s, while Oliver, our
captain, listened to all we had to say, and reserved his opinion.

Presently, however, the question was settled for us by Roderick, who
remarked that if we travelled to the north we should probably fall in
with the Fung. I asked what he meant, and he replied that when he made
his reconnaissance an hour or so before, although it was true that he
had seen no one, not a thousand yards from where we sat he had come
across the track of a great army. This army, from various indications,
he felt sure was that of Barung, which had passed there within twelve
hours.

"Perhaps my wife with them, so I no want to go that way, father," he
added with sincere simplicity.

"Where could they be travelling?" I asked.

"Don't know," he answered, "but think they go round to attack Mur from
other side, or perhaps to find new land to north."

"We will stick to the old road," said Oliver briefly. "Like Roderick I
have had enough of all the inhabitants of this country. Now let us rest
awhile; we need it."

About two o'clock we were up again and before it was dawn on the
following morning we had loaded our camels and were on the road. By the
first faint light we saw that what Roderick had told us was true. We
were crossing the track of an army of many thousand men who had passed
there recently with laden camels and horses. Moreover, those men were
Fung, for we picked up some articles that could have belonged to no
other people, such as a head-dress that had been lost or thrown away,
and an arrow that had fallen from a quiver.

However, we saw nothing of them, and, travelling fast, to our great
relief by midday reached the river Ebur, which we crossed without
difficulty, for it was now low. That night we camped in the forest-lands
beyond, having all the afternoon marched up the rising ground at the
foot of which ran the river.

Toward dawn Higgs, whose turn it was to watch the camels, came and woke
me.

"Sorry to disturb you, old fellow," he said, "but there is a most
curious sky effect behind us which I thought you might like to see."

I rose and looked. In the clear, starlight night I could just discern
the mighty outline of the mountains of Mur. Above them the firmament was
suffused with a strange red glow. I formed my own conclusion at once,
but only said:

"Let us go to tell Orme," and led the way to where he had lain down
under a tree.

He was not sleeping; indeed, I do not think he had closed his eyes a