ear. It was the identical signal
he had heard from Sergeant Cardono, the same that had been repeated in
the garden of the royal palace as he stood among the reeds of the cane
brake. Beginning with the low morning twitter of the swallow, it
increased in volume till it carried far over the woodlands, wild and
shrill as he remembered the winter cry of the whaups sweeping down from
the Fife Lomonds to follow the ebb tide as it sullenly recedes from Eden
Mouth towards Tents Muir.

"They are here," he whispered hoarsely to his companion. "It is the
gipsies' battle signal!"

The Basque spread abroad his hands, raising them first to heaven and
anon pointing in the direction of the approaching foe.

"The scourge of God!" he cried, "let the scourge of God descend upon
those that do wickedly! The prayer of a dying man availeth! Let the doom
fall!"

He was silent a moment, and then added with an air of majestic
prophecy--"Oaths and cursings are in their mouths, but, like the dead in
the camp of Sennacherib, they shall be dead and dumb."

Again he spread his hands abroad, as if he pronounced a benediction upon
the sentries posted below.

"Blessed souls," he cried, "for whom we of this Holy House have died
that you might live, cause that your poor vile bodies may fight for us
this night! Let the dead meet the living and the living be over-thrown!
Hear, Almighty Lord of both quick and dead--hear and answer!"

CHAPTER XXXVIII

CONCHA SAYS AMEN

Looking down from their station on the roof, Rollo and the friar could
see what appeared to be the main force of the gipsies drawing near
through the alleys of the wood. They approached in no order or military
formation, which indeed it was never their nature to adopt. But they
came with a sufficiency of confused noise, signalling and crying one to
another through the aisles of the forest.

"They are telling each other to spread out on the wings and encircle the
house on the north," whispered Rollo in a low voice to the Basque friar
by his side.

The monk laughed a low chuckling laugh.

"They will find the holy Hermitage equally well guarded on that side!"
he said. And as they stood silent the rose of dawn began slowly to
unfold itself over the tree-tops with that awful windless stillness
which characterises the day-breaks of the south. The glades of the wood
were filled with a glimmering filmy light, in which it was easy to
imagine the spirits of the dead hovering over