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Updated: June 15, 2025
Presently Leo rose, the water running from his face and beard, and said "What shall we do now? The river seems to be wide, over a hundred yards, and it is low, but there may be deep water in the middle. Shall we try to cross, in which case we might drown, or stop where we are till daylight and take our chance of the death-hounds?"
I had been spared partly because, for some unknown reason, she was afraid to kill me, and partly that she might learn how much I knew, although the "death-hounds had bayed," whatever that might mean. Well, up to the present I was safe, and for the rest I must take my chance. Moreover it was necessary to be cautious, and, if need were, to feign ignorance.
"And who can blame you?" Simbri replied with one of his slow, mysterious smiles. Then we parted, and having placed both our beds in one chamber, slept soundly enough, for we were very tired, till we were awakened in the morning by the baying of those horrible death-hounds, being fed, I suppose, in a place nearby.
Thus they had to arrange to meet; the husband to obtain food to sustain life, and the wife to administer to him. On this particular night their meeting was unusually impressive. She had heard the death-hounds, the sound of the gun-shot, and she knew the yelps of the hounds and the shot were intended for Ben, her husband. With no crime laid to him, he was hunted down as a wild beast.
There, about a hundred yards off, were the death-hounds, but Heaven be praised! only three of them. The rest had followed the flying horses, and doubtless when they caught them at last, which may have been far distant, had stopped to gorge themselves upon them. So they were out of the fight.
First she led us to the kennels where the death-hounds were kept, great flagged courts surrounded by iron bars, in which were narrow, locked gates. Never had I seen brutes so large and fierce; the mastiffs of Thibet were but as lap-dogs compared to them.
"Hospitality we had and to spare, but we were sped from her Court hitherward by the death-hounds of the Khan, her husband. Tell us, Priestess, what thou knowest of this journey of ours." "A little," she answered carelessly.
Now he would have spoken, but with a motion of her hand she bade him be silent, and continued "See now, Leo, three great dangers has thy body passed of late upon its journey to my side; the Death-hounds, the Mountains, and the Precipice. Know that these were but types and ordained foreshadowings of the last threefold trial of thy soul.
What followed I will not describe, but never shall I forget the scene of those two heaps of worrying wolves, and of the maniac Khan, who yelled in his fiendish joy, and cheered on his death-hounds to finish their red work. Horrified, sick at heart, we continued our journey. No wonder that the Khania hated such a mad despot.
"To which chamber, Khania?" he said with meaning. "I think," she answered slowly, "to one that is healthful, where he will recover. The man has wisdom," she added as though in explanation, "moreover, having the word from the Mountain, to harm him would be dangerous. But why do you ask?" He shrugged his shoulders. "I tell you I heard the death-hounds bay, that is all.
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