to the city without a soul here being the wiser; but in this chill,

people sleep sourly. We must wait till the hour drugs them
sounder."

And so we waited, sitting there together on that pavement so
long unkissed by worshippers, and it was little enough we said

aloud. But there can be good companionship without sentences of
talk.

But as the hours drew on, the night began to grow less quiet.
From the distance some one began to blow on a horn or a shell,

sending forth a harsh raucous note incessantly. The sound came
nearer, as we could tell from its growing loudness, and the voices

of those by the fires made themselves heard, railing at the blower
for his disturbance. And presently it became stationary, and

standing up we could see through the slits in the walls the people
of the camp rousing up from their uneasy rest, and clustering

together round one who stood and talked to them from the pedestal
of a war engine.

What he was declaiming upon we could not hear, and our curiosity
on the matter was not keen. Given that all who did not sleep

went to weary themselves with this fellow, as Nais whispered,
it would be simple for me to make an exit in the opposite

direction.
But here we were reckoning without the inevitable busybody.

A dozen pairs of feet splashing through the wet came up to the side
of the little temple, and cried loudly that Nais should join the

audience. She had eloquence of tongue, it appeared, and they
feared lest this speaker who had taken his stand on the war engine

should make schisms amongst their ranks unless some skilled person
stood up also to refute his arguments.

Here, then, it seemed to me that I must be elbowed into my
skirmish by the most unexpected of chances, but Nais was firmly

minded that there should be no fight, if courage on her part could
turn it. "Come out with me," she whispered, "and keep distant from

the light of the fires."
"But how explain my being here?"

"There is no reason to explain anything," she said bitterly.
"They will take you for my lover. There is nothing remarkable in

that: it is the mode here. But oh, why did not the Gods make you
wear a beard, and curl it, even as other men? Then you could have

been gone and safe these two hours."
"A smooth chin pleases me better."

"So it does me," I heard her murmur as she leaned her weight
on the stone which hung in the doorway, and pushed it ajar; "your

chin." The ragged men outside--there were women with them
also--did not wait to watch me very closely. A coarse jest or two

flew (which I could have found good heart to have repaid with a
sword-thrust) and they stepped off into the darkness, just turning

from time to time to make sure we followed. On all sides others
were pressing in the same direction--black shadows against the

night; the rain spat noisily on the camp fires as we passed them;
and from behind us came up others. There were no sleepers in the

camp now; all were pressing on to hear this preacher who stood on
the pedestal of the war engine; and if we had tried to swerve from

the straight course, we should have been marked at once.
So we held on through the darkness, and presently came within

earshot.
Still it was little enough of the preacher's words we could

make out at first. "Who are your chiefs?" came the question at the
end of a fervid harangue, and immediately all further rational talk

was drowned in uproar. "We have no chiefs," the people shouted,
"we are done with chiefs; we are all equal here. Take away your

silly magic. You may kill us with magic if you choose, but rule us
you shall not. Nor shall the other priests rule. Nor Phorenice.

Nor anybody. We are done with rulers."
The press had brought us closer and closer to the man who

stood on the war engine. We saw him to be old, with white hair
that tumbled on his shoulders, and a long white beard, untrimmed

and uncurled. Save for a wisp of rag about the loins, his body was
unclothed, and glistened in the wet.

But in his hand he held that which marked his caste. With it
he pointed his sentences, and at times he whirled it about bathing

his wet, naked body in a halo of light. It was a wand whose tip
burned with an unconsuming fire, which glowed and twinkled and

blazed like some star sent down by the Gods from their own place in
the high heaven. It was the Symbol of our Lord the Sun, a

credential no one could forge, and one on which no civilised man
would cast a doubt.

Indeed, the raggedfrantic crew did not question for one moment
that he was a member of the Clan of Priests, the Clan which

from time out of numbering had given rulers for the land, and even
in their loudest clamours they freely acknowledged his powers.

"You may kill us with your magic, if you choose," they screamed at
him. But stubbornly" target="_blank" title="ad.顽固地，倔强地">stubbornly they refused to come back to their old

allegiance. "We have suffered too many things these later years,"
they cried. "We are done with rulers now for always."

But for myself I saw the old man with a different emotion.
Here was Zaemon that was father to Nais, Zaemon that had seen me

yesterday seated on the divan at Phorenice's elbow, and who to-day
could denounce me as Deucalion if so he chose. These rebels had

expended a navy in their wish to kill me four days earlier, and if
they knew of my nearness, even though Nais were my advocate, her

cold reasoning would have had little chance of an audience now.
The High Gods who keep the tether of our lives hide Their secrets

well, but I did not think it impious to be sure that mine was very
near the cutting then.

The beautiful woman saw this too. She even went so far as to
twine her fingers in mine and press them as a farewell, and I

pressed hers in return, for I was sorry enough not to see her more.
Still I could not help letting my thoughts travel with a grim

gloating over the fine mound of dead I should build before these
ragged, unskilled rebels pulled me down. And it was inevitable

this should be so. For of all the emotions that can ferment in the
human heart, the joy of strife is keenest, and none but an old

fighter, face to face with what must necessarily be his final
battle, can tell how deep this lust is embroidered into the very

foundations of his being.
But for the time Zaemon did not see me, being too much wrapped

in his outcry, and so I was free to listen to the burning words
which he spread around him, and to determine their effect on the

hearers.
The theme he preached was no new one. He told that ever since

the beginning of history, the Gods had set apart one Clan of the
people to rule over the rest and be their Priests, and until the

coming of Phorenice these had done their duties with exactitude and
justice. They had fought invaders, carried war against the beasts,

and studied earth-movements so that they were able to foretell
earthquakes and eruptions, and could spread warnings that the

people might be able to escape their devastations. They are no
self-seekers; their aim was always to further the interest of

Atlantis, and so do honour to the kingdom on which the High Gods
had set their special favour. Under the Priestly Clan, Atlantis

had reached the pinnacle of human prosperity and happiness.
"But," cried the old man, waving the Symbol till his wet body

glistened in a halo of light, "the people grew fat and careless
with their easy life. They began to have a conceit that their good

fortune was earned by their own puny brains and thews, and was no
gift from the Gods above; and presently the cult of these Gods

became neglected, and Their temples were barren of gifts and
worshippers. Followed a punishment. The Gods in Their inscrutable

way decreed that a wife of one of the Priests (that was a governor