Say to her, from me, that had she not been the ambassadress of death, and, therefore, inviolate, surely ere now she would have shared her husband's bier.

Farewell, tomorrow we will speak again," and, loosing the Shaman's bridle, Oros passed on.
Soon we had left the melancholy procession behind us and, issuing from the gorge, turned up the Mountain slope towards the edge of the bright snows that lay not far above.

It was as we came out of this darksome valley, where the overhanging pine trees almost eclipsed the light, that suddenly we missed our guide.
"Has she gone back to--to reason with the Khania ?" I asked of Oros.
"Nay!" he answered, with a slight smile, "I think that she has gone forward to give warning that the Hesea's guests draw near." "Indeed," I answered, staring hard at the bare slope of mountain, up which not a mouse could have passed without being seen.

"I understand--she has gone forward," and the matter dropped.

But what I did _not_ understand was--how she had gone.