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"The Horde? But the Horde, of which you have so often spoken, is now afar." "No, Gesafam. Even to-day I saw their signal-fires on the horizon." The old woman drew an arm about the girl. All barbarian that she was, the eternal, universal spirit of the feminine, pervading her, made her akin with the sorrowing wife. "Go rest," she whispered. "I understand.
As I live, and heaven is above me, in case of civil war he shall be the first to die!" She summoned Gesafam. "Go, now!" she commanded; "go among the remaining Folk and secretly find me a pistol, with ammunition. Steal them if you must. Say nothing, and return as quickly as you can. There be many guns among the Folk. I must have one. Go!" "O, Yulcia, will there be fighting again?" "I know not.
He modified the milk with water and bade the old woman administer it by means of a bit of soft cloth. Allan, Junior, protested with yells, but had to make the best of hard necessity; and, after a long and painful process, was surfeited and dozed off. Gesafam put him to bed on the divan by the fire. "A poor substitute," thought Allan, "but it will sustain life.
Exhausted, terribly shaken in body and soul, yet her eyes triumphant, she once more climbed the precipitous path to her own dwelling. The torch she flung away, down the canyon into the river. She ran to the far recess of the cave, found Gesafam indeed bound and helpless, and quickly freed her. The old woman was shaking like a leaf, and could give no coherent account of what had happened.
Allan realized there was no fight in it. Still cautiously, however, he advanced. Now he touched the figure with his foot, now bent above it and peered down. "Old Gesafam! Heaven above! Wounded! What does this mean?" Starting back, he stared in horror at the old woman, stunned and motionless, with the blood coagulating along an ugly cut on her forehead.
She could not tell when she awoke again. Only she knew that a dim light, as of evening, was glimmering in at the doorway, and that her child was in the bed beside her. "Gesafam!" she called, for she heard some one moving in the cave. "Bring me water!" There came no answer. Beta repeated the command. A curious, sneering mockery startled her.
He therefore prepared and administered a powerful febrifuge, covered the girl with all the available bedding, and determined, if possible, to make her sweat. This done, he found no further means at hand and now turned his attention once more to Gesafam.
To her little son she returned, and in her arms she cherished him in her trembling arms and the tears came at last, welcome and heart-stilling. Old Gesafam, gazing compassionately with troubled eyes that blinked behind their mica shields, laid a comforting hand on the girl's shoulder. "Do not weep, O Yulcia, mistress!" she exclaimed in her own tongue. "Weep not, for there is still hope.
She heard the smashing of the lightning bolts, the roaring shock of the reverberation, then the crash of shattered buildings. A sudden shock awoke her. She thought a falling block of stone had struck her arm. But it was only old Gesafam shaking her in terror. "Oh, Yulcia, noa!" the nurse was crying in terror. "Up! Waken! The cliff falls! Awake, awake!"
Even before Frumnos had returned, with the seventeen men still able to bear arms, he was at work. In Cliff Villa he hastily lashed up half a dozen fireballs, of coarse cloth, thoroughly soaked them in oil, and, with a blazing torch, brought them out to the terrace. Old Gesafam, at his command, bolted the door behind him.
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