8

The hotel provided them with a dozen burros, for riders and baggage, and so they proceeded at donkey pace. Two of the burros had a litter slung between them, into which the unconscious Mr. Holystone was fastened. The procession was led by a guide, Marcus Dylan, who, with provisions for the journey, had also been supplied by the hotel.

"What did you do about paying?" Dido asked Lieutenant Windward, edging her burro alongside his. Captain Hughes had had much of the expedition's supply of ready cash about his person when he was imprisoned, and so they were short of funds.

"Oh, the management at the Sydney would give us anything when they saw the queen's permit! I told them that we would return in six or seven days, and that the captain would pay the whole shot at the end of our visit. I do not propose to fork out any of my own bezants while he is a prisoner. We may need what little money we have on our way to Lyonesse."

"I dunno what we'd spend it on," said Dido. "I don't see too many hot-pie sellers or cockle stands round here."

They were crossing the stony upland plain which surrounded Bath Regis. Much of the ground was rocky and uncultivated, studded, here and there, by sigse thorn and a species of cactus resembling a giant spiny hand. Not another human being was in sight.

"It sure is a drearsome part." Dido shivered. Yet, despite the cold, her spirits had lifted on leaving the town of Bath. So had those of her companions. Even the waxen face of Mr. Holystone had taken on a faint tinge of color. Having left it, they realized for the first time to the full what a terribly oppressive atmosphere permeated Queen Ginevra's capital.

"We have several hundred miles to go before reaching Lyonesse," pointed out the lieutenant. "There must be towns or villages along the way."

"Hope so," grunted Multiple. "Or it's going to be sharp sleeping at night."

The predawn air was razor-cold. As they left the plain and began to crawl at what seemed snail's pace up the vast slopes of Mount Damyake, the increasing altitude rendered breathing harder and harder. Lieutenant Windward had, however, prudently seen that the party was equipped with a large bundle of the rumirumi lilies, wrapped in damp moss, for the use of the travelers when distressed by lack of oxygen. The donkeys, fortunately, seemed unaffected by the thinness of the air. Dido was very glad of her mount; she was not certain that she would have been able to walk far on her own. Moreover, it was comfortably warm, like riding on a barrel of hot tar covered by a hearth rug.

Presently, however, the sun shot up, and at once began to send down rays of such torrid heat that they made haste to don the straw hats with which Windward, on the advice of the guide, had also provided them.

"Awkward sort o' climate," remarked Dido. "Freezing one minute, roasting the next. Hey, Noah—don't you want to lay a hat over poor Mr. Holy's face? No sense in getting him sunstrook on top of all else."

During the days of Mr. Holystone's illness no one had shaved him, and his beard, of a brownish-gold color, had grown several inches; so had his hair, which previously he had worn very short. He's a right good-looking fellow with a beard, Dido thought, as Noah carefully balanced a sombrero over the invalid's face.

As the sun climbed higher, it illuminated the gigantic symmetrical cones, the fantastic snow-covered peaks, and pinnacles like spectral cities of ice, that surrounded them on every side. Bath Regis was now a mere dot in the distance.

When they reached the top of a lofty ridge Dido, looking back, let out a cry of wonder.

"What's to do?" inquired Mr. Multiple, kicking his burro till it came level with hers.

"Look at all that flat land we been riding across, Mr. Mully. See them lines on the rock?"

"I could hardly miss them," he said. "I reckon they are geological strata. They are far too huge for people to have had anything to do with them. Why, some of them must be more than fifty miles long!"

From side to side of the upland plain long lines were to be seen, as if some god or giant had leaned down from the heavens and with an idle fingernail scraped a series of huge drawings over the countryside. More and more of the pattern became visible as the party mounted higher.

And when they halted for the noon meal, Dido said, "Well, I wasn't certain before, but now I am! Look, Mr. Windward—ain't those marks down there the exact same as Mr. Holystone's birthmark?"

"Holystone's birthmark? Can't say as I even knew he had one," Mr. Windward said rather skeptically. Dido, however, rolled back the blanket to show the sick man's forearm, and Mr. Windward was obliged to agree that there was a remarkable likeness.

"I often noticed that mark when he was a-peeling spuds," said Dido.

"It must be nothing more than a coincidence," observed Windward. "For why should a man have a mark on his arm that's the same as one nobody can see unless they're on top of a fourteen-thousand-foot mountain?"

"I dunno," said Dido. "But I reckon it's lucky for us as we brought Mr. Holy along. Looks like he belongs to these parts all right."

Lieutenant Windward absently pulled his chronometer from his pocket to check it against the position of the sun in the sky, and uttered an exclamation.

"What's up?" said Multiple.

"It's started going again!" He set it to the correct time.

"So's mine," said Multiple, pulling out his turnip watch. "Well, if that don't beat cockfighting!"

They soon started off again. Dylan, the guide—a wizened, talkative little man—was emphatic that they must reach the valley of Lake Arianrod before dusk, and not risk being overtaken by night on the bare mountainside, or they would freeze to death, not to mention having their blood drained by vampires or being pecked to pieces by giant owls.

"Aurocs bad along here, etiam atque etiam; yet remains a long way to go, sirs," he kept saying anxiously.

Dido felt she would be quite pleased to see an auroc; she had heard them mentioned so frequently, without ever actually encountering one, that she had begun to doubt their existence and wonder if they were not bearing the blame for somebody else's activities.

"Which is Mount Arrabe?" she asked Dylan.

He pointed ahead and to the left.

"We now go round, circumvenimus, back of Mount Damyake. Lacus sacratissimus—Arianrodwater—is lying between Damyake, Arrabe, Calabe, and Catelonde mountains; Arrabe not first mountain you see, but second; having two big teeth like cayman. Very bad mountain, Arrabe!"

"Why bad?" Dido wanted to know, studying Arrabe's towering twin peaks.

