the ford
was impassable, but his voice was drowned by the harsh throated noises
of the night. Weak as was the starlight, something of the loose reckless
swing in the saddle told Rallywood that the rider was Anthony Unziar.
Unziar galloped down the stones of the incline and plunged into the
torrent. It was clear from where he took the water that he intended to
make for the little beach below the block-house. His course was marked
by a whitish rise in the water; now and then the watchers on the bank
lost sight of the struggling figure as a tree-trunk whirled past and hid
him, or he seemed to sink in some tormented eddy, but he came into view
again and always nearer. At the last moment, whether horse and man were
exhausted or whether a furious tangle of cross-currents caught them,
they were swung round and away from the landing-point.

It was now evident that Unziar saw Rallywood, for in answer to the
latter's signs that he must make for the shallows lower down, Unziar
waved some object over his head as if to call attention to it. The suck
of the current was fast drawing him away, but with another strong effort
he got the horse's head round; they heard his faint shout upon the wind
then the words came more clearly:

'Carry them on--Selpdorf!' He flung something forwards; the gale caught
and hurled it on to the rocks at Rallywood's feet.

When they looked again Unziar had disappeared.

Hurrying up to the block-house, Rallywood sent off some troopers to
Unziar's assistance; then with some difficulty got his prisoner, who was
stiff and dizzy, on his feet and supported him to the room where Madame
de Sagan and Valerie had rested on the night of the snow-storm.

Rallywood did all that could be done for Counsellor, then he sat down at
the narrow table to face his position. The _tsa_ battered at the little
window, and the camp-bed creaked under Counsellor's weight as he turned
and groaned upon it, while Rallywood sat with soul and body absorbed in
the consciousness that at last the time of which Counsellor had warned
him was come, the time when he should find his enemies dressed in red.
Under almost any other circumstances it would have been possible to
retire from the position with honour. Had war been declared between
England and Maasau, he could have resigned his commission. But to-night
he found himself without any such means of escape, fast in the jaws of
the cleverly-contrived trap set for him by Selpdorf.

But he sc