Ruth screamed.
"Courage, heavenborn! Have courage! This is naught to what he would
have done to thee! .... Now, speak, thou priest of infidels! What
plans are laid and who will rise and when?"
III.
"Sergeant!"
"Sir!"
The close-cropped, pipe-clayed non-commissioned officer spurred his
horse into a canter until his scabbard clattered at young Bellairs'
boot. Nothing but the rattling and the jolting of the guns and
ammunition-wagon was audible, except just on ahead of them the click-
clack, click-click-clack of the advance-guard. To the right and left
of them the shadowy forms of giant banian-trees loomed and slid past
them as they had done for the past four hours, and for ten paces ahead
they could see the faintly outlined shape of the trunk road that they
followed. The rest was silence and a pall of blackness obscuring
everything. They had ridden along a valley, but they had emerged
on rising ground and there was one spot of color in the pall now,
or else a hole in it.
"What d'you suppose that is burning over there?"
"I couldn't say, sir.
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