Oddly enough, I did not faint; I suppose
that the pain and the shock to my nerves kept me awake, for I heard
Leo say in a matter-of-fact voice between his gasps for breath--"Well,
that's over, and I think that I have fulfilled the Shaman's prophecy.
Let's look and make sure."
Then he led me with him to one of the rocks, and there, resting supinely
against it, sat the Khan, still living but unable to move hand or foot.
The madness had quite left his face and he looked at us with melancholy
eyes, like the eyes of a sick child.
"You are brave men," he said, slowly, "strong also, to have killed those
hounds and broken my back. So it has come about as was foretold by the
old Rat. After all, I should have hunted Atene, not you, though now she
lives to avenge me, for her own sake, not mine. Yellow-beard, she hunts
you too and with deadlier hounds than these, those of her thwarted
passions. Forgive me and fly to the Mountain, Yellow-beard, whither I go
before you, for there one dwells who is stronger than Atene."
Then his jaw dropped and he was dead.
CHAPTER XII
THE MESSENGER
"He is gone," I panted, "and the world hasn't lost much."
"Well, it didn't give him much, did it, poor devil, so don't let's
speak ill of him," answered Leo, who had thrown himself exhausted to the
ground. "Perhaps he was all right before they made him mad.
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