That figure no longer sat upright, draped in its white fur cloak, for it had been disturbed, as I shall tell presently, and the cloak was half torn from it.

Now it hung over the arm of the chair, the ghastly white face looking down towards Ralph and beneath it the bare black breast.
Ralph stared, wondering what this might mean.

Then the answer to the riddle flashed into his mind, and he laughed aloud, for here he saw the handiwork of Sihamba.

Yes, that grisly shape told him that his love still lived and that it was to win the secret of her whereabouts that the devil above him had practised torment upon the little doctoress.
Ralph laughed aloud and began to climb the pinnacle.

He might have waited till Jan, who was struggling up the pass after them, arrived with his gun, but he would not wait.