tsteps died away, and he was safe. Again, as he turned a corner
swiftly, he almost came on the back of a man who was stepping along
leisurely before him. For a second he stopped, and then he was back
round the corner, and had swung himself up to a patch of shadow on the
crag-side. He looked down and saw his enemy clearly in the moonlight; a
long, ferret-faced fellow, with a rifle hung on his back and an ugly
crooked knife in his hand. The man looked round, sniffing the air like
a stag, and then, satisfied that there was nothing to fear, turned and
went on. Lewis, who had been sitting on a sharp jag of rock, swung an
aching body to the ground and advanced circumspectly.

In an hour or two he came to the top of the slope and the beginning of
the second tableland. A grey dimness was taking the place of the dark,
and it had suddenly grown bitterly cold. Dawn in such high latitudes is
not a thing of violent changes, but of slow and subtle gradations of
light, of sudden, coy flushes of colour, of thin winds and bright
fleeting hazes. He lay for a minute in the scrub of cloud-berries, the
collar of his coat buttoned round his throat, and the morning wind,
fresh from leagues of snow, blowing chill on his face. Behind was the
slope alive with men who at any moment might emerge on the plateau. He
waited for the sight of a figure, but none came; clearly the muster was
not yet complete. A thought grew in his brain, and a sudden clearness
in the air translated it into action; for in the hazy distance across
the tableland he saw the walls of Forza fort.

The place could not be two miles off, and between it and him there was
the smooth benty plateau. He might make a rush for it and cross
unobserved. Even now the early sun was beginning to strike it. The
yellow-grey walls stood out clear against the far line of mountains, and
the wisp of colour which fluttered in the wind was clearly the British
flag. The exceeding glory of the morning gave him a new vigour. Why
should not he run with any tribesman of the lot? If he could but avoid
the risk of a rifle bullet at the outset, he would have no fear of the
issue.

He glanced behind him. The place seemed still, though far down there
was a tinkle as of little stones falling. He stood up, straightened
himself for one moment till he had filled his lungs with the clean air.
Then he started to run quickly towards the fort.

The full orb of the sun topped the mountains and the dazzle was in his