Dylan made the double-circle sign. "Belong to King Arawn, king of the Black World! Aurocs roost on top, pecking at stars. Old Caradog the guardian live there in the temple of Sul, in Sul's town. I not taking you past Arrabe. Ladies of night come there, too."

"Who," inquired Dido, "are the ladies of night?"

Dylan traced the two circles again, and squinted through them at Dido.

"Owl ladies. Better not speaking names." He made a gesture as of snipping with shears. "Queen owl ladies who make dress."

"Do you mean," said Dido, greatly puzzled, "the queen's mistress of the robes? And her people? Lady Ettar—"

"Hssssh!" Dylan nodded nervously, glancing around as if on the lookout for eavesdroppers, then urged his donkey faster, to get away from Dido, who rode on very thoughtfully.

If this Elen, she thought, is a prisoner on Arrabe, I reckon I know who put her there. And I reckon I can guess why. But no use talking about it to Windward or Mr. Mully! They'd think I'd got windmills in my head. I'll jist have to keep a sharp eye out myself. Best do that anyhows, if there's really aurocs about.

The existence of aurocs was soon confirmed. A huge shadow drifted across the track, and all the burros shied and brayed nervously. As they descended the pass, more of the great triangular shadows crossed the mountainside.

"Blimey," said Dido to Mr. Multiple, "if we could put a couple of those on show at the Battersea Fun Fair, we'd all lay by enough mint sauce to buy Threadneedle Street. Ain't they the ugliest monsters you ever saw?"

The aurocs, becoming inquisitive, wheeled in closer and closer to the calvacade, with hardly a flip of their great fur-covered, leathery wings. Their claws could clearly be seen, and their cruel beaks, with protruding tusks on either side. Though Dido tried to joke about them, it was plain they were no laughing matter. They were evidently attracted by the sight of Mr. Holystone, motionless on his litter; they drifted lower and lower. Once or twice Lieutenant Windward discharged his musket at them, and then they would flap away to a distance, with raucous shrieks; but they invariably returned, and their numbers increased as the day drew on.

Mr. Multiple, an excellent marksman, managed to wing one with a pistol shot; it fluttered, wabbling away, squawking hideously, to a cactus-studded knoll a hundred yards from the track, and the travelers then witnessed a horrible spectacle, for the other aurocs all swooped down on their wounded comrade and in a very short time devoured it completely, leaving nothing but a few shreds of fur and splinters of bone on the sandy ground.

"Ugh, the cannibals!" shuddered Noah Gusset. "Still, at least it keeps their nasty minds off us!"

Unfortunately, by the time the aurocs had finished their repulsive feast, the travelers had reached a very dangerous section of the pass they were traversing. This was a valley region of strange heaving, pulsing bogs and quagmires, colored in bright prismatic hues, dark red, ochre yellow, and sulphurous, iridescent blue; great gouts of steam drift ed up from the ground, and from time to time an explosive fountain of mud would suddenly spurt up into the air, each time from a different spot.

"It is a thermal region," said the knowledgeable Lieutenant Windward. "I have seen such places in Iceland, when I was second mate on the Arctic Tern. These are geysers, caused by the volcanoes round about."

"Careful! Quam celerrime here, sirs, but extra careful," warned Dylan. "Get stuck in mud here, you sink down, down, to King Arawn."

The burros were evidently well aware of the danger; they flapped their long ears, heehawed, and stepped nervously and delicately along the narrow, slippery path, which wound a circuitous way between heaving, steaming pools and spouting fountains. Every now and then the party were spattered by hot mud. A dismal stench hung around the place, "like unwashed Christmas socks full o' rotten potatoes," Dido said.

Strange vegetation grew in this valley, nurtured by its dark, unwholesome warmth; fleshy gray-green leaves clustered round the bubbling pools, and grotesque, sickly scented flowers hung from fat pale stalks on the rock faces.

"I'll be glad when we get out o' here," commented Mr. Multiple, thumping his burro to make it go faster.

But the aurocs, emboldened by the slow pace of the travelers, now circled in closer and closer; one of them wheeled so near to Plum's donkey that it panicked and shied away sideways, slipping off the track and tossing its rider into a great heaving pool of mud. Plum yelled frenziedly, trying to extricate himself from the gluey, dripping morass.

"Keep still, man!" shouted Lieutenant Windward. "We'll throw you a rope! Don't struggle—you will only sink yourself faster!"

But before Windward could drag a rope from his saddlebag, the hovering aurocs, assured of a helpless prey, had swooped down in a flurry of black, hairy wings, snapping beaks, and flailing talons. Two of them fought for the donkey, and the larger won; with a screech of triumph it snatched up the wretched animal by its saddle and flapped away, dwindling in no time to a speck in the distance. Meanwhile, two others had dragged poor Plum out of the mud pool and were battling over him while Windward and Multiple, cursing with frustration, waited for a chance to shoot without injuring their companion. No such chance was given; while the two aurocs were fighting, a third swooped in, snatched up the hapless man, suddenly soared up on a rising current of hot air, and disappeared behind a crag. Windward and Multiple both fired at it, but both missed.

"Devil take the brute!" cried Windward, reloading with shaking hands. "We must go after it. We must rescue Plum!" He kicked his burro to urge it to a gallop.

"No, sir—no gallop, no gallop!" shouted Dylan urgently. "Festina lente! You go in mud, we all go—aurocs eat the lot of us. No possible save that hombre. He done for. Aurocs eat quick."

Remembering the hideous speed with which the aurocs had devoured their own companion, Lieutenant Windward was reluctantly obliged to give way.

"He's right, sir, I'm afraid," said Multiple, and Noah Gusset muttered, "Ay, those greedy monsters can swallow a man before you can prime your pistol. Poor old Plum's mincemeat by now no doubt of that. Ah, he had a rare voice for a shanty, when he were in the mood, did old Plum, and could knit faster than anyone in the fo'c'sle."

Daunted and appalled by this horrid mishap, the remaining five travelers drew closer together, Mr. Multiple riding alongside the sick man with his pistol ready cocked. Fortunately, they soon left the thermal region, climbed up through a narrow, rocky defile, and presently came in sight of their first objective.

