blue gums and yellow lushes showing, a sight to freeze the blood with horror. Yet through it all, the meaning was most clearly evident. Beatrice, laden as she was with the heavy water-bucket, more precious now to them than all the wealth of the dead world, would still have retreated, but with a word of stern command he bade her wait. He stopped short in his tracks. "Not a step!" commanded he. "Hold on! _If_ he makes friends with us--with gods--that's a million times better every way! Hold on--wait, no--this is _his_ move." He faced the obeah. His left hand gripped the repeating rifle, his right the automatic, held in readiness for instant action. The muzzle sight never for a second left its aim at the chief's heart. And for a second silence fell there in the forest. Save for the rustling murmur of the Horde, and a faint, woodland trickle of the stream, you might have thought the place untouched by life. Yet death lurked there, and destiny--the destiny of the whole world, the future, the human race, forever and ever without end; and the cords of Fate were being loosed for a new knitting. And Stern, with Beatrice there at his side, stood harsh and strong and very grim; stood like an incarnation of man's life, waiting. And slowly, step by step, over the yielding, noiseless moss, the grinning, one-eyed, ghastly obeah-man came nearer, nearer still. CHAPTER XXIV THE FIGHT IN THE FOREST Now the Thing was close, very close to them, while a hush lay upon the watching Horde and on the forest. So close, that Stern could hear the soughing breath between those hideous lips and see the twitching of the wrinkled lid over the black, glittering eye that blinked as you have often seen a chimpanzee's. All at once the obeah stopped. Stopped and leered, his head craned forward, that ghastly rictus on his mouth. Stern's hot anger welled up again. Thus to be detained, inspected and seemingly made mock of by a creature no more than three-quarters human, stung the engineer to rage. "What do _you_ want?" cried he, in a thick and unsteady voice. "Anything I can do for you? If not, I'll be going." The creature shook its head. Yet something of Stern's meaning may have won to its smoldering intelligence. For now it raised a hand. It pointed to the pail of water, then to its own mouth; again it indicated the pail, then stretched a long, repulsive finger at the mouth of Stern. The meaning seemed clear. Stern, even as he stood there in anger--and in wonder, too, at the fearlessness of this superthing--grasped the significance of the action. "Why, he must mean," said he, to Beatrice, "he must be trying to ask whether we intend to drink any of the water, what? Maybe it's poisoned, now, or something! Maybe he's trying to warn us!" "Warn us? Why should he?"