“Then Black Windows and the soldier his companion fought a good fight, they two holding the narrow passage against many, and slaying a number of them with their terrible weapons.  The end of it was, men of the mountains, that the warrior Quick, charging down the passage, drove away those servants of Joshua who remained alive.  But in so doing he was wounded to the death.  Yes, that brave man lies dead, having given his life to save the Child of Kings from the hands of her own people.  Black Windows also was wounded—­see the bandages about his head.  Then came the Lord Orme and the Doctor Adams, and with them your brother Japhet, who had barely escaped with their lives from the cave city, and knowing that I was no longer safe in the palace, where even my sleeping-room has been drenched with blood, with them I have fled to you for succour.  Will you not protect me, O men of the mountain-side?”

“Yes, yes,” they answered with a great shout.  “Command we obey.  What shall we do, O Child of Kings?”

Now Maqueda called the officers of the regiment apart and consulted with them, asking their opinions, one by one.  Some of them were in favour of finding out where Joshua might be, and attacking him at once.  “Crush the snake’s head and its tail will soon cease wriggling!” these said, and I confess this was a view that in many ways commended itself to us.

But Maqueda would have none of it.

“What!” she exclaimed, “shall I begin a civil war among my people when for aught I know the enemy is at our gates?” adding aside to us, “also, how can these few hundred men, brave though they be, hope to stand against the thousands under the command of Joshua?”

“What, then, would you do?” asked Orme.

“Return to the palace with these Mountaineers, O Oliver, and by help of that garrison, hold it against all enemies.”

“Very well,” he replied.  “To those who are quite lost one road is as good as another; they must trust to the stars to guide them.”

“Quite so,” echoed Higgs; “and the sooner we go the better, for my leg hurts, and I want a sleep.”

So Maqueda gave her commands to the officers, by whom they were conveyed to the regiment, which received them with a shout, and instantly began to strike its camp.

Then it was, coming hot-foot after so much sorrow, loss and doubt, that there followed the happiest event of all my life.  Utterly tired out and very despondent, I was seated on an arrow-chest awaiting the order to march, idly watching Oliver and Maqueda talking with great earnestness at a little distance, and in the intervals trying to prevent poor Higgs at my side from falling asleep.  While I was thus engaged, suddenly I heard a disturbance, and by the bright moonlight caught sight of a man being led into the camp in charge of a guard of Abati soldiers, whom from their dress I knew to belong to a company that just then was employed in watching the lower gates of the pass.