n. As we went we tore off mouthfuls of food, and between
them I told her what I knew of the danger which encompassed her,
and how we found Kara, and how all the guards and men-servants
were gone, and she was alone with her women in that great place;
and she told me, too, that a rumour had spread through the town
that our army had been utterly destroyed, and that Sorais was
marching in triumph on Milosis, and how in consequence thereof
all men had fallen away from her.

Though all this takes some time to tell, we had not been but
six or seven minutes in the palace; and notwithstanding that
the golden roof of the temple being very lofty was ablaze with
the rays of the rising sun, it was not yet dawn, nor would be
for another ten minutes. We were in the courtyard now, and here
my wound pained me so that I had to take Nyleptha's arm, while
Umslopogaas rolled along after us, eating as he went.

Now we were across it, and had reached the narrow doorway through
the palace wall that opened on to the mighty stair.

I looked through and stood aghast, as well I might. The door
was gone, and so were the outer gates of bronze -- entirely gone.
They had been taken from their hinges, and as we afterwards
found, hurled from the stairway to the ground two hundred feet
beneath. There in front of us was the semicircular standing-space,
about twice the size of a large oval dining-table, and the ten
curved black marble steps leading on to the main stair --
and that was all.

CHAPTER XXII
HOW UMSLOPOGAAS HELD THE STAIR

We looked at one another.

'Thou seest,' I said, 'they have taken away the door. Is there
aught with which we may fill the place? Speak quickly for they
will be on us ere the daylight.' I spoke thus, because I knew
that we must hold this place or none, as there were no inner
doors in the palace, the rooms being separated one from another
by curtains. I also knew that if we could by any means defend
this doorway the murderers could get in nowhere else; for the
palace is absolutely impregnable, that is, since the secret door
by which Sorais had entered on that memorable night of attempted
murder had, by Nyleptha's order, been closed up with masonry.

'I have it,' said Nyleptha, who, as usual with her, rose to the
emergency in a wonderful way. 'On the farther side of the courtyard
are blocks of cut marble -- the workmen brought them there for
the bed of the new statue of Incubu, my lord; let us bloc