"Forward!" ordered King. "This must be Tophet. Know ye not that
none come out of Tophet by the way they entered in? Forward! The
exit is beyond!"

They staggered after him, sheltering their eyes and faces from the
glare with turban-ends and odds and ends of clothing. The animals
swayed behind them with hung heads and drooping ears, and neither
man nor beast had sense enough left to have detected an ambush. They
were more than half-way across the valley, hunting for shadow where
none was to be found, when a shotted salute brought them up all-
standing in a cluster. Six or eight nickel-coated bullets spattered
on the rocks close by, and one so narrowly missed King that be could
feel its wind.

Up went all their hands together, and they held them so until they
ached. Nothing whatever happened. Their arms ceased aching and
grew numb.

"Forward!" ordered King.

After another quarter of a mile of stumbling among hot boulders,
not one of which was big enough to afford cover, or shelter from
the sun, another volley whistled over them. Their hands went up
again, and this time King could see turbaned heads above a parapet
in front. But nothing further happened.

"Forward!" he ordered.

They advanced another two hundred yards and a third volley rattled