ountain chain in view, and finally reached a desert
country from which truncated sandstone cones rose singly from the rocky
ground.

On the fifth evening they encamped near a large mountain which Nature
seemed to have piled up from flat layers of stone and, as the sun of the
sixth day rose, they turned into a side valley leading to the mines in
the province of Bech.

During the first few days they had been overtaken by a messenger from
the king's silver-house; but on the other hand they had met several
little bands bearing to Egypt malachite, turquoise, and copper, as well
as the green glass made at the mines.

Among those whom they met at the entrance of the cross-valley into
which they turned on the last morning was a married couple on their way
homeward, after having received a pardon from the king. The captain of
the guards pointed them out to encourage his exhausted moles, but the
spectacle produced the opposite effect; for the tangled locks of the
man, who had scarcely passed his thirtieth year, were grey, his tall
figure was bowed and emaciated, and his naked back was covered with
scars and bleeding wales; the wife, who had shared his misery, was
blind. She sat cowering on an ass, in the dull torpor of insanity, and
though the passing of the convicts made a startling interruption to the
silence of the wilderness, and her hearing had remained keen, she paid
no heed, but continued to stare indifferently into vacancy.

The sight of the hapless pair placed Hosea's own terrible future before
him as if in a mirror, and for the first time he groaned aloud and
covered his face with his hands.

The captain of the guards perceived this and, touched by the horror of
the man whose resolution had hitherto seemed peerless, called to him:

"They don't all come home like that, no indeed!"

"Because they are even worse off," he thought. "But the poor wights
needn't know it beforehand. The next time I come this way I'll ask for
Hosea; I shall want to know what has become of this bull of a man. The
strongest and the most resolute succumb the most quickly."

Then, like a driver urging an unharnessed team forward, he swung the
lash over the prisoners, but without touching them, and pointing to a
column of smoke which rose behind a cliff at the right of the road, he
exclaimed:

"There are the smelting furnaces! We shall reach our destination at
noon. There will be no lack of fire to cook lentils, and doubtless you
may have