We crouched closer in the inky shadow that befriended us, and I knew that if they did but reach the further turning without beholding us, we were safe.
There were eight in all, and so deep were they in their now whispered talk, or so much in awe of their leader, that they did not so much as turn their heads our way, but marched steadily by.
I began to breathe easily again. The whole array had passed the place, the foremost had even reached the next turning, when the last man, with a muttered oath, tripped on the loosened latchet of his sandal.
His companions hurried on, and he, kneeling, stooped to fasten the leathern thong. He had laid his torch beside him on the stone, and now he turned to raise it. As ill-luck would have it, the light flashed for a moment on our hiding-place. I saw his jaw drop and his look of wonder. His fellow-guardsmen had just now turned the corner.
I started forward, but I was too late. With the noiseless, supple spring of a tigress, Lah was upon him. There was a swift flash of steel, and the thing was over. The Queen even caught the reeling figure and laid it quietly upon the stone.
“I knew his voice,” she said. “’Tis he who called upon the gods to defend their own. They will think that Edba and Hed have avenged the insult. It is well. Let us come.”
And so once more, half dazed, I followed. It was a very labyrinth we threaded, but at length we reached its last winding, and I found myself in the very chamber to which Lestrade and I had first been taken.
The sight of it brought back my old companion to my mind. False friend and comrade that I was! The events of the last hours had quite effaced his image from my mind.
He had fallen victim like me into the hands of these bloody and treacherous priests.
How long had I been prisoner unconscious in the lair of the red witch Hubla? what was Gaston’s fate? and what of her whom I had given my word to rescue?