Up, up, always up along the wet gully, deep with silt and frost-splintered rock, she toiled, the heavy grasping of men behind her. Twice she was jerked to a halt while her escort rested.
Once, without turning, she said unsteadily: "Who are you? What have I done to you?"
There was no reply.
"What are you going to do to me——" she began again, and was shaken by the shoulder until silent.
At last the vast arch of the eastern sky sprang out ahead, where stunted spruces stood out against the sunshine and the intense heat of midday fell upon bare table-land of rock and moss and fern.
As she came out upon the level, the man behind her took both her arms and pulled them back and somebody bandaged her eyes. Then a hand closed on her left arm and, so guided, she stumbled and crept forward across the rocks for a few moments until her guide halted her and forced her into a sitting position on a smooth, flat boulder.
She heard the crunching of heavy feet all around her, whispering made hoarse by breath exhausted, movement across rock and scrub, retreating steps.
For an interminable time she sat there alone in the hot sun, drenched to the skin in sweat, listening, thinking, striving to find a reason for this lawless outrage.
After a long while she heard somebody coming across the rocks, stiffened as she listened with some vague presentiment of evil.
Somebody had halted beside her. After a pause she was aware of nimble fingers busy with the bandage over her eyes.