LITMIR.BIZ

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that it was very dark. Far off there was a call like a jackal barking. There were other things alive on this shelf beside themselves.

      Then he heard a sound close at hand—the padding of soft feet on gravel. His spot-light was beside him, and he flashed it in the direction of the feet. About ten yards away stood an animal. At first he thought it was a wolf from its size till he saw its sharp muzzle and prick ears, its reddish fur, and its thick tail. It was a fox, one of the cannibal foxes of the Pais de Venenos that he had heard of from Sandy. The animal blinked in the light, and its teeth were bared in a snarl. Archie reached for Hamilton’s rifle, which lay loaded beside them, but he was too late. The great brute turned and trotted off, and passed out of sight among the boulders.

      “Enough to put me off fox-hunting for evermore,” thought Archie. After that he did not sleep, but lay watching the dark thin to shadows and the shadows lighten to dawn. The sun seemed to leap with a bound over the far Cordilleras, and a morning mist, as white and flat as a snowfield, filled the valleys. Archie’s heartsickness returned to him like a fever. Somewhere within the horizon was Janet, but by what freak of fortune was he to get her—himself a mere lost atom at the edge of his endurance, and as ignorant as a babe of this immense, uncharted, unholy world?

      Both men soon realised that the Pais de Venenos had exacted its penalty. Hamilton was clearly in a fever, which may have been due to his many cuts, and Archie felt something like a band of hot steel round his head. For breakfast they nibbled a little chocolate and ate a few raisins. Then, as far as their bodily discomfort permitted, they discussed their plans.

      “We’re up against some solid facts, Hamilton,” said Archie. “We’re looking for my wife, and I believe she’s somewhere within fifty miles, but we’ve got to admit that we’re lost ourselves. All I remember from Lord Clanroyden’s map is that if we keep going up the south wall of the Poison Country we’ll come to the main range, and south-west of that lies Pacheco. The people we’re seeking must be up on the range, but they may be north or south the of Poison Country. We couldn’t cross that infernal valley, so let’s hope they are on the south. Another thing—we mayn’t be able to get up the range—we’re neither of us in much form for mountaineering. Also, we’ve got about enough food to last us with care for two days. We shan’t want for water.”

      “I’ll no need much meat,” said Hamilton sombrely. “I cauldna swallow my breakfast, my throat’s that sair.”

      “We’re both dashed ill,” Archie agreed. “I feel like a worm, and you look like one. Maybe we’ll be better if we get higher.”

      Hamilton turned a feverish eye upwards. “I doot it’s higher we’ll be goin’. Anither kind o’ Flyin’ Corps. Angels.”

      “That’s as it may be. It’s too soon to chuck in our hand. You and I have been in as ugly places before this. We’re both going on looking for my wife till we drop. We’ll trust to the standing luck of the British Army. I’ve a sort notion we’ll find something… “

      “We’ll maybe find mair folk than we can manage.”

      “Undoubtedly. If we’re lucky enough to get that far, we’ll have to go very warily. We needn’t make plans till we what turns up. At the worst we can put up a fight.”

      Hamilton nodded, as if the thought comforted him. A fight with men against odds was the one prospect which held no terrors for him.

      The two very slowly and painfully began their march over the shelf and up to the snow-rimmed slopes which contained it. The Pais de Venenos behind them was still a solid floor of mist. Happily the going was good—flat reefs of rock with between them long stretches of gravelly sand. Archie decided that he must bear a little to his right, for there the containing wall seemed to be indented by a pass. They must find the easiest road, for they were in no condition to ascend steep rock or snow. The wind was from the east and wisps of cloud drifted towards them, bringing each a light flurry of snowflakes. They had awoken shivering, and now as they walked their teeth chattered, for both were too sore and stiff to go fast enough to warm their blood.

      Suddenly they struck a path—a real path, not an animal’s track, but a road used regularly by human feet. Indeed, it seemed at one time to have been almost a highway. At one place Archie could have sworn that the rock had been quarried to ease the gradient, and at another, where it flanked a stream, it looked as if it had been embanked. In that wild place it seemed a miracle. Archie thought that he must be light-headed, so he examined carefully the workmanship. There could be no doubt about it, for his fingers traced the outlines of squared stones. Once this had been a great highroad, as solid as Roman work. It seemed to come out of the mist of the Poison. Valley, and to run straight towards the pass in the ridge. He pointed it out to Hamilton.

      “Aye, there’s been folk here langsyne,” was the answer. Archie bent over a patch of snow. “Not so long ago. Here are the marks of feet, naked feet, and they were made within the past twenty-four hours.”

      Slowly they tramped up the glacis of the range towards the pass. Hamilton walked like a man in a dream, stumbling often, and talking to himself. He seemed to have a head ache, for he stopped at the water-pools to bathe his head. The pain in Archie’s forehead grew worse as they ascended till it became almost unbearable. He kept his fingers on his eyes to ease the throbbing behind them. But his mind was clear, and he could reason with himself about his condition. It might be the poisoning of the forest—most likely that was true in Hamilton’s case—or it might be mountain sickness. He had once had a slight bout in the Karakoram, and he had heard that it was common in the Cordilleras… Just before the summit of the pass he looked back. The tablecloth was lifting from the Pais de Venenos, and the white floor was now cleft with olive-green gashes. The summit of the pass was a hollow between snowdrifts.

      There both men stood and stared, for the sight before them was strange and beautiful. Archie had expected another tableland, or a valley of rocks shut in between peaks. Instead his eyes looked over a wide hollow, some three miles in diameter. High ridges flanked it on all sides, and on the west was a great mass of mountain, which he believed must project like a promontory towards the Tierra Caliente. The slopes beneath them were at first boulders and shingle, but presently they became the ordinary grassy savannah, with clumps of wood here and there which seemed to be more than scrub. And in the centre of the hollow lay a lake, shaped like a scimitar, of the profoundest turquoise blue.

      He unslung his field-glasses and examined the place. There was no sign of life in it. At various points on the shore he could detect what looked like millet fields, but here was no mark of human habitation. Then he examined a dark blur near the western end, and found something that might have been the ruins of a Border keep.

      “We’ve struck a queer place,” he told his companion, but Hamilton turned a blank face. He had almost lost the power of sight; his whole mind was bent on forcing his sick body into movement.

      As they began to descend, an oppression seemed to lift from Archie’s soul. The horror of the place where he had landed left him, now that he had come into a clean bright country. Also the band of iron round his brow fretted him less. He found that he moved with greater ease, and he could lend a hand to his tottering companion. When they reached the first grass he felt hungry, and they sat down complete their breakfast. But Hamilton could only manage a single raisin, though he drank thirstily from a stream.

      The whole place was a riot of blue light, the heavens above and the lake beneath; even the rim of silver sand seemed to catch a turquoise reflection. The air, too, was no longer the dry, throat-catching thing of the high snows, but fresh and clement. The sun warmed them gratefully, and Archie’s eye recovered its old keenness. He saw a bird at last and the ornithologist awoke in him.

      “By Jove, a black snipe,” he cried. “The first I’ve seen.”

      The road they had followed skirted the northern edge of the lake and led them straight to the ruins near the western end. At close quarters the strangeness of the latter was increased. This had been a castle, like any Scots peel tower, the guardian of this fair valley. It had long been deserted, but the keep still stood foursquare, of a masonry which time and storm could not crumble. Archie examined it curiously. No

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