“I looked around for some place to hide. Then I glanced back where the wild men were. I saw right away they had troubles of their own. They were looking back and scurrying for shelter all at the same time.
“Somebody was after them. We were close to the border. Had they been on a raid? Were whites after them or some other black men? There wasn’t time to settle that.
“Gripping the girl by the wrist, I led her back among the bushes, then along the ridge a short distance. And what do you think I saw, Johnny?”
“A cave, Johnny, a perfectly good cave. Wouldn’t believe it would you? Well, you’ll not believe what happened after that—you couldn’t.”
“Yes, Pant,” Johnny’s voice was low, “I’ll believe it if you say it’s true. Couldn’t be any stranger than the things that happened to us up there on Behring Straits in Russia.”
“Don’t seem that they could be,” Pant rumbled down deep in his throat. “You’ll be surprised, Johnny. Downright surprised. We—”
Pant broke short off to sit staring at the window. The shade was drawn. Only one small light was turned on. This left the window in deep shadows. The light from a street lamp was brighter than the light from within. The wind was blowing, tossing tree branches about. Like ghostly fingers, these branches traced strange moving patterns on the shade.
Johnny was shocked by the change that had come over his companion’s face. Lips parted, nostrils wide, eyes aglow with strange fire, he sat there staring as if entranced.
“Only the shadow of tossing branches,” Johnny said reassuringly.
“No, Johnny,” Pant’s voice sounded hollow, “No, Johnny, that was not all. Excuse me, Johnny. I—I’ve got to go.” Next instant without a sound the boy was gone.
Then Johnny, staring once more at the curtain saw, for an instant only, a pair of massive shoulders, a giant head, a strangely hooked nose—all this appeared in dark silhouette on the window shade. One instant it was there, the next it was gone. Only the eerie, wind-traced tossing shadows were left.
For a full five minutes Johnny sat there staring. At last, with a heavy sigh, he arose to go.
Once again, as he snapped off the light, then for a period of seconds, stood in the doorway, as on that other night, he was seized with a strange notion, that Pant had not been there, only his ghost; that the strange boy had been killed over there in Ethiopia—his spirit returned to haunt his friends.