A while before dawn the moon sank behind the Mountain, and the gloom
grew so dense that we were forced to stop, which we did, holding the
horses by their bridles and allowing them to graze a little on some
young corn. Then the sky turned grey, the light faded from the column
of smoke that was our guide, the dawn came, blushing red upon the vast
snows of the distant peak, and shooting its arrows through the loop
above the pillar. We let the horses drink from a channel that watered
the corn, and, mounting them, rode onward slowly.
Now with the shadows of the night a weight of fear seemed to be lifted
off our hearts and we grew hopeful, aye, almost joyous. That hated city
was behind us. Behind us were the Khania with her surging, doom-driven
passions and her stormy loveliness, the wizardries of her horny-eyed
mentor, so old in years and secret sin, and the madness of that strange
being, half-devil, half-martyr, at once cruel and a coward--the Khan,
her husband, and his polluted court. In front lay the fire, the snow and
the mystery they hid, sought for so many empty years. Now we would solve
it or we would die. So we pressed forward joyfully to meet our fate,
whatever it might be.
For many hours our road ran deviously through cultivated land, where the
peasants at their labour laid down their tools and gathered into knots
to watch us pass, and quaint, flat-roofed villages, whence the women
snatched up their children and fled at the sight of us.
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