the squat, white walls, the dark sweep of the encircling tunal, and, strong clasp for that thorny girdle, the too formidable battery defending the one apparent opening.  “Another path!” he said to himself.  “Masked and hidden, unguarded, known only to their leaders....  To come upon them from the rear while, catlike, they watch the highway yonder!” His breath came in a long sigh of satisfaction.  “What if he lies?  Why should he lie, seeing that he is in our power?  But if he does ...”

Minutes passed and yet he stood there, gazing with thoughtful eyes at hill and fortress rising above the silent town.  Finally he went over to Robin-a-dale, asleep upon a pallet, and shaking him awake, bade the lad to follow him but make no noise.  To the sentinels at the great door, in the square, at the edge of the town, he gave the word of the night, and so issued with the boy from the huddle of flat-roofed houses, overhung by palm-trees, to the open plain.

Overhead innumerable stars, between heaven and earth incalculable swarms of luminous insects, from the soil a heavy exhalation as of musk, here arid places, there cacti like columns, like candelabra, like dark writhing fingers thrust from the teeming earth;—­Robin-a-dale liked not the place, wondered what dangerous errand his master was upon, but since he as greatly feared as greatly loved the man he served, cared not to ask.  Presently Ferne turned, and a few moments found them climbing the long western slope of the hill, above them the dim outline of the fortress, the dark fringe of the tunal.  Half-way up they came to a little rocky plateau, and here Ferne paused, hesitated a moment, then sat down upon a great stone and looked out to sea.  He was waiting for the moon to rise, for with her white finger she must point out that old way through the tunal of which Master Francis Sark had told him.  Was it indeed there?  The man, he thought, had all the marks of a liar.  Again, why should he lie, being in their power?—­unless treachery were so ingrained that it was his natural speech.  By all the tokens Sark had given, the opening should not be fifty yards away.  When the moon rose he would see for himself....

A pale radiance in the east proclaimed her approach.  Since wait he must he waited patiently, and by degrees withdrew his mind from his errand and from strife and plotting.  The boy crouched in silence beside him.  There was air upon these heights, and the stir of it made Robin-a-dale to shiver.  He gazed about him fearfully, for it was a dismal place.  From behind those piled rocks, from the shadow of those strange trees, what things might creep or spring?  Robin thought it time that the adventure were ended, and had he dared had said as much.  Lights were burning upon the Cygnet where she rode in the pale river, near to the Phoenix, with the Mere Honour and the Marigold just beyond, and there came over the boy a great homesickness for her decks.  He crept as closely as he might to her Captain, sitting there as quietly as if the teeming, musky soil were good Devon earth, and that phosphorescent ocean the gray waves of English seas, and he laid his hand upon Sir Mortimer’s booted knee, and so was somewhat comforted.