hering themselves up to spring, and still he could not
move--still he could not shout to his friends for help, till all at once
he seemed to make a desperate spring, and then he was awake and staring
into the thick darkness, telling himself that it was fancy.

No; there were sounds farther up the gorge--sounds as of some animals
coming softly down, nearer and nearer, but not wolves or hyenas. They
were horses.

There was no doubt about it--horses; and now fully awake, the lad felt
filled by a new alarm. For who could it be but an enemy stealing along
in the darkness; and in the sudden alarm, he did not pause to argue out
whether it might not be travellers like themselves, but shouted in a
clear ringing voice:

"Who's that?"

There was utter stillness in the deep gorge, just broken by the gurgling
of the fount as the water gushed from below the rock; and in his alarm,
startled as much by the deep silence as he had been by the sounds of
approaching horsemen, Lawrence shouted again:

"Who's that?" and then, hardly knowing what he did, he raised his gun
and fired.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

AFTER THE SCARE.

The sides of the gorge took up the report of Lawrence's fowling-piece,
and a volley of echoes ran rapidly along the valley; but that was no
echo which rang out directly after, for there were two bright flashes,
and a couple of shots that were magnified into terrific sounds, as they
too rolled along the deep passage between the rocks.

To Lawrence they seemed to be the answer to his fire from the enemy,
and, in the excitement of the moment, before attempting to reload, he
fired again, the flash from his piece cutting the darkness and resulting
in another volley of echoes.

Then there was a hoarse shout given in a commanding voice, followed by a
shrill yell, and what seemed to be quite a large body of horsemen
thundered by, while directly after, as Lawrence was trying to reload his
piece, the darkness was cut again twice over by a couple of clear
flashes, and the rocks rang out in a series of echoes as if a company of
infantry had drawn trigger at the word of command.

Meanwhile the beating of hoofs continued, growing more distant minute by
minute, till the sounds died away.

Then they rose again as if the band were returning, but it was only the
reflected sound from the great face of some rock which they were
approaching in their flight; and once more the noise faded, and
Lawrence, as he stood there hal