Just as I was about to leave Maqueda and return with her message to Orme, to the effect that she would not move, the final catastrophe occurred.  Amongst the stables was a large shed filled with dry fodder for the palace horses and camels.  Suddenly this burst into a mass of flame that spread in all directions.  Then came the last, hideous panic.  From every part of the palace, the Mountaineers, men and officers together, rushed down to the gateway.  In a minute, with the single exception of Japhet, we four and Maqueda were left alone upon the roof, where we stood overwhelmed, not knowing what to do.  We heard the drawbridge fall; we heard the great doors burst upon beneath the pressure of a mob of men; we heard a coarse voice—­I thought it was that of Joshua—­yell: 

“Kill whom you will, my children, but death to him who harms the Child of Kings.  She is my spoil!”

Then followed terrible sights and sounds.  The cunning Abati had stretched ropes outside the doors; it was the noise they made at this work which had reached Roderick’s ears earlier during the darkness.  The terrified soldiers, flying from the fire, stumbled and fell over these ropes, nor could they rise again because of those who pressed behind.  What happened to them all I am sure I do not know, but doubtless many were crushed to death and many more killed by Joshua’s men.  I trust, however, that some of them escaped, since, compared to the rest of the Abati, they were as lions are to cats, although, like all their race, they lacked the stamina to fight an uphill game.

It was at the commencement of this terrific scene that I shot the foul-mouthed singer.

“You shouldn’t have done that, old fellow,” screamed Higgs in his high voice, striving to make himself heard above the tumult, “as it will show those swine where we are.”

“I don’t think they will look for us here, anyway,” I answered.

Then we watched awhile in silence.

“Come,” said Orme at length, taking Maqueda by the hand.

“Where are you going, O Oliver?” she asked, hanging back.  “Sooner will I burn than yield to Joshua.”

“I am going to the cave city,” he answered; “we have nowhere else to go, and little time to lose.  Four men with rifles can hold that place against a thousand.  Come.”

“I obey,” she answered, bowing her head.

We went down the stairway that led from the roof on which the inhabitants of the palace were accustomed to spend much of their day, and even to sleep in hot weather, as is common in the East.  Another minute and we should have been too late.  The fire from one of the domes had spread to the upper story, and was already appearing in little tongues of flame mingled with jets of black smoke through cracks in the crumbling partition wall.

As a matter of fact this wall fell in just as my son Roderick, the last of us, was passing down the stairs.  With the curiosity of youth he had lingered for a few moments to watch the sad scene below, a delay which nearly cost him his life.