The Rajah's Fortress — page 251: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

238 THE RAJAH’S FORTRESS. listening with deep interest to Loyd’s tale of his adventures in captivity. Guy was restless, and felt half inclined to make the attack on the fortress at once, but Loyd as- sured him that fully one-half of the enemy were no doubt in the fortress now and would go forth at dawn to join the attacking party. Another thing in their favor was this. A large part of the enemy were still absent, scouring the country toward the Sarawong, and up to the time Loyd left they had not returned. Probably forty or fifty dacoits still remained, Loyd said, and the greater part of these, more from curiosity than from any necessity for their services, would be present at the attack. Subsequentevents fully backed up Loyd’s assertion. Before daybreak birds twittered in the jungle and a distant tiger cat or leopard wailed mourn- fully. The sky paled gradually, the stars vanished one by one, and the ghostly rocks around them took shape and color until the night had faded into the dawn, and they were on the threshold of another day. | Topee had spent half the night watching at the far end of the cavern, and he now returned with the information that all was quiet and that no further attempt had been made to force open the stone. It was now fully daylight and yet no sign of the coming storm. COLUM 1OOO SS co