veiled face, I guessed that her eyes must be fixed on the sky
above the mountain top. I was certain, also, that she was concentrating
her fearful will upon an unknown object, for her whole frame quivered
like a reed shaken in the wind.

It was a very strange morning--cold and clear, yet curiously still,
and with a heaviness in the air such as precedes a great fall of snow,
although for much snow the season was yet too early. Once or twice, too,
in that utter calm, I thought that I felt everything shudder; not the
ordinary trembling of earthquake, however, for the shuddering seemed to
be of the atmosphere quite as much as of the land. It was as though all
Nature around us were a living creature which is very much afraid.

Following Ayesha's earnest gaze, I perceived that thick, smoky clouds
were gathering one by one in the clear sky above the peak, and that they
were edged, each of them, with a fiery rim. Watching these fantastic and
ominous clouds, I ventured to say to her that it looked as though the
weather would change--not a very original remark, but one which the
circumstances suggested.

"Aye," she answered, "ere night the weather will be wilder even than
my heart. No longer shall they cry for water in Kaloon! Mount, Holly,
mount! The advance begins!" and unaided she sprang to the saddle of the
mare that Oros brought her.

Then, in the midst of the five thousand horsemen, we moved down upon
the ford. As we reached its brink I noted that the two divisions of
tribesmen were already entering the stream half a mile to the right and
left of us. Of what befell them I can tell nothing from observation,
although I learned later that they forced it after great slaughter on
both sides.

In front of us was gathered the main body of the Khania's army, massed
by regiments upon the further bank, while hundreds of picked men stood
up to their middles in the water, waiting to spear or hamstring our
horses as we advanced.

Now, uttering their wild, whistling cry, our leading companies dashed
into the river, leaving us upon the bank, and soon were engaged hotly
with the footmen in midstream. While this fray went on, Oros came to
Ayesha, told her a spy had reported that Leo, bound in a two-wheeled
carriage and accompanied by Atene, Simbri and a guard, had passed
through the enemy's camp at night, galloping furiously towards Kaloon.

"Spare thy words, I know it," she answered, and he fell back behind her.

Our squadrons gai