There was only one thing that could protect him in the night, and that was fire.

With a feverish energy, regardless now of the rustlings about his little island, he began to cut the tallest of the reeds that were hard and sapless, and these he banked in six heaps round the base of the mound; and when the task was done he reared a bigger pile in the centre as a reserve.
Then the black of the night swept over the reeds quick almost as the shadow of a cloud, and with the dark came a sad rustling, as of a thousand whisperings.

It was still and not still.

Up in the sky was the quietness of a still night, the stars watching and brooding over the silence; but down below, in and out of the miles and miles of avenues, stretching every way through the millions of smooth gleaming stems, came a whispering as if creatures were moving tip- toe, moving up nearer and nearer, treading carefully, watching and listening.

An owl brushed like a shadow overhead, and his loud "whoo-whoo" floated away in sadness and sorrow.
He sat with his back to the reserve heap of reeds, and waited with his rifle over his knees for the signal to fire his first pile.
There was as yet no clear meaning in those mysterious whisperings.
What he listened for was a sound that he could interpret, and it came very soon in the grunt of a leopard, harsh and grating.