"The usual thing--a curse. There was a man killed here by the people of the neighbourhood--not an incident of very great moment in this country, you would think. But this one was a great character in the sanctity line of business--a Syyed or a Hadji, or something of the sort--and so his ghost appeared and took it out of the neighbourhood, and indeed the human race in general, by planting a rigid embargo on the place. And it was a pretty practical way of taking it out of them too, for they used this _tangi_ as a thoroughfare--it's scarcely a mile long, you know-- whereas now they've got to go round the mountain instead of through it, which makes a difference of at least eight." "It's an eerie place, anyhow," said the girl, looking up a little awe-stricken at the immensity of the cliff walls. The sun had gone off the world now, and a tomb-like twilight prevailed here in the heart of the mountain. It was chilling enough to have begotten a whole volume of grim legends. "Wonder if the old Syyed's ghost is on hand now," said Raynier, who was cynically and frankly sceptical in such matters. "We'll give him the salaam anyhow." Then, raising his voice but very slightly, he exclaimed,-- "Salaam, Syyed!" What was this? The whole of the immense vault was roaring and bellowing with sound. In waves it rolled, now running along the ground at their feet, now tossed on high as though escaping into outer air. "Salaam, salaam, salaam!" it replied in every conceivable tone and key, then roared along the cliffs again as in a peal of thunder, the whole accompanied by a mighty rattling. The noise was simply appalling. Raynier, the sceptical, was more than startled. Not to put too line a point on it, he was just a little bit scared, though no manifestation of it escaped him. The horses of both, too, were backing and snorting, evincing a degree of terror not at all calculated to soothe the nerves of their riders. The suddenness of it all, the booming of the spectral voices here in the grisly depths, was rather startling. He looked at his companion somewhat apprehensively, expecting to see her pale and shaking, perhaps hysterical. To his surprise she was laughing. His first thought even then was that this was a form of hysteria. "Don't you see?" she said. "Don't you see? Don't you see?" boomed the vault around. "Don't you see? Don't you see?" shrieked and wailed the heights above. And then Raynier felt secretly more than a little ashamed of himself--for he did see.