"Arianrod," said Dylan briefly, pointing ahead and downward.

For a moment the travelers were deluded into thinking that the lake was full of water.

"Can the queen have been mistaken?" exclaimed Mr. Multiple. "Or King Mabon have restored it already?"

"Perhaps a spring has replenished it," said Lieutenant Windward.

But then they realized that the vast, star-shaped basin lying among the four mountains was filled only with white mist, which billowed and heaved like the waves of an insubstantial sea.

They spent the night on a rock ledge above the great hollow. Dylan kindled a fire to keep off jaguars and mountain lions, which it successfully did. The fire was of small use for cooking, since they were so high, up here, that water boiled at a very low temperature, but they toasted plantains on sticks and ate hunks of barley bread. Then, wrapped in ruanas and vicuna fleeces, they lay down to a cold and uneasy night's rest, with the burros tethered in a ring round them for added protection.

"What about aurocs?" Dido said to Mr. Multiple.

"Dylan says they all go to roost at night; they have weak vision. And they don't like dark or cloudy weather. At least we shan't have to worry about them till sunup."

But Dido could not easily dismiss the thought of the horrible creatures; they flapped and shrieked through her dreams. Mr. Holystone, too, seemed troubled by nightmares; he tossed and moaned, and cried out words in some foreign tongue. Dido remembered that he had said he was found as a baby on the shores of Lake Arianrod; she wondered if the knowledge that he was so close to his birthplace had somehow penetrated his slumbers.

Long before dawn Dylan was up and feeding the burros.

"I go now, sirs; I leaving you here," he announced briefly. "Arianrod you see below; you keeping south, sun behind you"—he gestured along the basin, between the steeply angled sides of Calabe and Catelonde—"you soon coming to Pass of Nimue. Lyonesse on ahead. You finding stable of Caradog and guardian down below. Sul's temple up above on mountain. You showing permit to Caradog, he let you through pass."

Windward and Multiple tried to persuade Dylan to accompany them farther, but he shook his head emphatically.

"Arianrod nogood place, sirs. Benigne. I coming no farther, I going now, celerimme."

"But what about the aurocs, man, on the way back? How the deuce will you ever get through safely on your own?"

"Keeping them off, no fear"—he gestured with his crossbow—"I riding best fast burro, so valete, goodbye, sirs."

Lieutenant Windward paid his fee, which he demanded in cash; Dylan kicked his mount into a rapid trot and departed, waving his sombrero, but without ever looking back. The rest of the party lost no time in setting off in the opposite direction.

A narrow track, dug out of the steeply sloping mountainside, led down in zigzags to the level of the lake basin, and then along beside what had presumably been the shore of the lake when it was full of water.

As they scrambled down the zigzags, the sun mounted behind Catelonde, which was plainly an active volcano; black clouds of smoke issued from its cup-shaped summit, throwing wild shadows over the white mist which still filled the lake bed. However, just as the party reached the narrow, level track that skirted the lake, all this mist rose up and hung in the sky overhead, so that the travelers were able to see the dry sandy and stony arena which was what King Mabon had left his neighbor Queen Ginevra when he removed her lake.

"Musta been a right job, taking it," said Dido. "Hey, Mr. Windward, why don't us ride along the bed of the lake, 'stead of this narrow track? Then we can all bunch together in case of aurocs."

Windward thought this a good suggestion, and the burros were urged down on to the lake bed. No aurocs, however, appeared today, presumably because of the heavy cloud overhead, which now obscured the sun. A great many dried fishbones were scattered on the sand; evidently, when the water had been removed a number of mountain predators had been furnished with an unexpected fish dinner.

"This looks like gold-bearing soil to me," said Mr. Multiple. "There's gold mines in Wales, where I used to stay with my uncle. The ground looked like this. I daresay we could all make our fortunes if we sieved up a bit of this sand."

"Best not touch it!" warned Windward. "Don't forget, Arianrod was a sacred lake. The queen would have our guts for garters, likely, if you began digging up the bed."

Mr. Multiple's face assumed an obstinate expression. He made no answer, but continued to keep a careful eye on the ground as he rode along. Presently he let out an exclamation.

"Now what?" demanded Windward. "For heaven's sake, man, keep up a better pace! We shan't reach the frontier by nightfall at this rate."

But Mr. Multiple, tumbling impetuously off his burro, had scooped something off the ground which he now triumphantly exhibited.

"What do you say to that, then? A diamond as big as a pullet's egg, or my name's not Frank Multiple!"

"Are you certain?" said the lieutenant skeptically. "It looks to me like any earthy pebble."

"That's no pebble, sir—it's a diamond. See here—" and he scraped with his thumbnail. "My granddad was a goldsmith; I could not mistake. Hey—there's dozens of 'em! Let us stop but half an hour, and we are all as rich as Crusoes!"

Windward was resolute, however, that they must press on, so Mr. Multiple discontentedly climbed back into the saddle, muttering privately to Noah Gusset that it was a hem shame! He stared hard at the ground as they rode along, every now and then leaping down to grab a stone, remounting, and kicking his donkey into a fast trot to overtake the others again.

Dido could not help being somewhat infected by his enthusiasm; she, too, began to study the ground as she rode, and so chanced to perceive what seemed to be a rusty metal cross, half buried in a shallow sandy depression. A wink of red at its extremity had caught her eye.

"Here—hold hard a minute, Mr. Windward," she said. "Maybe that thing's summat worth taking along—might be vallyble."

Sliding to the ground, she knelt and tugged at the cross-shaped object. To her surprise the buried end was far longer than it had appeared, and quite deeply embedded in the ground. She had a hard struggle to pull it out.

"Do, pray make haste, Miss Twite," said Windward impatiently. "We cannot be forever stopping for trifles!"

"This ain't no trifle—blimey, it's a sword!" cried Dido in triumph. "And I reckon it's worth a packet, too—look at all them colored sparklers in the handle!"

