and Red Eve and you leapt into the Blythe and
swam it."

"Ay," said Hugh, looking up idly, "but did you say two years, Dick? Nay,
surely 'tis a score. Why," he added in a changed voice, "who may that be
in the hollow?" and he pointed to a tall figure which stood beneath them
at a distance, half-hidden by the dank snow-mists.

"Let us go and see," said Dick, speaking almost in a whisper, for
there was that about this figure which sent the blood to his throat and
cheeks.

He drove the spurs into his tired horse's sides, causing it to leap
forward.

Half a minute later they had ridden down the slope of the hollow. A
puff of wind that came with the sun drove away the mist. Dick uttered
a choking cry and leapt from his saddle. For there, calm, terrible,
mighty, clothed in his red and yellow cap and robe of ebon furs, stood
he who was named Murgh the Fire, Murgh the Sword, Murgh the Helper,
Murgh, Gateway of the Gods!

They knelt before him in the snow, while, screaming in their fright, the
horses fled away.

"Knight and Archer," said Murgh, in his icy voice, counting with the
thumb of his white-gloved right hand upon the hidden fingers of his
left. "Friends, you keep your tryst, but there are more to come. Have
patience, there are more to come."

Then he became quiet, nor dared they ask him any questions. Only at a
motion of his arm they rose from their knees and stood before him.

A long while they stood thus in silence, till under Murgh's dreadful
gaze Hugh's brain began to swim. He looked about him, seeking some
natural thing to feed his eyes. Lo! yonder was that which he might
watch, a hare crouching in its form not ten paces distant. See, out of
the reeds crept a great red fox. The hare smelt or saw, and leaped
away. The fox sprang at it, too late, for the white fangs closed emptily
behind its scut. Then with a little snarl of hungry rage it turned and
vanished into the brake.

The hare and the fox, the dead reeds, the rising sun, the snow--oh, who
had told him of these things?

Ah! he remembered now, and that memory set the blood pulsing in his
veins. For where these creatures were should be more besides Grey Dick
and himself and the Man of many names.

He looked toward Murgh to see that he had bent himself and with his
gloved hand was drawing lines upon the snow. Those lines when they were
done enclosed the shape of a grave!

"Archer," said Murgh, "unsheath your axe and dig."

As though he understood