Then suddenly it swelled again.

Now Maqueda, who knelt near me, touched my arm and pointed to the shadow which gradually was becoming infiltrated with the moonlight flowing into it from either side.

I looked, and high in the air, perhaps two hundred feet from the ground, saw something dark descending slowly.

Doubtless it was the basket containing Higgs, and whether by coincidence or no, at this moment the lions on the farther side of the wall burst into peal upon peal of terrific roaring.

Perhaps their sentries watching at the gate saw or smelt the familiar basket, and communicated the intelligence to their fellows.
Slowly, slowly it descended, till it was within a few feet of the ground, when it began to sway backward and forward like a pendulum, at each swing covering a wider arc.