Gavin bade him listen. A voice across the chasm replied to the gypsy hail.
"Don't you recognize that?" he asked; "it's the voice we heard in the wood."
"When this crowd desired to agitate my heirs, executors and assigns? You're right for a ransom. I wonder if they'll introduce us."
"We shall soon know. Here's the bridge coming down. What have you done with your armor, Arthur?"
"Left it in the cab, perhaps—don't speak, that ancient person yonder engrosses me. I wonder what Tree would pay for the loan of his make-up."
"I'll put the question when I return. This evidently is where we get down. Well, I'm glad of that anyhow."
It was as he said. The cavalcade had come to its journey's end; and there, picturesquely grouped upon the narrow road, were men and mules and mountain ponies, giving more than a welcome splash of color to the neighboring monotony of rock and shrub, and right glad all to be once more at their ease. It now became plain that none but the gypsy leader was to enter the Castle with the prisoners; and he, when he had addressed some loud words to the others (for the roar of the torrent compelled him to shout), passed first across the bridge, leading Kenyon's pony and calling to the other to follow him. Just a glance the men could turn upon raging waters, here of the deepest blue, there a sour green, or again but a boiling, tumbling mass of writhing foam—just this and the vista of the sheer, cruel rocks and the infernal abyss; then they passed over and the bridge was drawn up and they stood within the courtyard, as securely caged as though the oubliettes prisoned them and gyves of steel were about their wrists.
"Excellents, my master, the Chevalier, would speak with you."
Thus said the guide—and, as he said it, Gavin understood that he had come to the house of Count Odin's father, the man who had loved Dora d'Istran, and for love of her had paid nearly twenty years of his precious liberty.
"And this is the Castle of Okna?" he exclaimed.