So I can wait in patience who must not wait for long, though my heart is
broken and I am desolate.
Oros and all the priests were very good to me. Indeed, even had it been
their wish, they would have feared to be otherwise, who remembered and
were sure that in some time to come they must render an account of this
matter to their dread queen. By way of return, I helped them as I
was best able to draw up a scheme for the government of the conquered
country of Kaloon, and with my advice upon many other questions.
And so at length the long months wore away, till at the approach of
summer the snows melted. Then I said that I must be gone. They gave me
of their treasures in precious stones, lest I should need money for my
faring, since the gold of which I had such plenty was too heavy to be
carried by one man alone. They led me across the plains of Kaloon, where
now the husbandmen, those that were left of them, ploughed the land and
scattered seed, and so on to its city. But amidst those blackened ruins
over which Atene's palace still frowned unharmed, I would not enter,
for to me it was, and always must remain, a home of death. So I camped
outside the walls by the river just where Leo and I had landed after
that poor mad Khan set us free, or rather loosed us to be hunted by his
death-hounds.
Next day we took boat and rowed up the river, past the place where we
had seen Atene's cousin murdered, till we came to the Gate-house.
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