the cave and slept all that day like children. Whether or no
meanwhile their enemies drew near they never discovered: but Prior,
awaking towards nightfall, saw the hermit still seated at the
entrance as they had found him, and lay for a while listening to the
click of his rosary as he told bead after bead.

He must, however, have held some communication with the unseen
village in the valley: for three bowls of milk and rice stood ready
for them. They supped, forbearing--upon Bhagwan Dass's advice--to
question him, though eager to know if he had a mind to help them
further, and how he might contrive it. Until moonrise he gave no
sign at all; then rising gravely, crutch and bowl in hand, stepped a
pace or two beyond the entrance and whistled twice--as they supposed
for a guide. But the only guides that answered were two small
mountain foxes--a vixen and her half-grown cub--that came bounding
around an angle of the rock and fawned about his feet while he
caressed them and spoke to them softly in a tongue which none of the
party understood. And so they all set out, turning their faces
westward and keeping to the upper ridges; the foxes trotting always a
few paces ahead and showing the way.

All that night they walked as in a dream, and came at daybreak to a
ledge with a shrine upon it, and in the shrine a stone figure of a
goddess, and below the ledge--perhaps half a mile below it--a village
clinging dizzily to the mountain-side.--There was no food in the
shrine, only a few withered wreaths of marigolds: but the holy man
must have spoken to his foxes, for at dawn a priest came toiling up
the slope with a filled bowl so ample that his two arms scarcely
embraced it. The priest set down the food, took the hermit's
blessing and departed in silence: and this was the only human
creature they saw on their journey. Not for all their solicitation
would the hermit join them in eating: and at this they marvelled most
of all: for he had walked far and moderately fast, yet seemed to feel
less fatigue than any of them. That night, as soon as the moon rose,
he started afresh with the same long easy stride, and the foxes led
the way as before.

The dawn rose, but this time he gave no signal for halting: and the
cool of morning was almost ended when he led them out through the
last broken crests of the ridge and, pointing to a broad plain at
their feet, told them that henceforward they might fare in safety.
A broad road traverse