sacred stream, in a
land where no wrong ever came, there, if the Fates permitted, he might
find the Golden Helen.

If the Fates permitted: but all the adventure was of the Fates, who had
shown him to Meriamun in a dream.

He turned it long in his mind and found little light. It seemed that as
he had drifted through darkness across a blood-red sea to the shores of
Khem, so he should wade through blood to that shore of Fate which the
Gods appointed.

Yet after a while he shook sorrow from him, arose, bathed, anointed
himself, combed his dark locks, and girded on his golden armour. For now
he remembered that this was the day when the Strange Hathor should stand
upon the pylon of the temple and call the people to her, and he was
minded to look upon her, and if need be to do battle with that which
guarded her.

So he prayed to Aphrodite that she would help him, and he poured out
wine to her and waited; he waited, but no answer came to his prayer.
Yet as he turned away it chanced that he saw his countenance in the wide
golden cup whence he had poured, and it seemed to him that it had grown
more fair and lost the stamp of years, and that his face was smooth and
young as the face of that Odysseus who, many years ago, had sailed in
the black ships and looked back on the smoking ruins of windy Troy. In
this he saw the hand of the Goddess, and knew that if she might not
be manifest in this land of strange Gods, yet she was with him. And,
knowing this, his heart grew light as the heart of a boy from whom
sorrow is yet a long way off, and who has not dreamed of death.

Then he ate and drank, and when he had put from him the desire of food
he arose and girded on the sword, Euryalus's gift, but the black bow he
left in its case. Now he was ready and about to set forth when Rei the
Priest entered the chamber.

"Whither goest thou, Eperitus?" asked Rei, the instructed Priest. "And
what is it that has made thy face so fair, as though many years had been
lifted from thy back?"

"'Tis but sweet sleep, Rei," said the Wanderer. "Deeply I slept last
night, and the weariness of my wanderings fell from me, and now I am as
I was before I sailed across the blood-red sea into the night."

"Sell thou the secret of this sleep to the ladies of Khem," answered the
aged priest, smiling, "and little shalt thou lack of wealth for all thy
days."

Thus he spake as though he believed the Wanderer, but in his heart he
knew that the thing was of t