After resting for two hours they marched on again, and soon it became
apparent that their movements were watched. The roadway which they were
following--if a track beaten flat by the feet of men and cattle could be
called a road--wound to and fro between boulders of rock, and here and
there standing upon the boulders were men clad in goat-skins, each of
them carrying a spear, a bow and a horn. So soon as their party came
within five or six hundred yards of one of these men, he would shoot
an arrow in their direction, which, when picked up, proved to be barbed
with iron, and flighted with red feathers like the first that they had
seen. Then the sentry would blow his horn, either as a signal or in
token of defiance, bound from the rock, and vanish. This did not look
encouraging, but there was worse to come. Presently, as they drew near
to the city, they descried large bodies of armed men crossing the river
that surrounded it in boats and on rafts, and mustering on the hither
side. At length all of them were across, and the regiment, which
appeared to number more than a thousand men, formed up in a hollow
square and advanced upon them at the double.

The crisis was at hand.



CHAPTER XX

THE COMING OF ACA

Leonard turned and looked at his companions with something like dismay
written on his face.

"What is to be done now?" he said.