"Yes, well, that's as may be, but the blade is all rusty—I wish you will not be lumbering us up with such useless articles! In any case, it indubitably belongs to the queen."

"Well, then, we'd better hand it to that there whatshisname, the guardian, and he can send it back to her," said Dido reasonably. "It won't hurt poor old Mr. Holy to have it by him." She laid it in the litter and hopped back onto her burro.

No further incidents occurred to fidget Mr. Windward during the ride along the dried-up lake bed. Fortunately, the low cloud prevented any attacks by aurocs, but the atmosphere was very oppressive, sultry, and heavy. The burros slipped and stumbled on the shingly, powdery sand.

"I guess even the ground is hot hereabouts," said Dido, feeling it with her hand when they stopped for a drink; none of them felt hungry.

"It may well be," said Mr. Multiple. "After all, we're getting uncommonly close to that big volcano. Look, you can see lava running down it like toffee. Supposing that big rock toppled off when we were passing by?"

"I reckon it's been there for a good few thousand years," said Lieutenant Windward.

"This is a right spooky place. I ain't surprised Dylan didn't want to come here," Dido said.

Deep among the four surrounding mountains—twinheaded Arrabe, dome-shaped Damyake, cloud-girt Calabe, and smoke-belching Catelonde, with a huge stone balanced on its summit—the travelers felt as if they were at the bottom of a well, with black, steeply shelving slopes rising all around them. There were very few birds to be seen here, and no animals at all; the only sound that broke the silence was an occasional rumbling mutter from Mount Catelonde ahead of them. I'll be glad when we're past that one, thought Dido. She noticed that when Catelonde rumbled, Mr. Holystone stirred restlessly on his litter, as if he could hear the sound in his dreams.

In mid-afternoon, some three quarters of the way along the basin, they reached a point from which the far end was visible; they could see the narrow pass which led out and southward toward Lyonesse.

"You can see why the water didn't flow out when the queen first had the lake put here," said Mr. Multiple. "It's been dammed."

"Well, she wouldn't want it to trickle away, after having brought it so far."

"I suppose they brought it up in water-skins, on burros."

"Or llamas," said Dido.

Mount Catelonde gave a loud snort, and Mr. Holystone cried out sharply, stirring and rolling over on to his side. His hand, groping about, found the handle of the rusty sword that Dido had unearthed, and clasped it.

He murmured some brief remark and opened his eyes.

"Hey! Mr. Windward!" Dido called to the lieutenant, who was on ahead. "Mr. Holystone said summat—he's a-stirring—I believe he's a mite better! Maybe if we gave him a drink..."

Windward, sighing, turned his burro and came back.

"Did he really speak? It's not a Banbury story?"

But he, too, sounded hopeful. He, like everybody else, greatly respected Mr. Holystone's judgment. In the present circumstances, without the captain, and now their numbers reduced by the loss of Plum, the steward's restoration to health and consciousness would be a piece of great good fortune. "What did he say?"

"Sounded like 'halibut.'"

"Oh, fiddle-de-dee, Miss Twite!"

"No, it did! Truly! Listen!"

"Caliburn," muttered Mr. Holystone indistinctly, and then, louder and with more assurance, "Caliburn!"

Noah Gusset had already halted the pair of burros that carried the litter slung between them, and was taking out his leather water-bottle. Now Dido and Mr. Multiple assisted the sick man to sit up. He looked around him wonderingly, at the black, snow-streaked mountain slopes and the sandy lake bed, at their concerned faces watching him, and, lastly, at the sword in his hand. For the third time, in a tone of joy and recognition, he repeated the word. "Caliburn! My sword, come back to my hand!"

"Mr. Holystone!" cried Dido in rapture. "Are—are you feeling more the thing, now?"

His eyes rested on her with an expression of perplexity.

"I know the place," he said. "I know the sword. I know myself. But who are you? Who are these?" glancing again at Windward, Noah, and Multiple.

"Why—why, we're your friends, Mr. Holy! Don't you recognize us?" Dido was terribly startled and grieved.

"No, my child. But I can see that you are all good people. Your faces are—are trustworthy."

"Trustworthy!" said Lieutenant Windward rather shortly. "So I should hope! If you knew how far we had hauled you up these godforsaken mountains! Come now, do you not remember us? I am Lieutenant Windward, first lieutenant of His Majesty's sloop Thrush—this is Mr. Midshipman Multiple—this is Miss Twite—"

"Don't you remember all those times I helped you polish the cap'n's teaspoons, Mr. Holy?"

As it was quite plain that he did not, Noah Gusset sensibly suggested, "He be main weak and wambly yet. Why doesn't us give him a drop o' summat hot?"

Since it was impossible to boil water, they gave the recovering man a drink of aguardiente, and some of the cassava bread and baked turtles' eggs which none of them had fancied for their midday meal. The patient ate slowly, and could not take much, but the food visibly did him good. When he had finished, he stood up, unassisted, by slow and careful stages, stretched, and staggered, but kept his balance, leaning on the sword, which he had held tightly clasped in his hand since awakening.

Then, frowning in perplexity, he said, "You brought me here? On that litter? But then ... where had I been before?"

He articulated his words very slowly, as if translating from another language in his mind.

"Brought you here? Why, from the Thrush, of course," Windward repeated. "You're the captain's steward. Don't you remember anything?"

Holystone shook his head.

"I remember battles. The alliance against us—King Mark, King Lot, King Anguish—and my nephew. Mordred. And then I was wounded—here—" he raised an uncertain hand to the back of his head. "I gave Caliburn to Bedivere to throw in the lake."

His hand lovingly caressed the hilt of the sword. He glanced down and said, "The blade is rusty. But a rub in the sand will soon mend that."

