The old men keep guard on the line,
and the young men advance. These will close in at the advancing line, so
that nothing can escape them. They will cover mountain-top and forest
depth, and will close in finally on the Castle here, which they can
behold from afar. My own yacht is here, and will sweep the coast from
end to end. It is the fastest boat afloat, and armed against a squadron.
Here will all signals come. In an hour where we stand will be a signal
bureau, where trained eyes will watch night and day till the lost one has
been found and the outrage has been avenged. The robbers are even now
within a ring of steel, and cannot escape."

The young priest, all on fire, sprang on the battlements and shouted to
the crowd, which was massing round the Castle in the gardens far below.
The forest was giving up its units till they seemed like the nucleus of
an army. The men cheered lustily, till the sound swung high up to us
like the roaring of a winter sea. With bared heads they were crying:

"God and the Blue Mountains! God and the Blue Mountains!"

I ran down to them as quickly as I could, and began to issue their
instructions. Within a time to be computed by minutes the whole number,
organized by sections, had started to scour the neighbouring mountains.
At first they had only understood the call to arms for general safety.
But when they learned that the daughter of a chief had been captured,
they simply went mad. From something which the messenger first said, but
which I could not catch or did not understand, the blow seemed to have
for them some sort of personal significance which wrought them to a
frenzy.

When the bulk of the men had disappeared, I took with me a few of my own
men and several of the mountaineers whom I had asked to remain, and
together we went to the hidden ravine which I knew. We found the place
empty; but there were unmistakable signs that a party of men had been
encamped there for several days. Some of our men, who were skilled in
woodcraft and in signs generally, agreed that there must have been some
twenty of them. As they could not find any trail either coming to or
going from the place, they came to the conclusion that they must have
come separately from different directions and gathered there, and that
they must have departed in something of the same mysterious way.

However, this was, at any rate, some sort of a beginning, and the men
separated, having agreed amongst the