Part 35 (2/2)

But he never fired it The press was on hiher than any of the to check the rush with his pistol There is power in nu For a second to that wild crowd Stuh to crush him The wave flowed round and then across him I saw the butt-ends of rifles crash on his head and shoulders, and the next second the streaement on the ripped , dick Look at the grey devilsOh, God be thanked, it's our friends!'

The nexton one leg between us I heard di, 'Oh, well done our side!' and Blenkiron declai about Harper's Ferry, but I had no voice at all and no wish to shout I know the tears were in my eyes, and that if I had been left alone I would have sat down and cried with pure thankfulness For sweeping down the glen carey cavalry on little wiry horses, a cloud which stayed not for the rear of the fugitives, but swept on like a flight of rainboith the steel of their lance-heads glittering in the winter sun They were riding for Erzerum

Remember that for three months we had been with the enemy and had never seen the face of an Ally in arreat cause, like a fort surrounded by an army And noere delivered, and there fell around us the warm joy of comradeshi+p as well as the exultation of victory

We flung caution to the winds, and went stark mad Sandy, still in his e up the farther slope of the hollow, yelling greetings in every language known to man The leader saw him, with a word checked his men for a moment-it was marvellous to see the horses reined in in such a break-neck ride-and fro loose and wheeled towards us Then a round beside us wringing our hands

'You are safe, my old friends'-it was Peter's voice that spoke-'I will take you back to our aret you breakfast'

'No, by the Lord, you won't,' cried Sandy 'We've had the rough end of the job and noe'll have the fun Look after Blenkiron and these fellows ofto ride knee by knee with your sportsmen for the city'

Peter spoke a word, and two of the Cossacks disreycoats, galloping down the road up which thebefore we had strained to the castrol

That was the great hour of h it orth a dozen years of slavery With a broken left arm I had little hold on my beast, so I trusted my neck to him and let him have his will Black with dirt and sure than any Cossack I soon was separated from Sandy, who had two hands and a better horse, and seemed resolute to press forward to the very van That would have been suicide for me, and I had all I could do to keep my place in the bunch I rode with

But, Great God! what an hour it was! There was loose shooting on our flank, but nothing to trouble us, though the gun teaave us a bit of a tussle Everything flitted past me like s I knew the living movement under me, and the companionshi+p ofwith the realization of a neorld I felt the shadows of the Palantuken glen fading, and the great burst of light as we eed on the wider valley Somewhere before us was a pall of smoke seaher hills All that ti to myself, so happy, so deliriously happy that I dared not try to think I kepta kind of prayer oodness in the land of the living

But as we drew out fro slope to the city, I woke to clear consciousness I felt the smell of sheepskin and lathered horses, and above all the bitter s in many places, and fro in on it I yelled to my comrades that ere nearest, that ould be first in the city, and they nodded happily and shouted their strange war-cries As we topped the last ridge I saw below e-a dark mass on the snohile the broken ene in the fields

In the very front, now nearing the city ramparts, was one man He was like the point of the steel spear soon to be driven ho air I could see that he did not wear the uniform of the invaders He was turbaned and rode like one possessed, and against the snow I caught the dark sheen of e Turks were stricken still, and sank by the roadside with eyes strained after his unheeding figure

Then I knew that the prophecy had been true, and that their prophet had not failed the-looked for revelation had co people