Lieutenant Windward exclamed impatiently, "Come, come, my man, what the deuce ails you? This is moonshine! Battles—alliances! Ah, well, I reckon you are all tottyheaded yet. We had best be on our way. Make haste, the rest of you—pack up those things. There is no sense in lingering here. At any moment the clouds may lift and aurocs be upon us." And he added privately to Mr. Multiple, "Let us hope there will be some surgeon or physician at King Mabon's court who can set the poor fellow's wits to rights. Otherwise he won't be much use to us. Bustle about now, Miss Twite!"

Holystone, however, flatly refused to get back into the litter. He said that he was well enough to ride if they did not go too fast. While he and the lieutenant were arguing about this, Dido felt something rub against her leg.

"Murder!" she cried, her mind on aurocs; and then, looking down, she added in amazement, "Oh, no! If it ain't another o' them cats!"

Then, inspired by a hopeful notion, she grabbed the cat and, carrying it to Mr. Holystone, said, "See who's here, Mr. Holy! It's the spit image of Dora. Don't you remember Dora—your cat, El Dorado?"

"Dora?" he muttered doubtfully, rubbing his brow. "One of the cats of El Dorado?"

"That's the ticket, Mr. Holy. You'll remember soon enough! And this one's got a message, too, I'll be bound. Yes, it has! Another page from that dictionary."

Tim Toldrum, said the name on the leather disc. And the leaf of paper informed them:

To coax. To wheedle, to flatter, to humour. A low word.

Under the printed words the same desperate little hand had written in dark brown ink:

For pity's sake, help me! I am suffocating in the dark. Elen.

"Elen," said Mr. Holystone hoarsely. "Elen?"

A silence fell around him, as if he were standing on an island.

Lieutenant Windward cleared his throat and said, "Ahem! We really must—"

"Elen," said Holystone. "In the dark. Where? We must find her! How can we find her?"

The cat mewed insistently at his feet.

"Why," exclaimed Dido, "don't you see, it's dead simple! Moggy here will lead us to her—won't you, puss? 'I'm a prisoner on Arrabe,' the second note said. That's Arrabe—that big black hill up there on the left."

"We haven't time—" Lieutenant Windward began.

"Oh, come on, Mr. Windward! The poor girl's shut up, we got to rescue her, don't we? Look, the cat's started already."

The black flanks of Arrabe were broken, stony, and drear, as if they had been gashed and chipped and scraped raw by some great volcanic explosion. Here and there a bunch of rough ichu grass thrust out of a crack; there was no other vegetation. But the slope was not hard to climb. Leaving the burros hobbled on the lake bed, the party began scrambling up and around and in among the ragged and tumbled boulders, following the cat, who trotted ahead purposefully, tail in air, every now and then stopping to glance round as if perplexed by the slowness of their progress. The wind, which had been rising all day, howled lugubriously, and a few pellets of hail dashed in their faces.

"Best get a move on there, puss," called Dido, who, being light and agile, was ahead of the rest. "We're all liable to be blown to blazes if we don't find this poor perisher soon."

Then she stopped short in dismay. For, after threading its way up a narrow gully, the cat jumped lightly up to the top of a massive boulder leaning against a rock face and then, next instant, slipped through a crevice behind the boulder and vanished.

"The blessed cat went in behind that there rock," Dido said to Mr. Holystone, who, surprisingly, in spite of his recent disability, was the first of her companions to come up with her. "Now what's to do?"

Although he was so changed and queer, she had at once fallen back into the habit of depending on his advice in difficulties.

He stood frowning, leaning on the sword, staring at the rock, as if trying to recall something.

Noah Gusset, arriving next, surveyed the rock, and said dubiously, "Reckon som'un's in behind there, Miss Dido? Us'll never shift that. 'Tis nigh as big as a house."

"The cat has led us on a fool's errand!" irritably exclaimed Lieutenant Windward, arriving at this moment.

"Wait, though!" said Mr. Multiple, who was close behind him. "I've a notion." Bringing out a ship's whistle, which he carried on a string round his neck, he blew a long and piercing blast.

The sound was almost swamped by a great gust of wind that flung more hail in their faces. But not quite. And it had two unexpected results. From somewhere up above them on the rock face two huge mountain owls came flapping down; and from inside the rock a faint voice called, "Help!"

"There! What did I say!" shouted Dido triumphantly. "Somebody is shut up in back of that rock!—Hey! Murder! Lay off me, you nasty brutes!"

For the two owls, yellow eyes blazing, wings beating like flails, had swooped at the rescue party and were furiously attacking them.

"Devil take the fiends! Watch out for your eyes!" yelled Windward, who was already bleeding from a savage peck on the cheekbone. "Ugh! Get away, curse you—" slashing at one of the birds with his cutlass. They were as big as swans, and quite as fierce.

"Maybe that's their nest—in behind—" gasped Dido, clasping her arms over her face to protect it, as one of the owls alighted on her head, digging razor-sharp claws into her scalp. "Croopus! It's nigh pulling my head off!"

The next moment she almost had her breath knocked out as a body collided violently against hers; the cruel grip of the talons on her head suddenly slackened. She shook her head, abruptly freed from the owl's weight, and looked round her, rubbing drops of blood from her eyes.

"That has done for one of them!" said Mr. Holystone. He was surveying the blade of his sword, which now seemed darker than from mere rust.

The owl that had been on Dido's head flapped away down the gully, bleeding and shedding feathers; it perched on a rock, then slowly toppled off it, and was lost to view among the boulders on the ground. Its companion, screeching and hooting mournfully, circled around once or twice, then planed away into the distance and did not reappear.

Mr. Holystone hardly glanced at the vanquished owl; he had gone back to studying the surface of the rock that confronted him. Now, with a soft exclamation of satisfaction, he found what he was looking for: a small slit in the surface of the stone. A little lichen grew over it, which he rubbed away with his thumb.

"Looks like a keyhole," Dido said, and was immediately reminded of the great cumbrous keys in Bath, shaped like swans or dragons, with keyholes to match. "But where's the key?"

Mr. Holystone, without answering her question, inserted the tip of his sword into the rock and thrust inward strongly, so that the weapon, by slow degrees, vanished up to the hilt.

