seemed to dwell neither man nor beast. At sunset they halted
again, and at moonrise went forward till the night turned
towards morning, when they came to a place where was a little
cave.

Before they reached this spot of a sudden the silence of those
lonely hills was broken by a sound of roaring, not very near to
them, but so loud and so long that it echoed and reechoed from
the cliff. At it the horses Flame and Smoke pricked their ears
and trembled, while the mules strove to break away and run back.

"What is that?" asked Wulf, who had never heard its like.

"Lions," answered Masouda. "We draw near the country where there
are many of them, and therefore shall do well to halt presently,
since it is best to pass through that land in daylight."

So when they came to the cave, having heard no more of the lion,
or lions, they unsaddled there, purposing to put the horses into
it, where they would be safe from the attack of any such ravening
beast. But when they tried to do this, Smoke and Flame spread out
their nostrils, and setting their feet firm before them, refused
to enter the place, about which there was an evil smell.

"Perhaps jackals have been here," said Masouda. "Let us tether
them all in the open."

This then they did, building a fire in front of them with dry
wood that lay about in plenty, for here grew sombre cedar trees.
The brethren sat by this fire; but, the night being hot, Masouda
laid herself down about fifteen paces away under a cedar tree,
which grew almost in front of the mouth of the cave, and slept,
being tired with long riding. Wulf slept also, since Godwin had
agreed to keep watch for the first part of the night.

For an hour or more he sat close by the horses, and noted that
they fed uneasily and would not lie down. Soon, however, he was
lost in his own thoughts, and, as he heard no more of the lions,
fell to wondering over the strangeness of their journey and of
what the end of it might be. He wondered also about Masouda, who
she was, how she came to know so much, why she befriended them if
she really was a friend, and other things--for instance, of that
leap over the sunken stream; and whether--no, surely he had been
mistaken, her eyes had never looked at him like that. Why, he was
sleeping at his post, and the eyes in the darkness yonder were
not those of a woman. Women's eyes were not green and gold; they
did not grow large, then lessen and vanish away.

Godwin sprang to his feet.