"Stanninghame is acting substitute for you, and we are to be fired out of the country, which is good news to you, I take it." "But I can't allow it!" cried Holmes bewilderedly, as the truth began to dawn upon him. "No, hang it, I can't,--tell the king, I----" "No good! Keep your hair on! and remember, too, it's more than probable he won't come to any harm. He stands in with them too well." Holmes, more than half reassured, suffered himself to be persuaded--especially as he was powerless to do anything at all. But whether Hazon believed or not in what he had just advanced must remain forever locked up as a mystery in the breast of that inscrutable individual. One thing, however, he did not believe in, and that was in he himself suffering for the foolishness of other people. Meanwhile Laurence, in the midst of his disguised executioners, was pursued by the howling and execrations of the crowds, which parted eagerly to make way for their passage. Outside on the open plain a vast mob of women had collected, yelling shrilly at him--and even pelting him with earth and sticks. One of the latter, thrown at close quarters, hurling over the heads of his guards, struck him on the shoulder, painfully and hard. He looked up. It had been hurled by the hand of Lindela; and as he met her eyes full, the face which he had last looked upon softening and glowing with the wondrous light of love, was now wreathed into a horrible grin of hate and savagery. "_Yau!_ The Spider is hungry! Fare thee well, Umtagati,"[6] jeered the chief's daughter shrilly. FOOTNOTE: [6] Doer of witchcraft. CHAPTER XXVI. THE PLACE OF THE HORROR. Was he awake--asleep and dreaming--or--dead? All these questions did Laurence Stanninghame ask himself by turn as he recovered his confused and scattered senses; and there was abundant scope for such conjecture for, in truth, the place wherein he found himself was a strange one. A wall of rock arose on either side of him--one straight, perpendicular, the other overhanging, arching out above the first. As he lay there in the semi-gloom, his first thought was that he was in a cave; a further glance, however, convinced him that the place was a gigantic fissure or rift. But how had he come there? With an effort, for he still felt strangely languid and confused, he sent his mind back to the events of the previous day. Stay, though--was it the previous day? Somehow it seemed much longer ago. He remembered the long hurried march into the heart of the mountains with his gruesome escort. He remembered partaking of a plentiful meal and some excellent corn-beer; this he had done with a view to keeping up his strength, which he might need to the full. Then he remembered no more. The liquor had been drugged, he decided. But to what end? To what end, indeed, was he there? How had he been brought there? He raised himself on his elbow and looked around.