and possibly belonged to his
abominable faith, some of whom slipped away from time to time to the
enemy to report our progress and plans, so far as they knew them.

Further, what Hans had stumbled on was a mere rear guard left around the
place of sacrifice and the hut where Inez was confined. The real army he
never found at all. That was divided into two bodies and hidden in bush
to the right and left of the ridge which we were descending just at the
spot where it joined the plain beneath, and into the jaws of these two
armies we marched gaily.

Now that hypothetical reader will say, "Why didn't that silly old fool,
Allan, think of all these things? Why didn't he remember that he was
commanding a pack of savages with whom he had no real acquaintance,
among whom there were sure to be traitors, especially as they were of
the same blood as the Rezuites, and take precautions?"

Ah! my dear reader, I will only answer that I wish you had handled the
job yourself, and enjoyed the opportunity of seeing what _you_ could do
in the circumstances. Do you suppose I didn't think of all these points?
Of course I did. But have you ever heard of the difficulty of making
silk purses out of sows' ears, or of turning a lot of gloomy and
disagreeable barbarians whom you had never even drilled, into
trustworthy and efficient soldiers ready to fight three times their own
number and beat them?

Also I beg to observe that I did get through somehow, as you shall
learn, which is more than you might have done, Mr. Wisdom, though I
admit, not without help from another quarter. It is all very well for
you to sit in your armchair and be sapient and turn up your learned
nose, like the gentlemen who criticise plays and poems, an easy job
compared to the writing of them. From all of which, however, you
will understand that I am, to tell the truth, rather ashamed of what
followed, since _qui s'excuse, s'accuse_.

As we slunk down that hill in the moonlight, a queer-looking crowd, I
admit also that I felt very uncomfortable. To begin with I did not like
that remark of the Medicine-man which Hans reported, to the effect that
the feast must come after the victory, especially as he had said just
before that Robertson was to be sacrificed as the sun rose, which would
seem to suggest that the "victory" was planned to take place before that
event.

While I was ruminating upon this subject, I looked round for Hans to
cross-examine him as to the priest's