a
shrill whistle blew, and the pickets put their horses at the bank and
started across the moor.

'Did I not say this mist was from Eblis?' growled Hussin, as we swung
round and galloped back on our tracks. 'These cursed Zaptiehs have
seen us, and our road is cut.'

I was for trying the stream at all costs, but Hussin pointed out that
it would do us no good. The cavalry beyond the bridge was moving up
the other bank. 'There is a path through the hills that I know, but it
must be travelled on foot. If we can increase our lead and the mist
cloaks us, there is yet a chance.'

It was a weary business plodding up to the skirts of the hills. We had
the pursuit behind us now, and that put an edge on every difficulty.
There were long banks of broken screes, I remember, where the snow
slipped in wreaths from under our feet. Great boulders had to be
circumvented, and patches of bog, where the streams from the snows
first made contact with the plains, mired us to our girths. Happily
the mist was down again, but this, though it hindered the chase,
lessened the chances of Hussin finding the path.

He found it nevertheless. There was the gully and the rough mule-track
leading upwards. But there also had been a landslip, quite recent from
the marks. A large scar of raw earth had broken across the hillside,
which with the snow above it looked like a slice cut out of an iced
chocolate-cake.

We stared blankly for a second, till we recognized its hopelessness.

'I'm trying for the crags,' I said. 'Where there once was a way
another can be found.'

'And be picked off at their leisure by these marksmen,' said Hussin
grimly. 'Look!'

The mist had opened again, and a glance behind showed me the pursuit
closing up on us. They were now less than three hundred yards off. We
turned our horses and made off east-ward along the skirts of the cliffs.

Then Sandy spoke for the first time. 'I don't know how you fellows
feel, but I'm not going to be taken. There's nothing much to do except
to find a place and put up a fight. We can sell our lives dearly.'

'That's about all,' said Blenkiron cheerfully. He had suffered such
tortures on that gallop that he welcomed any kind of stationary fight.

'Serve out the arms,' said Sandy.

The Companions all carried rifles slung across their shoulders. Hussin,
from a deep saddle-bag, brought out rifles and bandoliers for the rest
of us. As I laid mine across my saddle-bow I saw i