the man burst its bonds.

"Muriel!" he cried passionately. "Muriel! Stay with me, look at
me, love me! There is nothing in the mountains to draw you. It is
here--here beside you, touching you, holding you. O God," he prayed
brokenly, "she doesn't understand me. Let her understand,--open her
eyes,--make her see!"

His agony reached her, touched her, for a moment held her. She turned
her eyes back to his tortured face.

"But, Nick," she said softly, "I can see."

He bent lower. "Yes?" he said, in a choked voice. "Yes?"

She regarded him with a faint wonder. Her eyes were growing heavy, as
the eyes of a tired child. She raised one hand and pointed vaguely.

"Over there," she said wearily. "Can't you see them? Then perhaps it
was a dream, or even--perhaps--a vision. Don't you remember how
it went? 'And behold--the mountain--was full--of horses--and
chariots--of--fire!' God sent them, you know."

The tired voice ceased. Her head sank lower upon Nick's breast. She
gave a little quivering sigh, and seemed to sleep.

And Nick turned his tortured eyes upon the pass below him, and stared
downwards spellbound.

Was he dreaming also? Or was it perchance a vision--the trick of his
fevered fancy? There, at his feet, not fifty yards from where he sat,
he beheld men, horses, guns, winding along in a narrow, unbroken line
as far as he could see.

A great surging filled his ears, and through it he heard himself shout
once, twice, and yet a third time to the phantom army below.

The surging swelled in his brain to a terrific tumult--a confusion
indescribable. And then something seemed to crack inside his head.
The dark peaks swayed giddily against the darkening sky, and toppled
inwards without sound.

The last thing he knew was the call of a bugle, tense and shrill as
the buzz of a mosquito close to his ear. And he laughed aloud to think
how so small a thing had managed to deceive him.

PART II

CHAPTER VIII

COMRADES

The jingling notes of a piano playing an air from a comic opera
floated cheerily forth into the magic silence of the Simla pines, and
abruptly, almost spasmodically, a cracked voice began to sing. It was
a sentimental ditty treated jocosely, and its frivolity rippled out
into the mid-day silence with something of the effect of a monkey's
chatter. The _khitmutgar_ on the verandah would have looked
scandalised or at best contemptuous had it not been his role to
express nothing but the digni