th, carrying wood
and buckets of mineral coal from the great mines near Uriconium, through
the narrow alleys to the roaring furnaces, where the air, smoke-laden
and acrid, was hot to suffocation. Here, panting, dripping with sweat,
they fed the flaming mouths; then back again into the outer air, which
by contrast struck knife-like to the very vitals. The colder the weather
and the greater the necessity for fires, the more was the suffering of
the slaves increased. The feeding and attendant cleaning of the
furnaces was a task given usually either to none but the lowest menials
or else as punishment. Hence Nicanor knew himself in Hito's black books,
and obeyed his orders with an ill grace which did not tend to lighten
his labors.

Once that day already he had shirked his duty, driven by restless
longing, to stand outside the door which for him hid all the enchantment
of the world, until the coming of Marius had sent him about any task he
could lay hand to. With what had followed, and with the knowledge that
his fate was absolutely in the hands of Marius, he became impatient at
the delay. The sword hung above him and would not fall. If he but knew
what was to happen he fancied that he might have prepared himself in a
measure to meet it. Nothing in the way of escape could be attempted
until after nightfall; he was too much the object of Hito's malicious
attention for that. And escape meant escape from Varia, from stolen,
memory-haunting visits, from all that just then made life bearable.
Suspense and his own powerlessness turned him sullen; he went about his
tasks under Hito's eye with a dogged surliness at which his
fellow-slaves laughed in private and dared not challenge him in
good-natured raillery.

Away from Hito, he straightway forgot what was in his hands, and
remained deep in boding thought, his face lowering. He was on the edge
of a precipice into whose depths no man dared look; into which Marius's
hands might plunge him at will. Thoughts of Thorney, of the churned-up
waters of the fords, of the camp-fires glowing through dusk, of the
nervous press of men and beasts that lit upon the island like a swarm of
bees, and, like a swarm, buzzed awhile and settled to brief rest,
crowded upon him then. He would go back to Thorney--though never to the
ivory workshop--and he would make enough to live on by telling tales to
those who circled about the fires, even though these were not the worlds
he had dreamed of conquering.