The sorrel and the chestnut mare travelled together as on one snaffle-
bar, step by step, for they were foaled in the same stable. Through
stretches of reed-beds and wastes of osiers they passed, and again by a
path through the jungle where the briar-vines caught at them like eager
fingers, and a tiger crossed their track, disturbed in his night's rest.
At length out of the dank distance they saw the first colour of dawn.

"Ten miles," said Tang-a-Dahit, "and we shall come to the Bar of Balmud.
Then we shall be in my own country. See, the dawn comes up! 'Twixt here
and the Bar of Balmud our danger lies. A hundred men may ambush there,
for Boonda Broke's thieves have scattered all the way from Mandakan to
our borders."

Cumner's Son looked round. There were hills and defiles everywhere, and
a thousand places where foes could hide. The quickest way, but the most
perilous, lay through the long defile between the hills, flanked by
boulders and rank scrub. Tang-a-Dahit pointed out the ways that they
might go--by the path to the left along the hills, or through the green
defile; and Cumner's Son instantly chose the latter way.

"If the fight were fair," said the hillsman, "and it were man to man, the
defile is the better way; but these be dogs of cowards who strike from
behind rocks. No one of them has a heart truer than Boonda Broke's, the
master of the carrion. We will go by the hills. The way is harder but
more open, and if we be prospered we will rest awhile at the Bar of
Balmud, and at noon we will tether and eat in the Neck of Baroob."

They made their way through the medlar trees and scrub to the plateau
above, and, the height gained, they turned to look back. The sun was up,
and trailing rose and amber garments across the great Eastern arch.