“Perhaps,” I answered.  “Something of the sort was working in my mind but I had no time to think it out.”

Turning, I explained the idea to Ragnall, adding: 

“I pray you not to be rash.  If you are, not only may we be killed, which does not so much matter, but it is very probable that even if they spare us they will put an end to your wife rather than suffer one whom they look upon as holy and who is necessary to their faith in its last struggle to be separated from her charge of the Child.”

This was a fortunate argument of mine and one which went home.

“To lose her now would be more than I could bear,” he muttered.

“Then will you promise to let me try to manage this affair and not to interfere with me and show violence?”

He hesitated a moment and answered: 

“Yes, I promise, for you two are cleverer than I am and—­I cannot trust my judgment.”

“Good,” I said, assuming an air of confidence which I did not feel.  “Now we will go down to call upon Harut and his friends.  I want to have a closer look at that temple.”

So behind our screen of bushes we wriggled back a little distance till we knew that the slope of the ground would hide us when we stood up.  Then as quickly as we could we made our way eastwards for something over a quarter of a mile and after this turned to the north.  As I expected, beyond the ring of the crater we found ourselves on the rising, tree-clad bosom of the mountain and, threading our path through the cedars, came presently to that track or roadway which led to the eastern gate of the amphitheatre.  This road we followed unseen until presently the gateway appeared before us.  We walked through it without attracting any attention, perhaps because all the people were either talking together, or praying, or perhaps because like themselves we were wrapped in white robes.  At the mouth of the tunnel we stopped and I called out in a loud voice: 

“The white lords and their servant have come to visit Harut, as he invited them to do.  Bring us, we pray you, into the presence of Harut.”

Everyone wheeled round and stared at us standing there in the shadow of the gateway tunnel, for the sun behind us was still low.  My word, how they did stare!  A voice cried: 

“Kill them!  Kill these strangers who desecrate our temple.”

“What!” I answered.  “Would you kill those to whom your high-priest has given safe-conduct; those moreover by whose help alone, as your Oracle has just declared, you can hope to slay Jana and destroy his hosts?”

“How do they know that?” shouted another voice.  “They are magicians!”

“Yes,” I remarked, “all magic does not dwell in the hearts of the White Kendah.  If you doubt it, go to look at the Watcher in the Cave whom your Oracle told you is dead.  You will find that it did not lie.”

As I spoke a man rushed through the gates, his white rob streaming on the wind, shouting as he emerged from the tunnel: