The pathway in the center of the street was unpaved, but the floors of the arcades were cut stone of various shapes and sizes but all carefully fitted and laid without mortar. These floors gave evidence of great antiquity, there being a distinct depression down the center as though the stone had been worn away by the passage of countless sandaled feet during the ages that it had lain there.
There were few people astir at this early hour, and these were of the same type as their captors. At first those whom they saw were only men, but as they went deeper into the city they came upon a few naked children playing in the soft dust of the roadway. Many they passed showed the greatest surprise and curiosity in the prisoners, and often made in-quiries of the guards, which the two assumed must have been in relation to themselves, while others appeared not to notice them at all.
"I wish we could understand their bally language," ex-claimed Smith-Oldwick.
"Yes," said the girl, "I would like to ask them what they are going to do with us.""That would be interesting," said the man. "I have been doing considerable wondering along that line myself.""I don't like the way their canine teeth are filed," said the girl. "It's too suggestive of some of the cannibals I have seen.""You don't really believe they are cannibals, do you?" asked the man. "You don't think white people are ever cannibals, do you?""Are these people white?" asked the girl.
"They're not Negroes, that's certain," rejoined the man.
"Their skin is yellow, but yet it doesn't resemble the Chinese exactly, nor are any of their features Chinese."It was at this juncture that they caught their first glimpse of a native woman. She was similar in most respects to the men though her stature was smaller and her figure more symmetri-cal. Her face was more repulsive than that of the men, pos-sibly because of the fact that she was a woman, which rather accentuated the idiosyncrasies of eyes, pendulous lip, pointed tusks and stiff, low-growing hair. The latter was longer than that of the men and much heavier. It hung about her shoul-ders and was confined by a colored bit of some lacy fabric.
Her single garment appeared to be nothing more than a filmy scarf which was wound tightly around her body from below her naked breasts, being caught up some way at the bottom near her ankles. Bits of shiny metal resembling gold, orna-mented both the headdress and the skirt. Otherwise the woman was entirely without jewelry. Her bare arms were slender and shapely and her hands and feet well proportioned and symmetrical.
She came close to the party as they passed her, jabbering to the guards who paid no attention to her. The prisoners had an opportunity to observe her closely as she followed at their side for a short distance.
"The figure of a houri," remarked Smith-Oldwick, "with the face of an imbecile."The street they followed was intersected at irregular in-tervals by crossroads which, as they glanced down them, proved to be equally as tortuous as that through which they were being conducted. The houses varied but little in design.
Occasionally there were bits of color, or some attempt at other architectural ornamentation. Through open windows and doors they could see that the walls of the houses were very thick and that all apertures were quite small, as though the people had built against extreme heat, which they realized must have been necessary in this valley buried deep in an African desert.
Ahead they occasionally caught glimpses of larger struc-tures, and as they approached them, came upon what was evidently a part of the business section of the city. There were numerous small shops and bazaars interspersed among the residences, and over the doors of these were signs painted in characters strongly suggesting Greek origin and yet it was not Greek as both the Englishman and the girl knew.
Smith-Oldwick was by this time beginning to feel more acutely the pain of his wounds and the consequent weakness that was greatly aggravated by loss of blood. He staggered now occasionally and the girl, seeing his plight, offered him her arm.
"No," he expostulated, "you have passed through too much yourself to have any extra burden imposed upon you." But though he made a valiant effort to keep up with their captors he occasionally lagged, and upon one such occasion the guards for the first time showed any disposition toward brutality.
It was a big fellow who walked at Smith-Oldwick's left.
Several times he took hold of the Englishman's arm and pushed him forward not ungently, but when the captive lagged again and again the fellow suddenly, and certainly with no just provocation, flew into a perfect frenzy of rage.
He leaped upon the wounded man, striking him viciously with his fists and, bearing him to the ground, grasped his throat in his left hand while with his right he drew his long sharp saber. Screaming terribly he waved the blade above his head.
The others stopped and turned to look upon the encounter with no particular show of interest. It was as though one of the party had paused to readjust a sandal and the others merely waited until he was ready to march on again.
But if their captors were indifferent, Bertha Kircher was not.
The close-set blazing eyes, the snarling fanged face, and the frightful screams filled her with horror, while the brutal and wanton attack upon the wounded man aroused within her the spirit of protection for the weak that is inherent in all women.
Forgetful of everything other than that a weak and defense-less man was being brutally murdered before her eyes, the girl cast aside discretion and, rushing to Smith-Oldwick's assist-ance, seized the uplifted sword arm of the shrieking creature upon the prostrate Englishman.
