ed cake of lava rock,
with never a soft place for the foot, and never a green spot for the
eye. Not a leaf to rustle in the breeze, not a blade of grass to
whisper to it, not a bird's sweet voice, or the song of running
water. Nothing lived there but dead silence on earth and in air.
Nothing but that, or in other hours the roar of wind, the rattle of
rain, and the crash of thunder.

All this time Jason had walked on under the sweltering sun, never
resting, never pausing, buoyed up with the hope of water--water for
the fainting man that he might not die. But in the desolation of that
moment he dropped Sunlocks from his shoulder, and threw himself down
beside him.

And sitting there, with the head of his unconscious comrade upon his
knees, he put it himself to say what had been the good of all that
he had done, and if it would not have been better for both of them if
he had submitted to base tyranny and remained at the Mines. Had he
not brought this man out to his death? What else was before him in
this waste wilderness, where there was no drop of water to cool his
hot forehead or moisten his parched tongue? And thinking that his
yoke-fellow might die, and die at his hands, and that he would then
be alone, with the only man's face gone from him that had ever
brightened life for him, his heart began to waver and to say, "Rise
up, Jason, rise up and go back."

But just then he was conscious of the click-clack of horses' hoofs on
the echoing face of the stony sea about him, and he shaded his eyes
and looked around, and saw in the distance a line of men on ponies
coming on in his direction. And though he thought of the guards that
had been signalled to pursue him, he made no effort to escape. He did
not stir or try to hide himself, but sat as before with the head of
his comrade on his knees.

The men on the ponies came up and passed him closely by without
seeing him. But he saw them clearly and heard their talk. They
were not the guard from the settlement, but Thing-men bound for
Thingvellir and the meeting of Althing there. And while they were
going on before him in their laughter and high spirits, Jason could
scarce resist the impulse to cry out on them to stop and take him
along with them as their prisoner, for that he was an outlaw who had
broken his outlawry, and carried away with him this fainting man at
his knees.

But before the words would form themselves, and while his blistering
lips were shaping to speak t