Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/264

 from his task. The girl, he knew, could not escape from the castle.

So Edith attained the first point in her objective, a tumbled pile of stone blocks against the raised walk that ran inside the parapet nearest the cliff. The Alaman stood before her, leaning on his rifle, well content that there had been no beating of his tender feet.

The eastern wall, together with that of the north and south, was more battered by the weather than that facing the plateau. The parapet was broken at intervals. Edith moved her position casually until she was abreast one of these breaks, and perched herself upon the stone walk that had served as a fire step before the days when guns and cartridges had been invented.

Here, she could look out through a gap in the masonry, and glimpsed the dark space that was the ravine. A distant murmur of running water reached her ears. She watched the two sentinels pacing the rampart and understood why Monsey had not posted a stronger guard. This side of the Kurgan was impregnable to attack.

A scant dozen feet of steep incline led to the brink of the cliff. Below was the five-hundred-foot drop to the river. Edith cast an anxious glance at the western horizon. Only a crimson and purple glow was visible. The sun had set some time ago. Across the dark bulk of the cliff facing her a few stars were visible. In the courtyard, the lanterns had gained full strength.

Dark figures passed between her and the lights. Heavy poles bearing a bundle at their ends were being raised into place. Once she saw Monsey, and instinctively shrank closer into her nest of rocks—although he could not now see her in the dark.