Meanwhile Dick, having paid a flying visit to Bethalia, to satisfy himself that all was well in that quarter, made arrangements for the immediate reconstruction of those portions of the roads through the passes that had been broken down, in order to check the advance of the invaders. This was temporarily accomplished by the building of rough bridges across the gaps; but, fully recognising how important a part had been played by those gaps, he sketched out a scheme whereby they should be made permanent, spanned by substantial drawbridges, and defended at the inner extremity by strongly fortified gateways. This scheme he laid before the Elders, who immediately approved of it, and ultimately the work was carried out. But long before that many things had happened. In the first place the victorious Izreelites, having shepherded the last of the fugitives over the border, had returned in triumph, each to his own home, and had set to work to repair the devastation wrought by the fighting on the lands that lay outside the circle of the protecting hills. This was considerably less than had been anticipated; for, so certain had Mokatto and his colleagues been of victory that they had issued the most stringent orders against any wanton destruction of property, the result being that such damage as had accrued had only amounted to what was inevitable in the course of a stubbornly contested fight; and that did not amount to very much where neither of the combatants possessed guns or other battering paraphernalia of any description. The return of the triumphant army to Bethalia was a pageant exceeding in gorgeousness of display and general enthusiasm anything that had ever before occurred within the memory of any living inhabitant of the city. The regular troops were comparatively few in number, every male Izreelite being armed and liable to be called upon for active service, should occasion for such service arise; but the paucity of numbers was an altogether insignificant detail; the one thing that was of importance, and counted, was that they had fought and signally defeated a force of overwhelming numerical superiority, and inflicted upon their immemorial enemy a blow of such crushing severity that a lasting peace was now assured. Little wonder that the people so recently hag-ridden with a perpetual fear, that often approached perilously close to panic, scarcely knew how to give adequate expression to the feeling of joy and relief that now possessed them, and were just a little inclined to become extravagantly demonstrative.