She turned with a quick movement and disappeared amongst her slaves, who closed in their ranks behind her, and followed her rapidly down the path.  Nehushta remained standing upon the grass, peering after her retreating enemy through the gloom; for the glow had faded from the western sky while they had been speaking, and it was now dusk.

Suddenly, as she stood, almost transfixed with the horror of her fearful anger, that strange cry rang again through the lofty crags and crests of the mountains, and echoed and died away.

Nehushta’s slave-women, who had hung back in fear and trembling during the altercation between the two queens, came forward and gathered about her.

“What is it?” asked the queen in a low voice, for her own heart beat with the anticipation of a sudden danger.  “It is the cry of your fate,” Atossa had said—­verily it sounded like the scream of a coming death.

“It is the Druksh of the mountains!” said one.

“It is the howling of wolves,” said another, a Median woman from the Zagros mountains.

“The war-cry of the children of Anak is like that,” said a little Syrian maid, and her teeth chattered with fear.

As they listened, crouching and pressing about their royal mistress in their terror, they heard below in the road, the sound of horses and men moving quickly past the foot of the gardens.  It was Atossa and her train, hurrying along the highway in the direction of the fortress.

Nehushta suddenly pushed the slaves aside, and fled down the path towards the palace, and the dark women hurried after.  One of them stooped and picked up the Indian knife and hid it in her bosom as she ran.

The whole truth had flashed across Nehushta’s mind in an instant.  Some armed force was collecting upon the hills to descend in a body upon the palace, to accomplish her destruction.  Atossa had fled to a place of safety, after enjoying the pleasure of tormenting her doomed enemy to the last moment, well knowing that no power would induce Nehushta to accompany her.  But one thought filled Nehushta’s mind in her instantaneous comprehension of the truth; she must find Zoroaster, and warn him of the danger.  They would have time to fly together, yet.  Atossa must have known how to time her flight, since the plot was hers, and she had not yet been many minutes upon the road.

Through the garden she ran, and up the broad steps to the portico.  Slaves were moving about under the colonnade, leisurely lighting the great torches that burned there all night.  They had not heard the strange cries from the hills; or, hearing only a faint echo, had paid no attention to the sound.