g them. On either side
of their line for a hundred paces the ground glows with heat, and a man
would be turned to ash who tried to cross it. Round full one-half the
mountain slopes the fires make a rampart unbreakable, and on the other
side the rock runs in one sheer precipice from the crest to the plain
which spreads beyond its foot. But it is on this farther side that there
is the only entrance way which gives passage to the crest of the Sacred
Mountain from below. Running diagonally up the steep face of the cliff
is a gigantic fissure, which succeeding ages (as man has grown more
luxurious) have made more easy to climb.

Looking at the additions, in the ancient days, I can well imagine that
none but the most daring could have made the ascent. But one generation
has thrown a bridge over a bad gap here, and another has cut into the
living stone and widened a ledge there, till in these latter years there
is a path with cut steps and carved balustrade such as the feeblest or
most giddy might traverse with little effort or exertion. But always
when these improvers made smooth the obstacles, they were careful to
weaken in no possible way the natural defences but rather to add to
them.

Eight gates of stone there were cutting the pathway, each commanding
a straight, steep piece of the ascent, and overhanging each gate was a
gallery secure from arrow-shot, yet so contrived that great stones could
be hurled through holes in the floor of it, in such a manner that they
must irretrievably smash to a pulp any men advancing against it from
below. And in caves dug out from the rock on either hand was a great
hoard of these stones, so that no enemy through sheer expenditure of
troops could hope to storm a gate by exhausting its ammunition.

But though there were eight of these granite gates in the series, we had
the whole number to depend on no longer. The lowest gate was held by
a garrison of Phorenice's troops, who had built a wall above them to
protect their occupation. The gate had been gained by no brilliant feat
of arms--it had been won by threats, bribery, and promises; or, in other
words, it had been given up by the blackest treachery.

And here lay the keynote of the weakness in our defence. The most
perfect ramparts that brain can invent are useless without men to line
them, and it was men we lacked. Of students entering into the colleges
of the Sacred Mountain, there had been none now for many a year. The
younger gene