There was comfort in it, however, for it seemed to him to tell of hunger satisfied, and by- and-by they indeed went off, grunting to each other.

Then there came a long spell of silence.

He gathered the unburnt fragments that fringed the two heaps of embers and piled them on one of the heaps.
They blazed up, and by the light he rearranged the other stacks of fuel.

He realized that he could easily be struck down by a leopard if he ventured away from a fire, and he hit on the idea of building his fires in the shape of a cross, one at the top, one at the bottom, one on each side, and space inside for him to lie down.
Inside he made a bed of reeds, from which he could draw supplies as they were needed.

He fired the top pile, and then, after a long wait, the bottom one, and when that had burnt down to embers, and the night was far advanced, he stretched himself out, protected by four smouldering heaps of ash, that glowed like four red eyes in the dark.
He looked up at the stars for a long time as he rested in his lonely camping-ground, and then dropped into an uneasy sleep.