ouched upon the
top of the precipice, watching Mur as a beast of prey watches the victim
upon which it is about to spring. "I know when dreams true and when
dreams false; it my gift, like my voice. I know that this dream true,
that all," and as he ceased speaking I saw his eyes catch Maqueda's, and
a very curious glance pass between them.

As for Orme, he only said:

"You Easterns are strange people, and if you believe a thing, Maqueda,
there may be something in it. But you understand that this message of
yours means war to the last, a very unequal war," and he looked at the
hordes of the Abati gathering on the great square.

"Yes," she answered quietly, "I understand, but however sore our
straits, and however strange may seem the things that happen, have no
fear of the end of that war, O my friends."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE BURNING OF THE PALACE

Orme was right. Maqueda's defiance did mean war, "an unequal war." This
was our position. We were shut up in a long range of buildings, of which
one end had been burned, that on account of their moat and double wall,
if defended with any vigour, could only be stormed by an enemy of great
courage and determination, prepared to face a heavy sacrifice of
life. This was a circumstance in our favour, since the Abati were not
courageous, and very much disliked the idea of being killed, or even
injured.

But here our advantage ended. Deducting those whom we had lost on
the previous night, the garrison only amounted to something over four
hundred men, of whom about fifty were wounded, some of them dangerously.
Moreover, ammunition was short, for they had shot away most of their
arrows in the battle of the square, and we had no means of obtaining
more. But, worst of all, the palace was not provisioned for a siege,
and the mountaineers had with them only three days' rations of sun-dried
beef or goat's flesh, and a hard kind of biscuit made of Indian corn
mixed with barley meal. Thus, as we saw from the beginning, unless we
could manage to secure more food our case must soon grow hopeless.

There remained yet another danger. Although the palace itself was
stone-built, its gilded domes and ornamental turrets were of timber, and
therefore liable to be fired, as indeed had already happened. The roof
also was of ancient cedar beams, thinly covered with concrete, while the
interior containing an enormous quantity of panels, or rather boarding,
cut from some resinous wood.

The Aba