h thicker built. About us
were a bodyguard of armed priests and a regiment of chosen soldiers,
among them those hunters that Leo had saved from Ayesha's wrath, and who
were now attached to his person.

We were merry, all of us, for in the crisp air of late autumn flooded
with sunlight, the fears and forebodings that had haunted us in those
gloomy, firelit caves were forgotten. Moreover, the tramp of thousands
of armed men and the excitement of coming battle thrilled our nerves.

Not for many a day had I seen Leo look so vigorous and happy. Of late
he had grown somewhat thin and pale, probably from causes that I have
suggested, but now his cheeks were red and his eyes shone bright again.
Ayesha also seemed joyous, for the moods of this strange woman were as
fickle as those of Nature's self, and varied as a landscape varies under
the sunshine or the shadow. Now she was noon and now dark night; now
dawn, now evening, and now thoughts came and went in the blue depths of
her eyes like vapours wafted across the summer sky, and in the press
of them her sweet face changed and shimmered as broken water shimmers
beneath the beaming stars.

"Too long," she said, with a little thrilling laugh, "have I been shut
in the bowels of sombre mountains, accompanied only by mutes and savages
or by melancholy, chanting priests, and now I am glad to look upon the
world again. How beautiful are the snows above, and the brown slopes
below, and the broad plains beyond that roll away to those bordering
hills! How glorious is the sun, eternal as myself; how sweet the keen
air of heaven.

"Believe me, Leo, more than twenty centuries have gone by since I was
seated on a steed, and yet thou seest I have not forgot my horsemanship,
though this beast cannot match those Arabs that I rode in the wide
deserts of Arabia. Oh! I remember how at my father's side I galloped
down to war against the marauding Bedouins, and how with my own hand I
speared their chieftain and made him cry for mercy. One day I will tell
thee of that father of mine, for I was his darling, and though we have
been long apart, I hold his memory dear and look forward to our meeting.

"See, yonder is the mouth of that gorge where lived the cat-worshipping
sorcerer, who would have murdered both of you because thou, Leo, didst
throw his familiar to the fire. It is strange, but several of the tribes
of this Mountain and of the lands behind it make cats their gods or
divine by means of t