"I did it well," he congratulated himself, "to have brought the bird to me as a mate. Welcome to my nest, Sir Owl, for I think you are a restless soul like myself." The bird flew away. But other companionship came. A rattling of stones down the ravine told of some one's approach. Hiram's success with the former hoot emboldened him to challenge Elnathan again. "Too-whoo!" rang and re-echoed. "But what a shriek!" said a voice not far distant. "I have heard that the owls in these mountains are the ghosts of dead Jews let out of Sheol for a night airing." "I can believe it, and that they are all damned ghosts, too, if that owl's voice shows his feeling," rejoined another. The stones rattled again. "The curse of Baal-Hermon on the traitor's head for leading us on such a road as this," said one who had evidently stumbled and fallen among the rocks. "Call on some other god, for the mountain god must have spent all his curses in making such a land as this. Try Beelzebub, the god of flies, for it would take a gnat to find the king in these narrow paths, branching everywhere. But I don't believe he went this way. The girl gave him warning. He has gone back, or taken the road to Hazor, and will make for Kadesh and Baal-Gad, and across the spur of Hermon to the highway for Damascus. We will do better to follow that. The addle-headed lout at the tent said that was the way most open, and he must have told the king the same, for he hadn't wit enough to invent two ideas." "But we cannot find that path; at least not until the moon rises. Let us wait here." The two men sat down close to one of the openings of Hiram's retreat. "The sacrifice should never have been at the image of Moloch. Melkarth is Lord of Tyre, and, had it been at the temple, Melkarth would never have allowed him to escape." "If he did escape!" said the other. "You doubt it, then?" replied his comrade. "Yes, for it cannot be proved, and the people all believe that Baal took him." "The people be cursed! But the priests do not believe it. Baal does wonders, but, so far as I have seen, he never does wonders that the priests cannot understand. And Egbalus himself shook his head when we asked him, and looked very wisely as he pointed to that tilting stone." "True!" replied the other; "but Egbalus bade me explore that underground passage. I did so until I came nearly under the god, when the way was utterly blocked. No human being could have gone farther without being changed into a ghost." "If he changed to a ghost, he will change back again; and I think some of our knives will find him to be as veritable flesh as ever butcher cut in the shambles. But, hist! Somebody comes." "Too-whoo!" "By the horns of Astarte! The owls are as big as horses here, judging from the way the sticks snap under their feet. An owl-headed man, I think. Back into the crevice!"