s tall, full-bosomed and large-limbed, with compact shoulders. Her
whole figure reflected an unusual strength, without detracting from the
femininity of her appearance. She was all woman, in spite of her bearing
and her garments. The latter were incongruous, in view of her present
environs. Instead of a skirt she wore short, wide-legged silk breeches,
which ceased a hand's breadth short of her knees, and were upheld by a
wide silken sash worn as a girdle. Flaring-topped boots of soft leather
came almost to her knees, and a low-necked, wide-collared, wide-sleeved
silk shirt completed her costume. On one shapely hip she wore a straight
double-edged sword, and on the other a long dirk. Her unruly golden
hair, cut square at her shoulders, was confined by a band of crimson
satin.

Against the background of somber, primitive forest she posed with an
unconscious picturesqueness, bizarre and out of place. She should have
been posed against a background of sea-clouds, painted masts and
wheeling gulls. There was the color of the sea in her wide eyes. And
that was as it should have been, because this was Valeria of the Red
Brotherhood, whose deeds are celebrated in song and ballad wherever
seafarers gather.

[Illustration: "Convinced that his death was upon him, the Cimmerian
acted according to his instinct."]

She strove to pierce the sullen green roof of the arched branches and
see the sky which presumably lay about it, but presently gave it up with
a muttered oath.

Leaving her horse tied she strode off toward the east, glancing back
toward the pool from time to time in order to fix her route in her mind.
The silence of the forest depressed her. No birds sang in the lofty
boughs, nor did any rustling in the bushes indicate the presence of any
small animals. For leagues she had traveled in a realm of brooding
stillness, broken only by the sounds of her own flight.

She had slaked her thirst at the pool, but she felt the gnawings of
hunger and began looking about for some of the fruit on which she had
sustained herself since exhausting the food she had brought in her
saddle-bags.

Ahead of her, presently, she saw an outcropping of dark, flint-like rock
that sloped upward into what looked like a rugged crag rising among the
trees. Its summit was lost to view amidst a cloud of encircling leaves.
Perhaps its peak rose above the tree-tops, and from it she could see
what lay beyond--if, indeed, anything lay beyond but more of t