"All very well," muttered Windward, "but now what?"

"Help!" the faint voice called from inside the cave.

"We're here! We're a-trying to help you!" Dido called.

Mr. Holystone laid both hands on the hilt of the sword. His forehead bulged, his veins swelled; beads of sweat rolled down his cheeks into his beard. His wrists and forearms knotted with exertion. He began to twist the hilt.

"He'll break that sword, sure as a gun," grunted Windward. No one else said anything.

The hail was rattling down like grapeshot, but nobody heeded it; all their attention was focused on those two straining hands. Suddenly there came a sharp crack! like the sound of a sail flapping in a high wind; and a V-shaped crevice appeared in the center of the rock barrier, as its two halves gradually tilted sideways away from each other.

Mr. Holystone stepped back, slowly withdrawing the sword from the widening crack. He was gasping; his chest heaved with effort. But otherwise it was hard to believe that this was the man who, day after day, had lain unconscious without speech or movement. He glanced at his companions; his eyes lit on Dido.

"You are small; you can climb in through that gap," he said curtly. Without a word, Dido did as she was directed, ignoring Windward's peevish interjection of "Wait a moment, now—how do we know what's in there?"

Dido levered herself cautiously through the narrow aperture.

"Anybody at home?" she inquired.

It was pitch dark inside, but she was heartened and encouraged by the feeling of the cat vigorously rubbing against her leg. The air was terribly scanty, stale, and bad; she found it only just possible to breathe.

"Hey!" she gulped, putting her head back through the crack. "Fetch up some o' those rumirumi flowers, can you?"

"Ay, ay," answered Multiple, and she heard his feet thudding off down the gully. Then came a loud cry of amazement or fright.

Dido ignored that. Her eyes were becoming accustomed to the dim light, and she could see a small figure huddled in a corner of the cave.

"Hilloo?" she said softly. "Who's that? Can you speak? Are you Elen?"

"Yes ... Elen..." came the faint answer. "Air ... please, air!"

"Don't you fret. Air's just a-coming. Rest easy!"

Groping her way across the cave, Dido felt about and found a thin hand, which she clasped comfortingly; it seemed very small, not even as large as her own.

In five minutes or less, Mr. Multiple was back with an armful of rumirumi lilies which he thrust through the gap; outside, beyond the rock, Dido could hear him excitedly telling the others some piece of news which evoked gasps of amazement and disbelief from Windward and Noah. "Go look for yourselves!" said Mr. Multiple.

Dido meanwhile held the bundle of flowers close to the prisoner's face.

"There!" she whispered. "Breathe deep now. That'll set you right in a brace o' shakes!"

The prisoner breathed, gulped, and coughed. Cough, thought Dido; a convulsion of the lungs. She felt around on the floor of the cave and discovered a small, thick book, which felt as if it was bound in leather.

"Guess you won't need to tear out any more pages now, hey? Feeling stronger, are you? Think you can manage to climb out? Or shall I ask them outside to pass in a bit of bread and a hard-boiled egg?"

"No ... no ... I am better now, thank you. I think I can climb out."

"That's the dandy. Wait till I help you up. Slowly does it."

Assisted by Dido, the prisoner scrambled slowly through the narrow crack. Willing hands were waiting to receive her on the far side.

When Dido emerged herself, holding the book, she discovered that the hail had changed to freezing, driving snow. Lieutenant Windward, Mr. Holystone, Noah, and the rescued prisoner were already making their difficult way down the gully. Mr. Multiple had waited to help Dido.

"Well done, young un!" he congratulated her. "Reckon she'd never a got out if it weren't for you! But come on now—don't dally—it's cold enough to freeze a brass baboon."

"You take this book and the flowers, then I'll carry the cat"—for it had jumped back through the gap with Dido. "What was all that yelling about?" she asked, as they slipped and stumbled down the rocky hillside in the blizzard.

"I'll show you. Just look here!" Mr. Multiple paused by a big rock. Something purple and silver gleamed beyond it. With total astonishment, Dido, coming up beside him, saw the body of a woman sprawled among the black boulders. Already snow was veining the folds of her satin dress and whitening her disheveled hair. She had been wearing a loo-mask, but the string had broken, and it lay beside her face. Dido recognized her.

"It's Mrs. Vavasour, the dressmaker. How the blazes did she get here? Is she dead?"

"As a doornail."

"But where did she come from?"

"You remember the big owl? The one that lit on your head, and Holystone spiked it with his sword? Well, that's her! I saw the owl fly to that rock, and then it toppled off dead. And there she lies. She was the owl!"

"Mussy save us," whispered Dido. She was really stunned by this discovery.

"I used to hear tell, when I was in the West Indies station," said Mr. Multiple, as they went on slithering down the hill, "of witches who could turn themselves into hares or foxes or birds; but I never believed it above half."

"There were two owls," shivered Dido. "I wonder where the other went?"

She thought of the two women who had abducted her; of the two who had accompanied Lady Ettarde. Were they the same? Where was Mrs. Morgan now?

"It better not come near me," said Mr. Multiple cheerfully, "or I'll give it neighbor's fare. I'll settle its hash like that one."

"Maybe you need Mr. Holystone's sword," said Dido.

By the time they reached the burros, the rest of the party was mounted and waiting for them impatiently. There was no time for talk or congratulation; the weather had become too wild.

"Come on!" called Mr. Windward. "I reckon the guardian's stable that Dylan told us of can't be too far off. If we don't get to it soon we'll all freeze in our tracks!"

The rescued prisoner had been laid in the litter, wrapped in sheepskins, and Mr. Holystone had mounted one of the baggage burros. They set off at a rapid speed. Snow slashed their faces like cutlass blades, and the donkeys slipped and staggered as the stones became coated with ice; it was horrible riding. Fortunately, in less than twenty minutes they reached the end of the lake; by then their faces, clothes, and all exposed surfaces were cased in a layer of ice. Not a moment too soon they came to a low building, solidly built of clay and thatched with ichu grass; the door, though closed, was not fastened, and they all bundled inside, pell-mell, riders and beasts together.

