No,
I answered, but who can say—we might be hunted.
If you believe that perhaps you had best stay where you are till the Khania wearies of Yellow-beard and opens the gates for you,
he replied, eyeing me with his cunning glance.
I think not,
I said, and we started, the Khan leading the way and motioning us to be silent.
We passed through the empty rooms on to the verandah, and from the verandah down into the courtyard, where he whispered to us to keep in the shadow. For the moon shone very clearly that night, so clearly, I remember, that I could see the grass which grew between the joints of the pavement, and the little shadows thrown by each separate blade upon the worn surface of its stones. Now I wondered how we should pass the gate, for there a guard was stationed, which had of late been doubled by order of the Khania. But this gate we left upon our right, taking a path that led into the great walled garden, where Rassen brought us to a door hidden behind a clump of shrubs, which he unlocked with a key he carried.
Now we were outside the palace wall, and our road ran past the kennels. As we went by these, the great, sleepless death-hounds, that wandered to and fro like prowling lions, caught our wind and burst into a sudden chorus of terrific bays. I shivered at the sound, for it was fearful in that silence, also I thought that it would arouse the keepers. But the Khan went to the bars and showed himself, whereon the brutes, which knew him, ceased their noise.
Fear not,
he said as he returned, the huntsmen know that they are starved to-night, for to-morrow certain criminals will be thrown to them.
Now we had reached the palace gates. Here the Khan bade us hide in an archway and departed. We looked at each other, for the same thought was in both our minds—that he had gone to fetch the murderers who were to
