The Temple

"Halt!" cried Kathlyn. What had he heard? What had he seen? "Halt!"
But even as she called the tall grass closed in behind the elephant.
What water and food she had disappeared with him.

She paused by the brazier, catching hold of it for support. She
laughed hysterically: it was so funny; it was all so out of joint with
real things, with every-day life as she had known it. Weird laughter
returned to mock her astonished ears, a sinister echo. And then she
laughed at the echo, being in the grip of a species of madness. In the
purple caverns of the temple she suddenly became conscious of another
presence. A flash as of moonlight striking two chrysoberyls took the
madness out of her mind. This forsaken temple was the haunt of a
leopard or a tiger.

She was lost. That magnetism which ordinarily was hers was at its
nadir. She hesitated for a second, then climbed into the empty
sarcophagus, crouching low. Strangely enough, as she did so a calm
fell upon her; all the terrors of her position dropped away from her as
mists from the mountain peaks. She had, however, got into the
hiding-place none too soon.

She heard the familiar pad-pad, the whiff-whiff of a big cat.
Immediately into the moonlight came an African lion, as out of place
here as Kathlyn herself; his tail slashed, there was a long black
streak from his mane to his tail where the hair had risen. Kathlyn
crouched even lower. The lion trotted round the sarcophagus, sniffing.
Presently he lifted his head and roared. The echoes played battledore
and shuttlecock with the sound. The lion roared again, this time at
the insulting echoes. For a few minutes the noise was deafening. A
rumble as of distant thunder, and the storm died away.