"Anybody about? May we come in?" shouted Windward, but there was no reply; the place was empty, save for a few mules and a couple of llamas, which stared placidly at the intruders.

Noah and Mr. Multiple instantly began to kindle a fire, having discovered a clay hearth and a pile of thorn and llama droppings apparently intended as fuel.

A wide clay shelf along the side of the building was evidently meant to serve as table, chairs, and bed for any travelers making use of the place. Lieutenant Windward heaped some ruanas on a section of this near the fire, and then assisted the rescued captive to lie down.

"How are you feeling now, miss?" he inquired very politely.

The fire blazed up. Dido could see now that the prisoner was a girl perhaps four years older than herself. Elen wore a very plain gray dress with a white tucker, and a brown pinafore over it, reaching to her ankles. She had blue stockings, buckled shoes, and a blue cap that fitted her head closely and had four square corners. She was desperately thin and frail. Despite that, she was the most beautiful person Dido had ever seen. Her face had a kind of transparent clearness—like the mountains at sunup, Dido thought, or one o' them waterfalls. Her eyes were large and gray, her nose straight, her mouth wide and smiling. Silky brown curtains of hair fell on either side of her forehead.

"I am alive!" she said, in answer to Windward's question. "Thanks to you all! And to Toldrum here." The cat had jumped up beside her and she was fondling its head.

"How did you ever get behind that rock?" demanded the lieutenant.

"Are you King Mabon's daughter?" said Dido.

The girl smiled at her and held out a hand.

"Yes, I am Elen. And I have to thank you, especially, for climbing through that cranny, and thinking to get me the rumi flowers!"

You have to thank me for a deal more than that, Dido thought, taking the small, thin hand for the second time and smiling back at the princess of Lyonesse.

"How many o' them cats did you have to start?" she asked.

"Five. Poor faithful friends ... I am afraid aurocs or wild beasts must have killed the others."

"Not all o' them," said Dido. "Three got through. But—like the loot here asked—who put you in there?"

"Queen Ginevra, of course," said Elen, as if surprised that anybody should ask such a simple question.

Dido noticed that Mr. Holystone—who, since entering the warm, dim stable, had seemed wrapped in dreamy reverie, gazing at the fire—started slightly at this name and looked round.

"The queen put you there?" Windward gaped at the princess. "But—why?"

"For a sacrifice to Sul. The Temple of Sul is up above here on the mountain."

"Why?" he said again, incredulously.

"For long life, naturally!" Elen raised her beautiful brows. "Many short lives make one long one. How can she live until her Quondam king comes back unless she takes a great many other lives—young lives, of girls?"

Windward stared at her, speechless, stiff with horror.

"That's why there weren't any girls in Tenby or Bath? It ain't the aurocs at all?" Dido nodded, her suspicions fully confirmed.

"I daresay the aurocs may have had one or two every year," said Elen. "But they mostly remain in the mountains. You have only to ask the guardian of this place; he will tell you how many years he has been throwing girls into Lake Arianrod. And his predecessors before him."

"I never heard anything so disgraceful in my whole life," said Lieutenant Windward hoarsely. "And she calls herself a civilized woman! But how did she manage to get hold of you, miss?"

"Well—when I was seven my father sent me to school in Queen's Square, in the other Bath—in England. Lyonesse ought to be safe enough; but, my father thought, best take no chances. So I went to school for nine years. And on the way back my ship was captured by pirates.

"Pirates? They were in Ginevra's pay; her watchdogs. Those three witches of hers throw their net far afield. And a king's daughter, by their reckoning, is worth far more than any ordinary girl. Her bones give six months of life; mine—who knows how long? Six years, perhaps..."

"Bones?" whispered Mr. Multiple, who, now that the fire was burning well, had been drawn by the sound of Elen's level voice.

"Thrown into the lake. Eaten by Sul's sacred fish. Then the bones are made into a paste, which, eaten daily by Ginevra, has preserved her life for many hundreds of years."

Dido thought of the fat queen, lolling on her couch, languidly tasting thick white porridge from a silver dish. My reflection, she thought suddenly. I wonder if it ever came back—like those watches beginning to go again? But even if it didn't—better lose your reflection than be thrown into Arianrod for the fish to munch and then have your bones ground up into porridge.

"That was why your dad pinched the lake, then?" she said. "So you couldn't be thrown in? He guessed the queen musta got you?"

"Did he steal the lake?" A warm ripple of affection came into Elen's voice. "Clever father! He knew that would put a stone in her shoe!"

"So then she called in the British Navy," said Windward. "I begin to see.... But how could she hope to make King Mabon return the lake so long as she held you, Princess?"

"Because," said Dido, "she hoped as I'd let on to be the princess, and that King Mabon'd be fooled. That was why she didn't make me into porridge. Though I reckon she was fair itching to. But why were you left in that cave, ma'am? Princess?"

"Oh, pray call me Elen. All the girls at Miss Castlereagh's Academy did so. I was left in the cave because the sacrifice has to be made at a particular time of the month, when the new moon holds the old one in its arms. Lady Ettarde and those other women put me there. And the guardian used to come every day or so to feed me ... when he remembered. He will not be best pleased when he finds that I have escaped. Ginevra will probably have him thrown in the lake. Oh, no, I forget—there is no lake. She must have been growing desperate."

Elen's eyes widened. The fire had now burned up into a good blaze and, for the first time, she had noticed Mr. Holystone, who stood gazing at the flames with a puzzled frown creasing his brow, as if he were groping in his mind for the verse of some ancient rhyme which continually escaped him.

Elen said, "But why is my cousin Gwydion with you? And why is he so silent?"

"Gwydion?" said Dido. Her eyes followed Elen's to the silent figure by the fire.

