I saw that her face
was white and terrible and that the eyes in it glowed like those of
a lioness at night. She said to, me--hissing the words between her
clenched teeth--"Holly, prepare thyself to look into the mouth of hell.
I desired to spare them if I could, I swear it, but my heart bids me be
bold, to put off human pity, and use all my secret might if I would see
Leo living. Holly, I tell thee they are about _to murder him!_"

Then she cried aloud, "Fear nothing, Captains. Ye are but few, yet with
you goes the strength of ten thousand thousand. Now follow the Hesea,
and whate'er ye meet, be not dismayed. Repeat it to the soldiers, that
fearing nothing they follow the Hesea through yonder host and across the
bridge and into the city of Kaloon."

So the chiefs rode hither and thither, crying out her words, and the
savage tribesmen answered--"Aye, we who followed through the water, will
follow across the plain. Onward, Hes, for darkness swallows us."

Now some orders were given, and the companies fell into a formation that
resembled a great wedge, Ayesha herself being its very point and apex,
for though Oros and I rode on either side of her, spur as we would, our
horses' heads never passed her saddle bow. In front of that dark mass
she shone a single spot of white--one snowy feather on a black torrent's
breast.

A screaming bugle note--and, like giant arms, from the shelter of some
groves of poplar trees, curved horns of cavalry shot out to surround
us, while the broad bosom of the opposing army, shimmering with spears,
rolled forward as a wave rolls crowned with sunlit foam, and behind it,
line upon line, uncountable, lay a surging sea of men.

Our end was near. We were lost, or so it seemed.

Ayesha tore off her veil and held it on high, flowing from her like
a pennon, and lo! upon her brow blazed that wide and mystic diadem of
light which once only I had seen before.

Denser and denser grew the rushing clouds above; brighter and brighter
gleamed the unearthly star of light beneath. Louder and louder beat the
sound of the falling hoofs of ten thousand horses. From the Mountain
peak behind us went up sudden sheets of flame; it spouted fire as a
whale spouts foam.

The scene was dreadful. In front, the towers of Kaloon lurid in a
monstrous sunset. Above, a gloom as of an eclipse. Around the darkling,
sunburnt plain. On it Atene's advancing army, and our rushing wedge of
horsemen destined, it would appear, to