Page:Lieut Gullivar Jones - His Vacation - Edwin Arnold (1905).djvu/299

 eyeing his enemies with gentle calm, his knees unlocked, his frame trembled, then down he went headlong, his red blood running forth in rivulets amongst the wine of oblivion he had just poured out.

There was no time for sentiment. I shrugged my shoulders, and turning on my heels, with the woodmen close after me, sprang through the near doorway. Where was Heru? I flew down the corridor by which it seemed she had retreated, and then, hesitating a moment where it divided in two, took the left one. This to my chagrin presently began to trend upwards, whereas I knew Heru was making for the river down below.

But it was impossible to go back, and whenever I stopped in those deserted passages I could hear the wolf-like patter of men's feet upon my trail. On again into the stony labyrinths of the old palace, ever upwards, in spite of my desire to go down, until at last, the pursuers off the track for a moment, I came to a north window in the palace wall, and, hot and breathless, stayed to look out.

All was peace here; the sky a lovely lavender, a promise of coming morning in it, and a gold-spangled curtain of stars out yonder on the horizon. Not a soul moved. Below appeared a sheer drop of a hundred feet into a moat winding through thickets of heavy-scented con-