"Gwydion," repeated Elen. "I recognized him at once. Though he has grown a beard, which suits him very well—and it is a long time since we used to play as children. He used to carve me dolls from sigse wood. He is the son—the adopted son—of my uncle Huayna Ccapac. Atahallpa, they called him in Hy Brasil, but father always called him Gwydion. How are you, cousin?"

"No, madam," said a new voice, which made them all, Holystone included, turn hastily toward the doorway. "He is not your cousin. He is of more ancient lineage than you reckon."

Framed in the entrance stood a strange figure—what seemed at first sight to be a walking snowball, but proved, when he had shaken himself, to be a dwarfish little man, hardly more than three feet high, with white hair and deep, dark eyes and a long hooked nose. He threw off the snow-caked toga which he had wrapped round him, and stumped forward, giving his unbidden guests some very unwelcoming looks, and stopping in front of Mr. Holystone to launch at him a stare of particular dislike while apparently making an inventory of every detail of his appearance: from the gold-brown beard, bronzed skin, and quiet gray eyes to the birthmark on his right forearm and the hand which still clasped the hilt of the sword Caliburn. Splitting the rock had cleaned the rust from the sword blade; it now shone green and deadly, and more light than was reflected from the fire seemed to play up and down its length.

"I beg your pardon—are you the guardian—Caradog?" broke in Lieutenant Windward briskly, feeling that some explanation was owing to their reluctant host. "Ahem! Excuse me! I have a permit here, signed by Queen Ginevra, for travel through the Gate of Nimue and on to Lyonesse."

"Yes, yes, yes, I know all about that," testily answered the guardian. "I was expecting you last night; my sister had informed me of your intentions."

He spoke as if their journey seemed to him a tiresome fidget about a trifle, and went on, ignoring Windward and addressing Holystone. "But why trouble King Mabon about the lake, my lord, since you are already returned to us? What need to visit Lyonesse? Will you not rather return to your capital of Bath Regis?"

"Gwydion's capital?!" exclaimed Elen. "Gracious me, whom do you take him for?"

"Why, who should he be but the Pendragon? He is Mercurius Artaius, true son of Uther. Let me be the first to salute you, lord, Rex Quondam et vivens, High King of New Cumbria, Lyonesse, and Hy Brasil," said Caradog, not sounding in the least pleased about it, but going rather creakily and grumpily down on one knee, nevertheless, to kiss Mr. Holystone's hand, which still rested on the hilt of the sword Caliburn. "Ave rege! Vivat rex!"

The party from the Thrush stared at one another, dumbstruck.

Elen exclaimed, "Gwydion? Can this be true? Or is the old man joking? Are you—can you really be the Pendragon?"

Holystone looked down at the sword in his hand. He said slowly, "Yes, it is true. I am beginning to remember it all—the battle by the winter sea, and how the queens came in a boat across the lake, and carried me away, and cast me into a sleep."

"In the Isle of Avilion," confirmed Caradog. He added rather sourly, "Your lady wife will be very happy to have you restored to her. She has waited and sorrowed for you these many hundreds of years."

"Wife?" exclaimed Dido in horror. "D'you mean that Mr. Holystone is married to that murdering old hag of a queen in Bath? Who's been killing off girls right, left, and rat's ramble, just so she could stay alive longer than ordinary folk?"

"Finis coronat opus," said Caradog.

"What's that mean, Mr. Guardian?"

"It means, the end justifies the means."

"No, it certainly don't! What do you think, Mr. Holy? King Whatsyourname? If you really are him? Do you think it's right for that fat queen to stay alive by having poor girls chucked into the lake? Why, she was fixing to chuck Elen here, if we hadn't turned up!"

Mr. Holystone appeared deeply troubled. Frowning perplexedly at Dido, he said, "Who are you, child? Why do I seem to know you? And what can you know of these high matters?"

It was evident that the three separate parts of his existence had not yet dovetailed together.

"Oh, blimey!" said Dido, hurt and cross. She felt extremely upset, but tried not to show it. She couldn't help adding, however, "When I think of all the times I fed Dora—and taught you the Battersea Basket—and how you used to put cockroach lotion on my toes—"

At the same instant Elen exclaimed in a tone of horror, as though the reality had been gradually dawning on her, "You mean my cousin Gwydion is married to that wicked woman—to Queen Ginevra?"

"Was—was, in a former life," corrected Caradog fussily. "And as, although he has been reborn, she has remained alive, of course the marriage is still valid. Any court of law would uphold it. Not to mention the ties of honor and obligation—since she has faithfully waited for him so many hundreds of years."

"I don't see how honor could tie him to someone who's been eating people's bones all that time!"

"Really, Miss Twite, I feel this is none of your—of our business!" exclaimed Lieutenant Windward.

"Our business is to fetch the lake back and have Cap'n Hughes let out of the pokey," pointed out Mr. Multiple matter-of-factly. "And then to get hell-for-leather out o' this infernal country," he added under his breath, rattling the diamonds in his pocket.

"If you are committed to reclaim the lake for Queen Ginevra, of course you must do so," Caradog said suavely. "The storm will abate very soon; you may set out at daybreak."

Dido thought she noticed a calculating gleam in his eye. There's one as'll bear watching, she thought; cunning as an old weasel or my name ain't Twite. Had poor Elen shut in a cave, was going to chuck her in the lake—but we don't hear anything about that now, oh, no! Butter wouldn't melt on his whiskers. If Mr. Holy is King Arthur come back, what's it matter to Old Nibs there whether the lake is put back or not? And who does he remind me of? Who else has a long neb like that?

Her reflections were interrupted at this point by a tremendous fanfare of bocinas and bamboo trumpets outside the door, together with shouts of "Guardian, there! Ho, Guardian! Open up!"

"Who is it?" demanded Caradog suspiciously.

"Sextus Lucius Trevelyan, officer in command, second division, Wandesborough Frontier Patrol. You know my voice, you old spider! Come on, open up! We've heard a tale that you have the princess Elen with you."

"And who in the name of Nodens told you that?" muttered old Caradog, hobbling to unbar the door, which he had bolted behind him.