It almost seemed to threaten her.
She remembered how she had listened to it in the morning, sitting in the
sunshine, dreaming; and her heart suddenly contracted with a pain
intolerable. Those golden dreams were over for ever. He had given her
up.
Again her restlessness urged her. Cold as it was, she could not bring
herself to go indoors. She descended into the compound, passed swiftly
through it, and began to climb the rough ground of the hill that rose
behind it above the native village.
The Magician's bungalow looked very ghostly in the starlight. Presently
she paused, and stood motionless, gazing down at it. She remembered
how, when she and her uncle had first come to it, the native servants
had told them of the curse that had been laid upon it; of the evil
spirits that had dwelt there; of voices that had cried in the night! Was
it true, she wondered vaguely? Was it possible for a place to be cursed?
A faint breeze ran down the valley, stirring the trees to a furtive
whispering. Again, subconsciously, she was aware of the cold, and moved
to return. At the same moment there came a sound like the report of a
cannon half a mile away, followed by a long roar that was unlike
anything she had ever heard--a sound so appalling, so overwhelming, that
for an instant, seized with a nameless terror, she stood as one turned
to stone.
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