eaward entrance to the cavern. At the end of two
weeks the sergeant resolved to make another attack. The man, he thought,
must surely have been starved to death, as every avenue of aid had long
since been blocked.

So one moonlight night at ebb tide the crowd of soldiers crept into the
cavern and lashed two long ladders together, and began to climb up the
precipice. But a strong arm seized the ladders from above, and flung
them back on the granite floor of the cave. Standing like a ghost in the
faint, silvery radiance falling through the hole in the cliff, Rohan
hurled down upon the dark mass of the besieging crowd great fragments of
rock which he had placed, ready for use, along the ledge on which he
slept.

"Fire Fire!" shrieked the sergeant, pointing at the white figure of
Rohan.

But before the command could be obeyed, Rohan got under shelter, and the
bullets rained harmlessly round the spot where he had just stood. Then,
under cover of fire, some men advanced and again placed the ladder
against the precipice. As Rohan crouched down on the ledge, he was
startled by the apparition of a human face. With a cry of rage, he
sprang to his feet, and, heedless of the bullets thudding on the rock
around him, he slowly and painfully lifted up a terrible granite
boulder, poised it for a moment over his head, and then hurled it down
at the shapes dimly struggling below him. There was a crash, a shriek.
Under the weight of the boulder the ladders broke, and the men upon them
fell down, amid horrible cries of agony and terror.

What happened after this Rohan never knew; for, overcome by frenzy and
fatigue, he swooned away. When he opened his eyes, he was lying beneath
the hole in the cliff, with the moonlight streaming upon his face. From
below him came the soft sound of lapping water, and, looking down, he
saw that the tide had entered the cave, and forced the besiegers to give
over their attack.

Yes, the battle was over, and he had conquered! His position indeed was
impregnable; had he been well supplied with food, he could have held it
against hundreds of men for a long period. But, as he laid down on his
bed of seaweed, a rough tongue licked his hand. It was his goat,
Jannedik. For the last fortnight, Rohan's mother had sent the goat every
day to her son with a basket of food tied round its neck and hidden in
the long hair of its throat. Rohan groped in the darkness for the
basket, and Jannedik uttered a low cry of pai