Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 29, 2025
It was after supper, when Blenkiron had gone peacefully to sleep and I was beginning to count the hours till the morning. I could not close an eye during these days and not much at night. Hussin did not light a lantern. I heard his key in the lock, and then his light step close to where we lay. 'Are you asleep? he said, and when I answered he sat down beside me.
It was a hill stream coming down in spate, and, as I soon guessed, in a deep ravine. Presently we were at its edge, one long whirl of yeasty falls and brown rapids. We could as soon get horses over it as to the topmost cliffs of the Palantuken. Hussin stared at it in consternation. 'May Allah forgive my folly, for I should have known. We must return to the highway and find a bridge.
It depended on Peter, now slumbering like a tired dog on a couch of straw. Hussin had locked the door and I must wait for information till he came back. But suddenly I noticed a trap in the roof, which had evidently been used for raising and lowering the cellar's stores.
'It is time to leave the road, said Hussin, 'or we may meet inquisitive folk. We struck to the left, over ground which was for all the world like a Scotch moor. There were pools of rain on it, and masses of tangled snow-laden junipers, and long reefs of wet slaty stone. It was bad going, and the fog made it hopeless to steer a good course.
There horses stood, champing quietly from their nosebags. 'Good, I thought; 'a feed of oats before a big effort. There were nine beasts for nine riders. We mounted without a word and filed through a grove of trees to where a broken paling marked the beginning of cultivated land. There for the matter of twenty minutes Hussin chose to guide us through deep, clogging snow.
'I'm hungry, he said. 'Let's have out the food, Hussin. We've eaten nothing since before daybreak. I wonder what is the meaning of this respite? I fancied I knew. 'It's Stumm's way, I said. 'He wants to torture us. He'll keep us hours on tenterhooks, while he sits over yonder exulting in what he thinks we're enduring.
I was awakened by a pressure below my left ear. I thought it was Peter, for it is the old hunter's trick of waking a man so that he makes no noise. But another voice spoke. It told me that there was no time to lose and to rise and follow, and the voice was the voice of Hussin. Peter was awake, and we stirred Blenkiron out of heavy slumber.
There were no signs of Sandy; somewhere within a hundred yards he was fighting his own battles, and I was tormented by the thought that he might get jumpy again and wreck everything. A strange Companion brought us food, a man who spoke only Turkish and could tell us nothing; Hussin, I judged, was busy about the horses.
But he was as game as a buffalo, and started in gallantly till his arms gave out and he fairly stuck. I was mighty thankful when I got him panting on the top and Hussin had shinned up beside us. We crawled along a broadish wall, with an inch or two of powdery snow on it, and then up a sloping buttress on to the flat roof of the house.
Hussin and Peter set off on different sides of the road to prospect for a house, and Blenkiron and I sheltered under the nearest rock and smoked savagely. Hussin was the first to strike oil. He came back in twenty minutes with news of some kind of dwelling a couple of miles up the stream. He went off to collect Peter, and, humping our baggage, Blenkiron and I plodded up the waterside.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking