ers were constantly arriving and
departing, and I concluded that Hilda von Einem was getting ready for
her part in the defence of Erzerum.

These ascents were all on the first day after Peter's going. The
second day, when I tried the trap, I found it closed and heavily
weighted. This must have been done by our friends, and very right,
too. If the house were becoming a place of public resort, it would
never do for me to be journeying roof-ward.

Late on the second night Hussin reappeared. It was after supper, when
Blenkiron had gone peacefully to sleep and I was beginning to count the
hours till the morning. I could not close an eye during these days and
not much at night.

Hussin did not light a lantern. I heard his key in the lock, and then
his light step close to where we lay.

'Are you asleep?' he said, and when I answered he sat down beside me.

'The horses are found,' he said, 'and the Master bids me tell you that
we start in the morning three hours before dawn.'

It was welcome news. 'Tell me what is happening,' I begged; 'we have
been lying in this tomb for three days and heard nothing.'

'The guns are busy,' he said. 'The Allemans come to this place every
hour, I know not for what. Also there has been a great search for you.
The searchers have been here, but they were sent away empty....
Sleep, my lord, for there is wild work before us.'

I did not sleep much, for I was strung too high with expectation, and I
envied Blenkiron his now eupeptic slumbers. But for an hour or so I
dropped off, and my old nightmare came back. Once again I was in the
throat of a pass, hotly pursued, straining for some sanctuary which I
knew I must reach. But I was no longer alone. Others were with me: how
many I could not tell, for when I tried to see their faces they
dissolved in mist. Deep snow was underfoot, a grey sky was over us,
black peaks were on all sides, but ahead in the mist of the pass was
that curious _castrol_ which I had first seen in my dream on the
Erzerum road.

I saw it distinct in every detail. It rose to the left of the road
through the pass, above a hollow where great boulders stood out in the
snow. Its sides were steep, so that the snow had slipped off in
patches, leaving stretches of glistening black shale. The _kranz_ at
the top did not rise sheer, but sloped at an angle of forty-five, and
on the very summit there seemed a hollow, as if the earth within the
rock-rim had been beaten b