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akness as though such things were not. And, with index on trigger, eyes watchful and keen, he scouted down the cave-dwelling.
Suddenly he stopped.
"Who's there?" he challenged loudly.
At the left of the room, not far from the big fireplace, he had perceived a dim, vague figure, prone upon the floor.
"Answer, or I shoot!"
But the figure remained motionless. Allan realized there was no fight in it. Still cautiously, however, he advanced.
Now he touched the figure with his foot, now bent above it and peered down.
"Old Gesafam! Heaven above! Wounded! What does this mean?"
Starting back, he stared in horror at the old woman, stunned and motionless, with the blood coagulating along an ugly cut on her forehead.
Then, as though a prescience had swept his being, he sprang to the bed.
"My son! My boy! Where are you?" he shouted hoarsely.
With a shaking hand he flung down the bedclothes of finely woven palm fiber.
"My boy! My boy!"
The bed was empty. His son had disappeared.
CHAPTER XXV
THE FALL OF H'YEMBA
Blinded with staggering grief and terror, stunned, stricken, all but annihilated, the man recoiled.
Then, with a cry, he sprang to the bed again, and now in a very passion of eagerness explored it. His trembling hands dragged all the bedding off and threw it broadcast. By the dim light he peered with wide and terror-smitten eyes.
"My boy!" he choked. "My boy!"
But beyond all manner of doubt the boy had been stolen.
Unable to understand, or think, or plan, Allan stood there, his face ghastly, his heart quivering within him.
What could have happened? How and why? If the door had been securely locked and the old nurse been with the child, how could the kidnapper have borne him away?
What? How? Why?
More, ever more, questions crowded the man's brain, all equally wit