Now and then they would pass wandering herdsmen, who fled to some earth-burrow at their appearance.

The Constable had bidden them make for the rising sun, saying that sooner or later they would foregather with the Khakan's scouts.

But days passed into weeks and weeks into months, and still they moved through a tenantless waste.

They husbanded jealously the food they had brought, but the store ran low, and there were days of empty stomachs and light heads.

Unless, like the King of Babylon, they were to eat grass in the fashion of beasts, it seemed they must soon famish.
But late in summertime they saw before them a wall of mountain, and in three days climbed by its defiles to a pleasant land, where once more they found the dwellings of man.