it yet when we ve got to let s get to then says dan and by god when i come back here again i ll sweep the valley so there isn t a in a blanket left we walked all that day and all that night dan was up and down on the snow his beard and muttering to himself there s no hope o getting clear said fish the priests will have sent to the villages to say that you are only men why didn t you stick on as till things was more settled i m a dead man says fish and the phantom he throws himself down on the snow and begins to pray to his next morning we was in a cruel bad country � all up and no level ground at all and no food either the six men looked at fish hungry way as if they wanted to ask something but they said never a word at noon we came to the top of a flat mountain all covered with snow and when we climbed up into it behold there was an army in position waiting in the middle the have been very quick says fish with a little bit of a laugh they arc waiting for us three or four men began to fire from the enemy s side and a chance shot took daniel in the calf of the leg that brought him to his senses he looks across the snow at the army and sees the that we had brought into the country we re done for says he � they are englishmen these people � and it s my nonsense that has brought you to this back fish and take your men away you ve done what you could and now cut for it says he shake hands with me and go along with maybe they won t kill you til go and meet em alone it s me that did it me the king the man who would be king says i go to hell dan i m with you here fish you clear out and we two will meet those folk a says fish quite quiet i stay with you my men can go the fellows didn t wait for a second word but ran oflf and dan and me and fish walked across to where the drums were and the horns were it was cold � awful cold i ve got that cold in the back of my head now there s a lump of it there the had gone to sleep two lamps were blazing in the office and the perspiration poured down my face and on the as i leaned forward was shivering and i feared that his mind might go i wiped my face took a fresh grip of the hands and said what after that the momentary shift of my eyes had broken the clear current what was you pleased to say they took them without any sound not a little whisper all along the snow not though the king knocked down the first man that set hand on him � not though old fired his last into the brown of em not a single solitary sound did those make they just closed up tight and i tell you their the phantom there was a man called fish a good of us all and they cut his throat sir then and there like a pig and the king up the bloody snow and says we ve had a dashed fine run for our money what s coming next but i tell you sir in confidence as two friends he lost his head sir no he didn t neither the king lost his head so he did all along o one of those cunning rope bridges kindly let me have the paper sir it this way they marched him a mile across that snow to a rope bridge over a with a river at the bottom you may have seen such they him behind like an ox damn your eyes says the king suppose i can t die like a gentleman he turns to � that was crying like a child i ve brought you to this says he brought you out of your happy life to be killed in where you was late commander in chief of the emperor s forces say you forgive me � i do says fully and freely do i forgive you dan � shake hands says he going now out he goes looking neither right nor left and when he was in the middle of those dizzy dancing ropes cut you beggars he shouts and they cut and old dan fell turning round and round and round twenty thousand miles for he took half the man who would be king an hour to i l till he struck the water and i could see his body caught on a rock with the gold crown close beside but do you know what they did to between two pine trees they him sir as s hands will show they used wooden for his hands and his feet and he didn t die he hung there and screamed and they took him down next day and said it was a miracle that he wasn t dead they took him down � poor old that hadn t done them any harm � that hadn t done them any he rocked to and fro and wept bitterly wiping his eyes with the back of his hands and moaning like a child for some ten minutes they was cruel enough to feed him up in the temple because they said he was more of a god than old daniel that was a man then they turned him out on the snow and told him to go home and came home in about a year begging along the roads quite safe for daniel he walked 