We were challenged by both the first and second lines of sentries, and I noticed that as we gave them the password the last picket, who of course recognized us, looked astonished.  Still, if they had doubts they did not dare to express them.  So we went on.

Now we began to descend the sides of the ravine by a very steep path, with which the priest, our guide, seemed to be curiously familiar, for he went down it as though it were the stairway of his own house.

“A strange place to take us to at night,” said Leo doubtfully, when we were near the bottom and the chief of the bodyguard, that great red-bearded hunter who had been mixed up in the matter of the snow-leopard also muttered some words of remonstrance.  Whilst I was trying to catch what he said, of a sudden something white walked into the patch of moonlight at the foot of the ravine, and we saw that it was the veiled figure of Ayesha herself.  The chief saw her also and said contentedly—­“Hes!  Hes!”

“Look at her,” grumbled Leo, “strolling about in that haunted hole as though it were Hyde Park;” and on he went at a run.

The figure turned and beckoned to us to follow her as she glided forward, picking her way through the skeletons which were scattered about upon the lava bed of the cleft.  Thus she went on into the shadow of the opposing cliff that the moonlight did not reach.  Here in the wet season a stream trickled down a path which it had cut through the rock in the course of centuries, and the grit that it had brought with it was spread about the lava floor of the ravine, so that many of the bones were almost completely buried in the sand.

These, I noticed, as we stepped into the shadow, were more numerous than usual just here, for on all sides I saw the white crowns of skulls, or the projecting ends of ribs and thigh bones.  Doubtless, I thought to myself, that streamway made a road to the plain above, and in some past battle, the fighting around it was very fierce and the slaughter great.

Here Ayesha had halted and was engaged in the contemplation of this boulder-strewn path, as though she meditated making use of it that day.  Now we drew near to her, and the priest who guided us fell back with our guard, leaving us to go forward alone, since they dared not approach the Hesea unbidden.  Leo was somewhat in advance of me, seven or eight yards perhaps, and I heard him say—­“Why dost thou venture into such places at night, Ayesha, unless indeed it is not possible for any harm to come to thee?”

She made no answer, only turned and opened her arms wide, then let them fall to her side again.  Whilst I wondered what this signal of hers might mean, from the shadows about us came a strange, rustling sound.

I looked, and lo! everywhere the skeletons were rising from their sandy beds.  I saw their white skulls, their gleaming arm and leg bones, their hollow ribs.  The long-slain army had come to life again, and look! in their hands were the ghosts of spears.