in their superstitious fear they might send back and kill her to the evil fate now swallow said there is but one thing for us to do and it is to seek refuge among my people the whose mountain lies at a distance of four days journey from this place but to speak truth i am not sure how they will receive me seeing that i parted from them in anger twelve years ago having quarrelled with them first about a matter of policy and secondly about a matter of marriage and that my the son of my father by a slave was promoted to rule in my place still to them we must go and with them we must stay if they will suffer it until we find an opportunity of travelling south in safety if it must be so answered sighing per swallow will escort us to the house of the before he turns for they will think the more of us if they see us at the head of a great army to this plan and his captains assented with gladness for they loved and honoured the swallow and were sore at heart because their fears forced them to leave her alone in the wilderness but first they made sure that the mountain lay to the west and not to the south for not one step to the southward would they allow to travel with them on the morrow then they marched and the evening of the third day they set their camp in a mountain pass which led to a wide plain before sunrise next morning woke dress yourself swallow she said and come to see the light break on the house of my people so they went out in the grey dawn and climbing a in the mouth of the pass looked before them at first they could distinguish nothing for all the plain beneath was a sea of mist through which in the distance loomed something like a mountain till presently the rays of the rising sun struck upon it and the of parted like curtains that are drawn back and there before them was the mountain fortress of separated from the pass by a great space of mist clad plain looked and knew it she said it is the place of my vision and none other see the straight sides of red rock the five upon the eastern slope fashioned like the thumb and fingers of the hand of a man yes and there between the thumb and first finger a river runs i told you that it was so from the beginning swallow for in all the country there is no other such hill as this how became a and because of the aspect of those when seen from a distance it is named the mountain of the great hand before the words had left her lips another voice spoke at the sound of which nearly fell to the earth good day to you it said in dutch and was silent did you hear she gasped do i dream or did van speak to me you did not dream answered for that voice was the voice o and no other and he is hidden somewhere among the rocks of yonder cliff wall quick swallow kneel behind this stone lest he should shoot she obeyed and at that moment the voice spoke again out of the shadows of the cliff that bordered the pass twenty or thirty paces from them what it said is that little witch telling you that i shall fire on you had i wished i could have shot you three times over while you were standing upon that rock but why should i desire to kill one who will be my lover i wished to shoot indeed but her familiar set her so that the bullet must pass through you to reach her heart you are going to hide yourself among the people of the oh yes i know your plan well when once you are behind the walls of that mountain it may be difficult to speak to you for a while so listen to me you thought that you had left me far away did you not but i have followed you step by step and twice i have been very near to you although i could never find a chance to carry you off safely well i wish to tell you that sooner or later i shall find that chance sooner or later you will come out of the mountain or i shall get into it and then it will be my turn so love swallow till that hour fare you well stay i forgot i have news for you your husband the english is dead at this tidings a low moan of pain broke from s lips be silent and take no heed whispered who was kneeling at her side behind the shelter of the stone he does but lie to torment you the bullet and the water together were too much for him went on and he died on the second night after he reached the stead your father came to seek me in the place you know and was carried home badly wounded for his pains but whether he lived or died i cannot tell you but i heard that your mother the good is very sick for things have so fallen out lately thai her mind is troubled and she flies to drink to comfort it now when she heard this could keep silence no longer but cried in a mocking voice get you gone bull head and take lessons in lying from your friends of my trade the witch doctors for never before did i hear a man bear false witness so on the third night of his illness the husband of swallow was alive and doing well the was not wounded at all and as for the never in her 