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"And now I'm to leave 'em to be massacred, am I?" Herne shrugged his shoulders again, not because he was actually indifferent, but because, under the circumstances, it was the easiest answer to make. Duncannon went on in the same dead-level tone: "Yes, they've been useful to us, these friendlies. They've made common cause with us against those infernal Wandis.
Through the dimness he saw the man beside him rise to his feet. A moment he stood; then flung up his arms above his head in a fierce gesture of renunciation that sent a stab of recollection through Herne. "I! I go to my people!" said the Prophet of the Wandis. "And you will go to yours." It was final, and Herne knew it; yet his heart cried out within him for the friend he had lost.
"A man small of stature, effendi, but very fierce, with the visage of a devil. The Wandis fear him greatly. When he looks upon them with anger they flee." Herne's eyes were striving to pierce the gloom. "Where on earth are we?" he said. "It is the Mullah's dwelling-place, effendi, at the gate of the City of Stones. None may enter or pass out without his knowledge.
"He was not as other white men," came the unmoved reply. "The Wandis feared his magic. Fire alone can destroy magic. He died slowly but he died!" "You devil!" Herne said again. His hand was fumbling feverishly at his bandaged shoulder. He scarcely knew what he was doing. In his impotent fury he sought only for freedom, not caring how he obtained it.
"There's no sense in taking it hard, since there is no help for it. You always knew that it was an absolutely temporary business. Of course, if we could have smashed the Wandis, these chaps would have had a better look-out. But well, we haven't smashed them." "We hadn't enough men!" came fiercely from Duncannon. "True! We couldn't afford to do things on a large scale.
But, before it could be made, a fierce yell rang suddenly from the cliffs above them, echoing weirdly through the savage pandemonium, arresting, authoritative, piercingly insistent. What it portended Herne had not the vaguest notion, but its effect upon the two Wandis who held him was instant and astounding. They dropped him like a stone, and fled as if pursued by furies.
It was as if a red-hot knife had stabbed his shoulder. "What happened?" he said. "The effendi is wounded," the Arab made answer. "We are the prisoners of the Mullah. The Wandis would have slain us, but he saved us alive. Doubtless they will mutilate us presently as they are mutilating the rest." Herne set his teeth. "What is this Mullah like?" he asked, after a moment.
Now was there made fast by the tower's wall, A garden faire, and in the corners set An arbour green with wandis long and small Railed about, and so with leaves beset Was all the place and hawthorn hedges knet, That lyf* was none, walkyng there forbye, That might within scarce any wight espye.
By sheer, indomitable strength of purpose Herne was accomplishing inch by inch the task that he had set himself. A few days more found him traversing the wide, scrub-grown plateau that stretched to the mountains where the Wandis had their dwelling-place. The journey was a bitter one, the heat intense, the difficulties of the way sometimes wellnigh insurmountable.
When, a few minutes later, he stood up, Herne knew that the end had come; knew, too, by the look in the Arab's eyes that they stood themselves on the brink of that great gulf into which the boy's life had but that instant slipped. "The Wandis have returned from a great slaughter," Hassan said. "Their Prophet is with them, and they bring many captives.
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