Well, the world has seen such exhibitions before to-day, and will doubtless see more of them in the instance of greater peoples who allow luxury and pleasure-seeking to sap their strength and manhood.

The upshot of it all was that the Abati became obsessed with the saying of the Fung scouts to the shepherds, which, after all, was but a repetition of that of their envoys delivered to the Council a little while before:  that they should hasten to destroy the idol Harmac, lest he should move himself to Mur.  How an idol of such proportions, or even its head, could move at all they did not stop to inquire.  It was obvious to them, however, that if he was destroyed there would be nothing to move and, further, that we Gentiles were the only persons who could possibly effect such destruction.  So we also became popular for a little while.  Everybody was pleasant and flattered us—­everybody, even Joshua, bowed when we approached, and took a most lively interest in the progress of our work, which many deputations and prominent individuals urged us to expedite.

Better still, the untoward accidents such as those I have mentioned, ceased.  Our dogs, for we had obtained some others, were no longer poisoned; rocks that appeared fixed did not fall; no arrows whistled among us when we went out riding.  We even found it safe occasionally to dispense with our guards, since it was every one’s interest to keep us alive—­for the present.  Still, I for one was not deceived for a single moment, and in season and out of season warned the others that the wind would soon blow again from a less favourable quarter.

We worked, we worked, we worked!  Heaven alone knows how we did work.  Think of the task, which, after all, was only one of several.  A tunnel must be bored, for I forget how far, through virgin rock, with the help of inadequate tools and unskilled labour, and this tunnel must be finished by a certain date.  A hundred unexpected difficulties arose, and one by one were conquered.  Great dangers must be run, and were avoided, while the responsibility of this tremendous engineering feat lay upon the shoulders of a single individual, Oliver Orme, who, although he had been educated as an engineer, had no great practical experience of such enterprises.

Truly the occasion makes the man, for Orme rose to it in a way that I can only call heroic.  When he was not actually in the tunnel he was labouring at his calculations, of which many must be made, or taking levels with such instruments as he had.  For if there proved to be the slightest error all this toil would be in vain, and result only in the blowing of a useless hole through a mass of rock.  Then there was a great question as to the effect which would be produced by the amount of explosive at his disposal, since terrible as might be the force of the stuff, unless it were scientifically placed and distributed it would assuredly fail to accomplish the desired end.