IN DESERT AND WILDERNESS
205
And he did not finish, for at that moment something awe-inspiring occurred. Amid the stillness of the night, in the depths of the ravine, from the direction in which the corpses lay suddenly resounded a kind of inhuman, frightful laughter in which quivered despair, and joy, and cruelty, and suffering, and pain, and sobbing, and derision; the heart-rending and spasmodic laughter of the insane or condemned.
Nell screamed, and with her whole strength embraced Stas with her arms. Stas' hair stood on end. Saba started up suddenly and began to growl.
But Kali, sitting at some distance, quietly raised his head and said almost gleefully:
"Those are hyenas gloating over Gebhr and the lion—"
