ess. Towns were sacked and men were
slain; here was an explosion, there an outbreak of lawlessness; but for
the most part the change was wrought with deadly slowness and a sureness
which nothing could check.

In these years Nicanor grew tall and strong and long of limb, and his
voice ceased to play him false with strange pipings which had filled
him with wrath and dire dismay. He learned to use eyes and ears as well
as tongue; he worshipped at the altars of strange gods, and laughed at
them. He lived from day to day as the birds live, picking up a crumb
here and yonder. In the workshop he spent as little time as might be,
restless, not content with what he had, ever eager for that which he had
not, devoured by the curiosity which would lay hands on the strange
throbbing thing called Life, and probe its inmost hidden meaning.

And as time went on, the unrest deepened which possessed him. He was
unhappy, and he could not tell why. He wanted something, and he knew not
what. His shyness developed into fierce aggressiveness, unreasonable,
alarming. He prowled continually among the camps, sullen and
quarrelsome, vaguely miserable, and blaming his misery upon all the
world. He took to spending much time, with small profit to himself,
among the chained gangs of slaves, where were cruel sounds and crueller
sights. At the hiss and cut of the lash on bared backs and thighs he
thrilled with savage exultation; he took morbid delight in the sight of
pain inflicted; and this he could not at all understand. At this season
his tales were all of war and blood and violence, of treachery and
despair. When night came he slept fitfully or not at all, with uneasy
half-formed dreams. And in these dreams he was always searching for a
thing which had no name, starting over the river-ford upon the high
southern bank, ending nowhere under gray skies and desolation. He
neglected his carving, waged bloody battles with his fellow workmen,
bullied Master Tobias like any slave-driver. Lonely and shy and sullen,
he fought through his crisis by himself, not knowing that it was a
crisis, nor why it had come upon him.

No one took the trouble to help him; he would not have thanked them if
they had. Outwardly he was taller, more gaunt, with a certain rough
virility which impressed. Men knew that he was savage, and baited him
even while they feared him; himself only knew that he was
miserable,--more miserable, because he could not understand why he
should