She listened, went to where our murdered guards lay with unstained spears, and looked at them.

“Well for these that they are dead,” she exclaimed.  “Now, Holly, thou seest what is the fruit of mercy.  The men whose lives I gave my lord have failed him at his need.”

Then she passed forward to the spot where Leo was captured.  Here lay a broken sword—­Leo’s—­that had been the Khan Rassen’s, and two dead men.  Both of these were clothed in some tight-fitting black garments, having their heads and faces whitened with chalk and upon their vests a rude imitation of a human skeleton, also daubed in chalk.

“A trick fit to frighten fools with,” she said contemptuously.  “But oh! that Atene should have dared to play the part of Ayesha, that she should have dared!” and she clenched her little hand.  “See, surprised and overwhelmed, yet he fought well.  Say! was he hurt, Holly?  It comes upon me—­no, tell me that I see amiss.”

“Not much, I think,” I answered doubtfully, “a little blood was running from his mouth, no more.  Look, there go the stains of it upon that rock.”

“For every drop I’ll take a hundred lives.  By myself I swear it,” Ayesha muttered with a groan.  Then she cried in a ringing voice,

“Back and to horse, for I have deeds to do this day.  Nay, bide thou here, Holly; we go a shorter path while the army skirts the gorge.  Oros, give him food and drink and bathe that hurt upon his head.  It is but a bruise, for his hood and hair are thick.”

So while Oros rubbed some stinging lotion on my scalp, I ate and drank as best I could till my brain ceased to swim, for the blow, though heavy, had not fractured the bone.  When I was ready they brought the horses to us, and mounting them, slowly we scrambled up the steep bed of the water-course.

“See,” Ayesha said, pointing to tracks and hoof-prints on the plain at its head, “there was a chariot awaiting him, and harnessed to it were four swift horses.  Atene’s scheme was clever and well laid, and I, grown oversure and careless, slept through it all!”

On this plain the army of the Tribes that had broken camp before the dawn was already gathering fast; indeed, the cavalry, if I may call them so, were assembled there to the number of about five thousand men, each of whom had a led horse.  Ayesha summoned the chiefs and captains, and addressed them.  “Servants of Hes,” she said, “the stranger lord, my betrothed and guest, has been tricked by a false priest and, falling into a cunning snare, captured as a hostage.  It is necessary that I follow him fast, before harm comes—­to him.  We move down to attack the army of the Khania beyond the river.  When its passage is forced I pass on with the horsemen, for I must sleep in the city of Kaloon to-night.  What sayest thou, Oros?  That a second and greater army defends its walls?  Man, I know it, and if there is need, that army I will destroy.  Nay, stare not at me.  Already they are as dead.  Horsemen, you accompany me.