Cocoeni rose, nothing loth, and stalked up to the side of the amazon. She turned him round, feeling his biceps critically, as an intending purchaser might examine a horse. Standing side by side, their heads were on a level, a splendid pair as to height and breadth of shoulders. But the woman had seen more than thirty summers, whereas Cocoeni was her junior by many years. "You are a fine fellow, yet I think I can throw you," she said, while her black eyes sparkled with admiration. "Will you try once with me now?" "Shall I, baas?" "Yes," answered Ned. "Get her on the other side of the gate, over by the green bank, while we all pass through. Then, don't waste any time, grip her quick and pitch her into the lake, if you can. It will create a diversion." He gave these instructions, in English; then, turning to the warlike dame, he said mildly in her language-- "The lord Cocoeni will take up your offer, brave lady; but as I have no desire to see either of you hurt on the hard stones, and so spoil our sport when the day comes, I fix upon yonder soft sward as the ground. One throw only." "So let it be." The dame retired for a moment to prepare herself and do up her hair. She had been standing up to now in her night costume. While she was absent, Pylea whispered something to one of her band. The girl nodded, and, turning her chariot, darted back the way they came. "Where is she going?" asked Ned. "To keep watch in the shadows," whispered Pylea. "This woman is my aunt, therefore I know her well. She will send a messenger to the palace while she delays us, and that messenger must be stopped." "Oh! Cannot we make a bolt for it while she is inside?" "Two hundred bows would be bent if we did so. One bow will be quite sufficient," answered Pylea, calmly. She was a plucky girl, quick and prompt in her actions, and had proved a first-rate chum all through to Ned and his friends, but she had no weak sentimentalism about her. She could remove a human impediment with the some utter indifference that country ladies kill pullets. As a friend, however, she was sans reproche. Ned felt that the present occasion was one in which he must not be too fastidious, yet he shuddered to think of the luckless messenger. As the last of the chariots, except that one which had turned back, passed beneath the lintel of the archway, Ned saw a white-robed, bald-headed little man steal out of a side-window, and glide rapidly across the moonlight to the shadow side of the road. As he did so, Pylea again touched Ned with her foot. "My aunt will be a widow sooner than she intended," she whispered. "There goes my uncle to meet his death."