"It was certainly an admirable plan of yours, Miss Ackworth, and has completely thrown them off the scent. Now we had better be going. The moon gives us enough light to make our way, and we must be as far as possible from here before morning, when, no doubt, the men of this valley, and perhaps the one that we have just quitted, will turn out in search of us."
"I am quite ready," Nita said, "and I have no doubt the pony is too. His sack has been getting lighter and lighter every day, and I think that we haven't more than thirty or forty pounds left, and as we have always been able to get water, I don't think that there is more than enough in the water-skin to balance the sack."
"I am sorry that the provisions are getting short," Carter said, "but it is an immense advantage, in climbing about among these hills, to have such a light burden. The pony ought to be able to make its way wherever we can, so, as we don't want to cut ourselves adrift from the valleys, I should say that we had better work round the foot of the hills, in which case we ought to be well to the south of the next valley before day breaks. Fortunately they can have no idea who we are. That we are strangers, and curious ones, they of course know, but we are so far out of the road which they would think the escaped prisoners would take, that it is not at all likely that they will in any way associate us with them, even if they have heard of our escape, which is very improbable. They will therefore have nothing to indicate the road we are taking. All they really do know of us is that we have a rifle, and can shoot straight."
[CHAPTER VII]
A SKIRMISH
They started at once, not trying to mount the hillside above the point where they had been hidden, but to keep along as far as possible at the same height. After making their way painfully for a couple of hours, they came to a spot from which they could see the valley below them. They then gradually made their way down till only two or three hundred feet above its bottom, and then kept along its side. In the still night air they could hear many voices, and knew that the coming of these mysterious and dangerous visitors was being warmly discussed. Lights burned much later than was usual in the villages, but at last these altogether disappeared, and they ventured still lower, keeping, however, a sharp look-out for any villages situated on the spurs. The valley was not above eight or ten miles long, and they were well past it before morning dawned.
The country they now entered was a little more precipitous and rugged than that they had recently passed, and they agreed that it would be impossible to climb over it, and that they would have to make use of the pass. They therefore chose a good hiding-place some distance up on the hill. It was sheltered from behind by a precipice, at whose foot grew a clump of bushes of considerable size.
"We cannot do better than this," Carter said, "and as the people will be starting in search of us in less than an hour we have no farther time to look for another hiding-place, and, indeed, I don't think that we should be likely to find a better one if we did. There is one comfort: however numerously they turn out, they will take care not to scatter much, in view of the lesson you gave them, and unless they do scatter, their chance of lighting upon us is small indeed. I don't suppose their heart will be very much in the business, except on the part of the relatives of the men you shot, who are, after all, as likely to belong to the valley we left as to this one. These tribesmen are good fighters when their liberty is threatened, but they are not very fond of putting themselves into danger.
"I feel much more comfortable," Carter continued, "now I am no longer condemned to go about unarmed. It was a grand idea taking the rifles of those two men we shot. The pony carries one, and I carry the other."